29 
UPLAND LAKE SHORE VEGETATION 
Throughout the upland districts of the park there are innumerable lakes 
and ponds of various sizes and origins. Some are formed through the 
damming of drainage by Glacial moraines, and may be looked upon as 
remnants of former bodies of water which have been lowered by the cutting 
of their barriers. Most of the small lakes in the Moose Lake basin seem 
to have had this sort of beginning. They are usually shallow and marshy, 
tending to develop muskegs in many of their shores. Many small lakes are 
due to beaver dams, of which there are a great many in the region. There 
is a long succession of these obstructions in Little Buffalo river and its 
tributaries, which must have modified seriously the land and water rela- 
tions in many parts of the valley. These lakes resemble those described 
above in being commonly shallow and marshy. A third type of lake occurs 
in sink-holes that do not have complete drainage. These vary greatly in 
size and in the character of their shores, from large, deep lakes with abrupt 
slopes to small, relatively shallow ponds whose shores resemble those of 
muskeg lakes. A common form is typified by Pine lake, which is approxi- 
mately 3 miles long, from an eighth to a half mile wide, and reaches a 
depth of 78 feet {See Figure 2). Its shores are so abrupt that there is very 
little marsh vegetation, and aquatic associations are mostly limited to those 
of deep water. Only in a few sheltered parts, where the slope into deep 
water is not so great, is there a beginning of shore forms. This lake is 
without an outlet or visible inlet, and occupies a series of large sink-holes 
which are so close together that they have coalesced. The level of the lake 
has not changed much for a long period, but the ancient beaches on the 
eastern shores indicate that there has been a certain amount of fluctuation. 
A chain of small sink-hole lakes southeast of Pine lake, the shores of 
which are more gently sloping, show all gradations between clean shore- 
lines and very marshy or boggy ones. Sink-holes with rapidly changing 
water levels have relatively clean water lines, probably due to the fact that 
aquatic and marsh vegetation has no time to become established before 
it is either drowned out or dried out. 
Although no rigid lines may be drawn between different kinds of lake 
shores, yet a simple classification into those with abrupt, relatively clean 
borders, and those bordered by some form of swamp, will be useful. 
Gently sloping, swampy shores may be divided into those that have marsh 
associations, and those with muskeg, or bog associations. A glance at the 
map will show that most of the lakes, and the largest of them, are to be 
found in the Moose Lake basin and its northwestward extension around the 
base of Caribou mountains. These are mostly shallow, with marsh or 
muskeg shore types. The deep sink-hole lakes appear to be commonest 
upon the morainic upland areas. 
The distribution and development of vegetation on the lake shores show 
many minor variations through the country, but there is a fairly uniform 
general trend. The bottoms in deep water are usually covered with Chara , 
and the first plants to appear shoreward, as the water shallows, are species 
of pond weeds Potamogeton. Still farther inshore are bulrushes Scirpus 
91963—3 
