ANCIENT HISTORY
How Dull Can You Get

The Geology

Scuttlebuck Lodge sits a quarter mile due West of Whitewater Lake, so named for the
water’s color and muddy bottom. It is bordered by white alkali deposits in dry seasons
when the water is low.

A classic plains or prairie lake of some 12 miles in length from East to West and a mere 3
or 4 miles from North to South at its widest point, Whitewater Lake is surrounded by rich
alluvial surface soils.

And a mile below the surface are the strata laid down by a succession of inundations of
the sea billions of years ago which are today rich in hydrocarbons. Pump-jacks or
nodding-horses dot the landscape along geological trends.

The Ice Age

Ten thousand years ago we are told, north-central North America was covered by a vast
sheet or tract of ice perhaps a mile in thickness. And when the Ice and Ice Age receded,
large glacial lakes remained where silt and sand collected. As the climate warmed and
water levels dropped, fresh water lakes remained surrounded by regions of rich top soil.

And The Wildlife Flourished

And upon these fertile great plains and this vast expanse of grasslands wildlife flourished.
The area teemed with buffalo and seasonal wild fowl. An inhospitable niche at times to
say the least, the short grass prairies have brutally cold and dry winters, and swarms of
grasshoppers, dust storms, and wildfires during the other seasons.

Back Came Man

The populating of the Great Plains began in earnest around 1300 by native and aboriginal
cultures emigrating from other parts of the continent.

It is most likely that La Verendrye was the first white man to see Whitewater Lake in
October, 1738.

David Thompson, the greatest Canadian explorer of the West, trekked by Whitewater LakeĀ in the summer of 1797.