Shuswap Lake, Recreational lake system in British Columbia, Canada
Shuswap Lake is a lake in southern interior British Columbia whose four arms—Salmon, Shuswap (Main), Anstey and Seymour—form an H shape. It sits at 347 m above sea level, covers 310 km² and reaches 171 m depth in Seymour Arm. The two basins meet at Cinnemousun Narrows, only 5 m deep.
The name comes from the Secwepemc (Shuswap), the northernmost of the Interior Salish peoples, whose territory includes the lake; they call themselves /ʃǝxwépmǝx/. Between roughly 14000 and 10000 BCE, glacial Lake Kamloops covered the basin to depths up to 1,000 m above today's surface. The lake lies at the boundary of the Shuswap Highland and the Monashee Range.
The name comes from the Secwepemc (Shuswap) First Nations, the northernmost of the Interior Salish peoples, whose territory includes the lake; they call themselves /ʃǝxwépmǝx/ in their own language. The lake sits at the heart of the region known as "the Shuswap", whose lakeshore communities include Salmon Arm, Sicamous and Scotch Creek.
Shuswap Lake Marine Provincial Park is a system of 23 campsites on beaches around the lake, and Cinnemousun Narrows Provincial Park sits where the four arms meet. The lake's single outflow is the Little River, at the end of the main arm. Lake levels vary about 3 metres between the low point in March or April and the high in late June or early July.
The lake's reported monster is an eight-metre serpentine creature, called Shugumu or Shuswaggi, said to live in the water. The legend is one of several attached to lakes in the region, and no sighting has been documented.
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