I’ve driven 90 minutes southeast from Saskatoon to the town of Watrous (population 1842) to visit the Manitou Springs Spa Resort, overlooking Little Manitou Lake. It’s a modest counterpart to the luxury spa resorts that line the Dead Sea, but the draw here is much the same: bathers come from near and far for the opportunity to float in a saline lake, smear themselves with healing mud and soak in therapeutic springs for a variety of ailments. The surrounding scenery is also quite lovely, in the warmer months, anyway.

Twelve thousand years ago, a receding glacier trapped a lake at the bottom of a valley in what is now south-central Saskatchewan. Contained within the valley’s walls, the lake water was further prevented from seeping into the rivers thanks to pressure from groundwater aquifers. Geologists refer to this as a “closed-basin” or “endorheic lake,” which means the water drains into seasonal swamps and equilibrates (or balances out) through evaporation. The Dead Sea is also an endorheic lake, as is the world’s largest inland body of water, the Caspian Sea. Neither are actual seas because they’re surrounded by land, and they lack a direct natural connection to an ocean. 

After millennia of constant evaporation, Saskatchewan’s 13.3 square kilometre Little Manitou Lake has water up to five times saltier than the ocean, and it’s loaded with minerals like magnesium and potassium. With an average depth of 3.8 metres, there are only five other lakes in the world with similar deep, salty waters. In the millennia to come, evaporation will continue to decrease the lake’s depth, while gradually increasing its salinity.

Entering one of the three designated public beaches, I slowly wade into the water. The big prairie sky is clear and the sun is hot, but the rooibos tea-coloured water is a lot colder than expected. It’s certainly a lot colder than the actual Dead Sea, which is, after all, located in an actual Middle Eastern desert. The lakebed is slippery underfoot, and I’m surprised to see brine shrimp darting about, safe from hungry fish that cannot live in such salty water. Locals are tanning, and kids are gathering sticky green weeds from the water to make wigs on the beach. Once it gets deep enough to lie back, I hold my breath, take a dip, and float on my back, just like the Dead Sea. 

Back on the beach, I slather myself in Manitou mud – a wellness fortune waiting to happen. Considering that just 60 ml of Dead Sea Mud currently sells for $17.95, the opportunity is ripe for a Canadian wellness entrepreneur to market Manitou Mud globally. As with Dead Sea mud, I feel the drying dark goop extract toxins from my skin, and washing it off, I feel shiny and rejuvenated.