My Watermark is Lake Couchiching, Ontario.

It is a popular spot for ice fishing in the winter and for sport fishing during the summer. The name Couchiching is from the Ojibwe 'gojijiing' which means inlet, on the contrary, it is an outlet to Lake Simcoe, according to a 2012 study the lake showed that it had quite a variety of species in its’ waters. Luckily I have been able to visit some of the small islands in the lake itself such as Horseshoe and Portage. Through some research I was able to find that there are certain crayfish that inhabit the waters of Couchiching such as the rust crayfish.

This lake is quite important to me as it is the lake that my summer camp is on. I have been going to this summer camp for now over seven years and I do not know how many times I have had great times either by the lake or on one of the several islands my camp has taken us on trips to. The water is quite clear and has always been refreshing to jump into after a long hot day in the sun. Over the summers I have caught many different fish such as a pike, sunfish and even found a catfish, unfortunately, I did not catch it. The waters of Lake Couchiching vary quite a bit depending on the weather there have been some days in which I’ve believed it to look like an ocean and others that the waters look like glass.

Lake Couchiching does not have many threats of its own creation yet as it is an outlet of Lake Simcoe it does receive threats from it. The two main threats that are posed by Lake Simcoe to Lake Couchiching are the harmful invasive species such as Zebra Mussels and which I can remember cutting my feet on many a time and the round goby. Another threat to the Lake and its waters is global warming as scientists predict that within forty years the temperature of Southern Ontario could rise by four degrees. The only solution to this would be to start adapting to our surroundings as there is no more time to prevent climate change.

Hopefully, by building up the resilience of the lake’s ecosystem, it will be able to adapt to upcoming temperature changes so that future generations of camp goers and enjoy the lake such as I did.