In the 1904 edition of Farnham's Waters and Water Rights, the author offered:
"In order to constitute a water course the water must have a current. It cannot be stagnant, nor spread out so as to destroy the current. If the water spreads out so that the current becomes imperceptible or is lost, the water becomes a lake or pond, and is no longer a water course....
"(T)he distinction between a stream and a pond or lake is that, in the latter case, the water is, in its natural state, substantially at rest."
In Block v Franzen, Justice Simmons of the Supreme Court of Nebraska distiunguished between a lake and a pond in adopting these words:
"The term lake ... comprehends a reasonably permanent body of water substantially at rest in a depression in the surface of the earth, and also the depression, both depression and body of water being of natural origin or a part of a watercourse.
"A distinction is sometimes made between lakes and ponds. The term lake connoting a large body of water and the term pond connoting a small body of water ordinarily containing considerable aquatic growth. But since this distinction is based mainly on the size of the body of water, it is not essential for legal purposes, and the term lake as here defined includes both large and small bodies of water.
"(A) lake is distinguished from a stream by the fact that in the former the body of water is substantially at rest while in the latter it has a perceptible flow.
"To constitute a lake, a body of water must have a reasonably permanent existence. Many lakes have a permanent body of water. But the body of water need not be permanent in order to constitute a lake. Thus, a body of water which occasionally dries up in periods of drought is still a lake. On the other hand bodies of water, even though of considerable size, which collect only in times of heavy rain, flood or melting snow, and which soon dry up, are not lakes within the meaning of that term as here defined."
In Alberta v Very, Justice Egbert suggested that in Canada, there is a unique definition:
"A lake, to that person, is a body of water of considerable depth surrounded by a well-defined beach or bank and with a reasonably permanent nature where one can swim if the water is not too cold."
But even in Canada, where a river widens considerably slowing the flow of water, that section is often called a lake. For example, between Quebec City and Montreal, the Saint Lawrence River widens considerably, forming a bloated expanse known as Lac St. Pierre.
REFERENCES:
- Alberta v Very 149 DLR 3d 688 (1983, ABQB)
- Block v Franzen 79 NW 2d 446 (1956)
- Farnham, H. P., Farnham on the Law of Waters and Water Rights (Rochester, New York: The Lawyer's Cooperative Publishing Company, 1904)
- Image is Sproat Lake near Port Alberni, BC in 2006.