Canada is home to over 60% of all the lakes on Earth.

A 2016 study from McGill University found that Canada has about 879,800 lakes larger than 10 hectares. This accounts for roughly 62 percent of the world's large lakes. If you count every small pond, the number jumps to over two million. About 9 percent of Canada's entire surface is covered by freshwater.Most of these lakes were born during the last Ice Age, which ended about 10,000 years ago. A massive layer of ice called the Laurentide Ice Sheet was up to 3 kilometers thick in some spots. This ice was so heavy and powerful that it scraped the rocky ground like a giant shovel. As the planet warmed up, the ice melted and filled those deep scrapes with fresh water.The weight of the ice was so heavy that it actually pushed the Earth's crust down. Once the ice melted, the land began to slowly rise back up in a process called isostatic rebound. This movement changed how water flowed and helped trap it in the basins we see today. Canada's Great Slave Lake is one of the deepest results of this process, reaching 614 meters down into the Earth.