Bear Lake is a natural

freshwater Fresh water or freshwater is any naturally occurring liquid or frozen water containing low concentrations of dissolved salts and other total dissolved solids. Although the term specifically excludes seawater and brackish water, it does incl ...

lake A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...

on the

Idaho Idaho ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Monta ...

–

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to its ...

border in the

Western United States The Western United States (also called the American West, the Far West, and the West) is the region comprising the westernmost states of the United States. As American settlement in the U.S. expanded westward, the meaning of the term ''the We ...

. About in size, it is split about equally between the two states; its Utah portion comprises the second-largest natural freshwater lake in Utah, after

Utah Lake Utah Lake is a shallow freshwater lake in the center of Utah County, Utah, United States. It lies in Utah Valley, surrounded by the Provo- Orem metropolitan area. The lake's only river outlet, the Jordan River, is a tributary of the Great Salt ...

.Bear Lake history & facts
''

Utah Division of Wildlife Resources The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources is part of the Utah Department of Natural Resources for the state of Utah in the United States. The mission of the Division of Wildlife Resources is to serve the people of Utah as trustee and guardian of ...

.'' The lake has been called the "

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean ...

of the Rockies" for its unique turquoise-blue color, which is due to the refraction of calcium carbonate (

limestone Limestone ( calcium carbonate ) is a type of carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different crystal forms of . Limestone forms w ...

) deposits suspended in the lake. Its water properties have led to the evolution of several unique species of fauna that occur only within the lake.Bear Lake Geological Background: Endemism
. ''U.S. Geological Survey''. Bear Lake is over 250,000 years old. It was formed by fault subsidence that continues today, slowly deepening the lake along the eastern side. In 1911 the majority of the flow of the Bear River was diverted into Bear Lake via Mud Lake and a canal from Stewart Dam, ending 11,000 years of separation between the lake and that river system.Bear River watershed information system
/ref> Today the lake is a popular destination for tourists and sports enthusiasts, and the surrounding valley has gained a reputation for having high-quality

raspberries The raspberry is the edible fruit of a multitude of plant species in the genus ''Rubus'' of the rose family, most of which are in the subgenus '' Idaeobatus''. The name also applies to these plants themselves. Raspberries are perennial with ...

.Bear Lake Raspberry Days
''Utah Outdoor Activities''.

History

The first known inhabitants of the Bear Lake Valley were

Shoshone The Shoshone or Shoshoni ( or ) are a Native American tribe with four large cultural/linguistic divisions: * Eastern Shoshone: Wyoming * Northern Shoshone: southern Idaho * Western Shoshone: Nevada, northern Utah * Goshute: western Utah, easte ...

tribes, but the area was known to many Native Americans. The first record of Europeans seeing the lake is from 1818 when French-Canadian trappers working for the North West Company followed the Bear River upstream to the valley. Originally named "Black Bear Lake" by Donald McKenzie, an explorer for the

North West Fur Company The North West Company was a fur trading business headquartered in Montreal from 1779 to 1821. It competed with increasing success against the Hudson's Bay Company in what is present-day Western Canada and Northwestern Ontario. With great wealt ...

who explored the lake in 1819, the name was later shortened to Bear Lake.Bear Lake State Park: In Depth
. ''Utah State Parks and Recreation.'' Following his exploration of the lake, Mckenzie held what is known to be the largest rendezvous of Native Americans to take place in the Rocky Mountains. Nearly 10,000 American Indians from various tribes camped along 7 miles of Bear Lake's north shore, trading with Mckenzie and his trapping company. The south end of the lake, in the area of modern-day Laketown, was also the location of two of the annual

Rocky Mountain Rendezvous The Rocky Mountain Rendezvous was an annual rendezvous, held between 1825 to 1840 at various locations, organized by a fur trading company at which trappers and mountain men sold their furs and hides and replenished their supplies. The fur compan ...

in the summers of 1827 and 1828.

Mountain men A mountain man is an explorer who lives in the wilderness. Mountain men were most common in the North American Rocky Mountains from about 1810 through to the 1880s (with a peak population in the early 1840s). They were instrumental in opening up ...

, including

Jedediah Smith Jedediah Strong Smith (January 6, 1799 – May 27, 1831) was an American clerk, transcontinental pioneer, frontiersman, hunter, trapper, author, cartographer, mountain man and explorer of the Rocky Mountains, the Western United States, an ...

and

Jim Bridger James Felix "Jim" Bridger (March 17, 1804 – July 17, 1881) was an American mountain man, trapper, Army scout, and wilderness guide who explored and trapped in the Western United States in the first half of the 19th century. He was known as Old ...

, gathered at this location, along with trade goods suppliers and American Indians from several different tribes. The mountain men and Indians sold their furs in exchange for various store goods and supplies, and several weeks were spent reveling in assorted amusements and liquor. Smith's arrival in June 1827 was especially historic, as it marked the completion of the first ever overland round-trip to California from the United States. He wrote in his journal: "My arrival caused a considerable bustle in camp for myself and party had been given up as lost." Although the lake lies relatively near the

Oregon Trail The Oregon Trail was a east–west, large-wheeled wagon route and emigrant trail in the United States that connected the Missouri River to valleys in Oregon. The eastern part of the Oregon Trail spanned part of what is now the state of Kans ...

