Great Slave Lake is the second-largest lake in the Northwest Territories of Canada (after Great Bear Lake), the deepest lake in North America at , and the tenth-largest lake in the world by area. It is long and wide. It covers an area of in the southern part of the territory. Its given volume ranges from to and up to making it the 10th or 12th largest by volume.
The lake shares its name with the First Nations peoples of the Dene family called Slavey by their enemies the Cree. Towns situated on the lake include (clockwise from east) Łutselk'e, Fort Resolution, Hay River, Hay River Reserve, Behchokǫ̀, Yellowknife, Ndilǫ, and Dettah. The only community in the East Arm is Łutselk'e, a hamlet of about 350 people, largely Chipewyan Indigenous peoples of the Dene Nation, and the abandoned winter camp and Hudson's Bay Company post Fort Reliance. Along the south shore, east of Hay River is the abandoned Pine Point Mine and the company town of Pine Point.
Indigenous peoples were the first settlers around the lake after the retreat of glacial ice. Archaeological evidence has revealed several different periods of cultural history, including the Northern Plano tradition (8,000 years before present), Shield Archaic tradition (6,500 years), Arctic small tool tradition (3,500 years), and the Taltheilei Shale tradition (2,500 years before present). Each culture has left a distinct mark in the archaeological record based on type or size of lithic tools.
Great Slave Lake was put on European maps during the emergence of the fur trade towards the northwest from Hudson Bay in the mid 18th century. The name 'Great Slave' came from the English language translation of the Cree exonym, Awokanek (Slavey), which they called the Dene Tha. The enslaved people were Dene tribes living on the lake's southern shores at that time. As the French explorers dealt directly with the Cree traders, the large lake was referred to as "Grand lac des Esclaves" which was eventually translated into English as "Great Slave Lake".