ISS Astronaut Photographs 15,000-Year-Old Lakebed Near Winnipeg in April 2026

2 articles · Updated · Science@NASA · May 19

An Expedition 74 crew member photographed snow- and ice-covered farmland along Lake Winnipeg’s southern shore from the ISS on April 19 using a Nikon Z9.
The bright rectangular blocks mark snow-covered fields or icy ponds, while darker patches show forests, wetlands, or exposed ground with less uniform snow cover.
That flat agricultural landscape sits on the former bed of Lake Agassiz, a glacial lake that stretched about 1,100 kilometers long and 300 kilometers wide before draining roughly 12,000 years ago.
The region’s striking grid comes from the Dominion Land Survey, which divided much of western Canada into one-square-mile sections after Ottawa bought Rupert’s Land in 1869.
Lake Agassiz’s silt- and clay-rich deposits now underpin some of Canada’s most productive farmland, where wheat, barley, oats and canola are commonly grown.

Which legacy—the ancient lakebed or the human-drawn grid—will ultimately define the future of Canada's prairies?

What were the long-term consequences of imposing a rigid survey grid on the people and ecosystems of the Canadian West?

How does studying a vanished ice-age lake help us predict the effects of melting ice sheets today?