Neha Patil (Editor)

Becharof Lake

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Basin countries
  
United States

Surface area
  
453 sq mi (1,170 km)

Area
  
1,173 km²

Max. length
  
37 mi (60 km)

Surface elevation
  
4 m

Length
  
59.5 km

Becharof Lake wwwalaskannaturecombecharofgif

Location
  
Lake and Peninsula Borough, Alaska

Becharof Lake is a 37-mile (60 km) long lake on the Alaska Peninsula. It is located 23 miles (37 km) south-east of Egegik, in the Aleutian Range.

Contents

Map of Becharof Lake, Alaska, USA

Becharof Lake is the second largest lake in Alaska after Iliamna Lake. It ranks eighth on list of largest lakes of the United States by volume and fourteenth on list of largest lakes of the United States by area.

History

Russian navigator Dmitry Bocharov, Imperial Russian Navy, explored at Kodiak, Alaska, in 1788. He returned to Alaska in 1791. In late spring 1791, Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, chief manager of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company in Russian America, ordered Bocharov to explore the northwest shore of the Alaska Peninsula. His orders directed him to seek a portage across the peninsula near Kodiak. Twenty to thirty men crewed two 30 feet (9.1 m)-long walrus-skin-covered open boats under his command.

They sailed and paddled from Unalaska Island along the northwest shore of the Alaska Peninsula as far as Bristol Bay via Egegik Bay. In search of a portage, he traveled up Egegik River into a large inland lake. This lake now bears his name with an Americanized spelling: Becharof Lake. He probed the lake to its most eastern extent in the summer of 1791. After making a portage from the easternmost point of the lake to the North Pacific Ocean, he returned to Kodiak and reported his findings to Baranov.

The Russian Hydrological Department published the name "Oz(ero) Ugashek" on Chart 1455 in 1852.

Alaska Purchase of 1867 transferred the territory from Russian Empire to United States of America. Naturalist William Healey Dall of Smithsonian Institution, later Acting Assistant to United States Coast Survey, named the lake in 1868.

References

Becharof Lake Wikipedia