Edge of the Abyss: Discovering Great Slave Lake on a Remote Canadian Drive
There's something surreal about cruising down a quiet northern highway and realizing the massive body of water beside you isn't an ocean—it's a lake. That's exactly the vibe in this captivating YouTube Short I came across recently: a POV drive hugging the shores of Great Slave Lake in Canada's Northwest Territories, where the horizon stretches endlessly and the water feels infinite.
Titled something along the lines of "614m DEEP! Canada’s Mini-Ocean," the short captures that jaw-drop moment when you grasp the scale. At 614 meters (2,014 feet) in Christie Bay, Great Slave Lake claims the title of North America's deepest lake—deeper than many coastal seas. Formed by ancient glaciers, it plunges dramatically in spots, creating an underwater world that could easily hide entire city blocks (or, as some locals joke, swallow the CN Tower with room to spare).
The lake itself is enormous: roughly 27,200 square kilometres (bigger than Belgium), stretching about 480 km long with a jagged shoreline full of bays, islands, and rocky inlets. The video's drive—part of a longer route from Yellowknife toward Hay River and the Deh Cho Bridge—shows that classic subarctic scenery: vast, clear waters meeting boreal forest and tundra, with the promise of Arctic edges just ahead. It's remote wilderness at its finest, where the lake's clarity and cold depths support epic fishing for lake trout and pike, while its sheer size gives it an almost oceanic presence.
What hits hardest is the surprise factor—most folks picture "lake" as something tame and shallow. Here, the road runs right along the edge of a true natural wonder, a glacial-carved giant that's both beautiful and a little intimidating in its hidden depths.Watch the Short and feel that pull yourself. Have you ever stumbled on a place that made you rethink what "big" really means? Share your own wow-moment spots in the comments—I’m always hunting for the next hidden gem to explore!