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Kivalliq's fountain of youth

Horseshoe Nails & Bowhead Whales
with Bill Gawor
Guest columnist
Wednesday, June 25, 2008

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The closest thing we have to a fountain of youth in the Kivalliq region is most likely Nuguak Lake.

This crystal clear body of water is located about 120 km northeast of Repulse Bay.

The first noticeable fact about the area is how strewn with boulders the landscape is.

It's all glacial till, with no solid outcrops of any kind.

In fact, it's just boring old rolling hills of boulder fields which is poor prospecting country.

While waiting for the chopper to pick us up, my companions decided to get some fresh water from a melting snow bank some distance away.

Wondering why they didn't just dip the tea kettle into the lake, I sipped some lake water and spit it right out.

It tasted funny and sort of metallic.

Too bad I didn't have my fishing rod. Checking livers for spots is an old prospecting trick I picked up years ago, but have never actually practised.

As soon as I got home, I did some digging around in old prospecting reports and there it was on the web - Nunavut geoscience ID No. 046NSE006.

Basically, it was reported back in 1986 that water samples assaying 6,200 parts per million (ppm) of zinc were dipped from this lake.

The zinc source is still unknown because of the deep glacial overburden.

Nevertheless, somewhere a weathering of bedrock is releasing zinc into the environment and it's ending up in this particular lake.

Zinc is naturally present in all of our food, but in very minute quantities.

It's an essential nutrient for not only humans, but for all living organisms.

A diet of too little or too much zinc will lead to health problems, so the trick is to get just the right amount.

The typical dosage for an average 20-kg child is about 500 ppm.

To put that into perspective, a mouthful of caribou meat has the same amount of zinc as eight ptarmigan breasts, 13 bites of Arctic char or three cups of spinach.

Zinc increased up to the 2,000 or 3,000-ppm range will not only make for stronger bone mass, but will also increase the immune system, accelerate growth and sharpen the mind.

The potential of this lake is staggering!

The basic ingredients for antiseptic soaps, lotions and iodine substitutes could all be there.

Medicine for the lowering of white blood cells to the fast healing of open wounds is just sitting there, waiting for some sharp enterprising company to come along and make it happen.

So, there you go, eternal youth sought in legends and myths may no longer be so far-fetched.

Personally, I now regret not having soaked my balding head in the lake when I had the chance.