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The Parks / Saskatchewan / Prince Albert National Park

The topography in the park is a blend of uplands and lowlands that range in altitude from 488 to 732 metres above sea level. Glaciation has modified the landscape, leaving rolling moraines on the uplands and fine-grained lacustrine deposits in the lowland areas “ eskers, the narrow sinuous ridges of gravel and sand, and drumlins, smooth egg-shaped hills created when the glacier moved up and over deposits of debris smoothing and shaping them. The entire area was under as much as 1600 metres of glacial ice during the three main periods of ice advance, which dug out the beds of some of the major lakes such as Waskesiu, Crean and Kingsmere.

The cutting action of the glacial meltwater is evident in the meandering channel of the Spruce River, carved out by glaciers. Blocks of ice that build up in large lakes and are pushed onto land by high winds actually push up some of the lake bed to form a low ridge on the shore. The parkÆs Ice Push Ridge is a good example of this present-day land shaping. Nutrient-rich marshes form in poorly drained areas where glaciers scooped out millions of bowls that collect and hold meltwater and run-off.