Lake Mackay is the fourth largest lake in Australia. It measures approximately east-west and north-south. The darker areas of the lakebed are indicative of some form of desert vegetation or algae, some moisture within the soils of the dry lake, and the lowest elevations where pooling of water occurs. In this arid environment, salts and other minerals are carried to the surface through capillary action caused by evaporation, thereby producing the white reflective surface. Visible are various brown hills scattered across the eastern half of the lake and east-west-oriented sand ridges south of the lake. Known as Wilkinkarra to the localIndigenous population, Lake Mackay features prominently in the AboriginalDreaming narratives of the Western Desert. The main mythological accounts of its origins can be clustered into three distinct themes, all of which contain references to a fierce bushfire that devastated the land and formed the lake. Explorer David Carnegie in 1897 predicted the lake's existence when he passed by it to the west as quoted in his book Spinifex and Sand. "May 9th we left the well on a Southerly course, and were soon amongst the ridges, which continued for the next two days. The night of the 11th, having skirted a line of rough cliffs, we camped about three miles North of a very prominent single hill, which I named Mount Webb, after W. F. Webb, Esq., of Newstead Abbey, Nottinghamshire. As the sun rose that morning the mirage of a lake of apparently great size was visible for 90° of the horizon — that is, from East round to South. Neither from the cliffs that we skirted, nor from Mount Webb, was any lake visible, but it is more than probable that a large salt lake exists in this locality, possibly connecting, in a broken line, Lake White and Lake Macdonald." It was given its present name after Donald George Mackay. The lake was the birthplace of prominent Indigenous artistLinda Syddick Napaltjarri, and the area in which artist Ronnie Tjampitjinpa grew up.
Namesakes
The Northern Territory locality of Lake Mackay whose boundaries include the lake was named after it in 2007. Mackay Lacus, one of the Titanian lakes on Saturns moonTitan, is named after Lake Mackay.
