Home > Manicouagan Reservoir

The crater was created by the impact of a 5 km diameter asteroid which excavated a crater originally about 100 km wide although sediments and erosion have since reduced its diameter to about 72 km.

The lake was created by flooding from the massive Manicouagan or Manic (Manic 1, Manic 2...) series of hydroelectric projects undertaken by Hydro-Quebec, the provincial electrical utility, during the 1960s. The complex of dams is also called the Manic-Outardes project because the rivers involved are the Manicouagan and the Outardes.

The Manicouagan lake acts as a giant hydraulic battery for Hydro-Quebec. In the peak period of the winter colds the lake surface is usually lower since the turbines are run all the time at peak load, to meet the massive electrical heating needs of the province. The surface of the lake also knows record low levels in the extreme periods of heat in New England during the summer, since in that period Hydro-Quebec sells electrical energy to the joint New England grid and individual utilities in the United States.