Mackenzie River
At , the Mackenzie River drainage basin encompasses nearly 20 percent of Canada. About , or 54 percent of the basin, lies above Great Slave Lake. Permafrost underlies about three-quarters of the watershed, reaching up to deep in the Mackenzie Delta. As a whole, the Mackenzie basin receives only meager to moderate rainfall, averaging over the entire basin, though mountain areas experience much higher precipitation, and areas near and north of the Arctic Circle receive much lower precipitation.
Technological and industrial history of 21st-century Canada
Geological formations of shale gas are being explored as a new source of energy. A technique known as horizontal drilling is used to create a horizontal bore hole, through a formation. Water under high pressure is then pumped into the bore hole where it fractures the shale and allows the gas to escape the rock and seep up the bore hole. There are a number of shale gas fields in Canada including the Shallow Colorado basin in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Bakken, in Saskatchewan and Manitoba, the Antrim in Southern Ontario and the Utica in south east Quebec. The technique is not without problems for the fracturing can affect aquifers causing contamination and deviation. To date efforts at production in Canada have been limited to exploratory wells.