Mackenzie River east into the Churchill River. The eastern portion of the Mackenzie basin is dominated by vast reaches of lake-studded boreal forest and includes many of the largest lakes in North America. By both volume and surface area, Great Bear Lake is the biggest in the watershed and third largest on the continent, with a surface area of and a volume of . Great Slave Lake is slightly smaller, with an area of and containing of water, although it is significantly deeper than Great Bear. The third major lake, Athabasca, is less than a third that size with an area of
Mackenzie River project has not yet been reached. A potential US$1 billion, 1350 MW hydro plant on the Slave River was canceled in 2010 after an agreement could not be reached with First Nations people in the area to be flooded by the reservoir. Mackenzie River The Mackenzie River (Slavey language: Deh-Cho , "big river" or Inuvialuktun: Kuukpak , "great river"; ) is the longest river system in Canada, and has the second largest drainage basin of any North American river after the Mississippi River. The Mackenzie River flows through a vast, thinly populated region of forest and tundra entirely within the