, which runs north and east of the lake, and was traveled by many pioneers between 1836 and the 1850s, it seems none of them went south enough to view the lake. It was not until 1863 that

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into se ...

pioneers led by

Charles C. Rich Charles Coulson Rich (August 21, 1809 – November 17, 1883) was an early leader in the Latter Day Saint movement. He led one of the first groups of Mormon pioneers west from Illinois under the leadership of Brigham Young after Joseph Smith's mur ...

settled in the Bear Lake Valley, but they made an agreement with Native Americans, which left most of the Utah portion of the valley in Indian possession. The Mormons gradually moved south and established the villages of Garden City, Pickelville, and Laketown, each along the lake's shore. In 1911 a diversion was constructed at Wardboro, Idaho that redirected the majority of the flow of the Bear River into Bear Lake via Mud Lake. Water then exits Bear Lake via an outlet canal to rejoin the Bear River. This allows the upper 6.5 meters of Bear Lake to act as a

reservoir A reservoir (; from French ''réservoir'' ) is an enlarged lake behind a dam. Such a dam may be either artificial, built to store fresh water or it may be a natural formation. Reservoirs can be created in a number of ways, including contr ...

for the Bear River, storing spring runoff for irrigation later in the year. Before the construction of this connection, Bear Lake had been isolated from the Bear River for 11,000 years, though Bear River has connected to Bear Lake naturally several times over the 250,000-year existence of the Lake. In later years, Bear Lake became a resort and recreation area, with many developers selling lake shore and mountain view lots. The beaches of Lakota and Ideal were given to private development in the 1970s, including the Blue Water and Sweetwater developments. The State of Utah bought the far southeast beach for use as a

state park State parks are parks or other protected areas managed at the sub-national level within those nations which use "state" as a political subdivision. State parks are typically established by a state to preserve a location on account of its natural ...

, and the state also operates a

marina A marina (from Spanish , Portuguese and Italian : ''marina'', "coast" or "shore") is a dock or basin with moorings and supplies for yachts and small boats. A marina differs from a port in that a marina does not handle large passenger ships or ...

on the lake's west side.

Geographic features

Formed in a half graben valley straddling the Idaho-Utah border, the lake has an approximate area of and sits at an elevation of along the northeast side of the

Wasatch Range The Wasatch Range ( ) or Wasatch Mountains is a mountain range in the western United States that runs about from the Utah-Idaho border south to central Utah. It is the western edge of the greater Rocky Mountains, and the eastern edge of the G ...

and the east side of the

Bear River Mountains The Bear River Range (also known as the Bear River Mountains), is a mountain range located in northeastern Utah and southeastern Idaho in the western United States. __TOC__ Description The range forms the eastern boundary of the Cache Valley. ...

. The lake and surrounding areas are popular summer tourist destinations. The lake has many marinas, beaches, and two tourist towns in Utah: Garden City and Laketown. It also has two

s, each named Bear Lake State Park: one in Idaho and one in Utah. The Utah state park includes a one-half-mile-long Rendezvous Beach at the south end of the lake, the location of the 1827 and 1828 rendezvous, and a three-mile-long Cisco Beach on the east side, plus the additional campground, marina, and boat ramp areas. The Idaho state park includes north and an east unit, each with a one-mile-long beach.

Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge Bear Lake National Wildlife Refuge is located in southeast Idaho, seven miles (11 km) south of Montpelier. Surrounded by mountains, it lies in Bear Lake Valley at an elevation ranging from on the marsh to on the rocky slopes of Merkley M ...

extends up from the north end of the lake.

Native and naturalized animals

Bear Lake has a high rate of

endemism Endemism is the state of a species being found in a single defined geographic location, such as an island, state, nation, country or other defined zone; organisms that are indigenous to a place are not endemic to it if they are also found els ...

(native species not naturally found anywhere else). Several species evolved in the lake's waters, but many went

extinct Extinction is the termination of a kind of organism or of a group of kinds (taxon), usually a species. The moment of extinction is generally considered to be the death of the last individual of the species, although the capacity to breed and ...

after the diversion of the Bear River into the lake. Surviving known endemic species of fish include the Bear Lake strain of the Bonneville cutthroat trout, Bonneville cisco, Bonneville whitefish, Bear Lake whitefish, and Bear Lake sculpin. There have been attempts to transplant these species to other areas without success, with the exception of the Bear Lake Cutthroat Trout strain. This trout has flourished in other large bodies of cool water, including the

Strawberry The garden strawberry (or simply strawberry; ''Fragaria × ananassa'') is a widely grown hybrid species of the genus '' Fragaria'', collectively known as the strawberries, which are cultivated worldwide for their fruit. The fruit is widely ap ...

and Scofield reservoirs. "The Bonneville cisco eat only small aquatic invertebrates or zooplankton. They are eaten by larger fish in the lake including whitefish, Bonneville Cutthroat Trout, and introduced

lake trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...

." Although several fish species have been introduced into the lake, those native species which survived the Bear River diversion have continued to thrive under careful management. Water from the lake is used for

irrigation Irrigation (also referred to as watering) is the practice of applying controlled amounts of water to land to help grow crops, landscape plants, and lawns. Irrigation has been a key aspect of agriculture for over 5,000 years and has been devel ...

in the nearby Bear Valley in southeast Idaho and for

recreational fishing Recreational fishing, also called sport fishing or game fishing, is fishing for leisure, exercise or competition. It can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is professional fishing for profit; or subsistence fishing, which is fishing fo ...

. The lake drains via the Bear River Outlet, completed in 1915, into the Bear River which eventually flows into the northeast portion of

Great Salt Lake The Great Salt Lake is the largest saltwater lake in the Western Hemisphere and the eighth-largest terminal lake in the world. It lies in the northern part of the U.S. state of Utah and has a substantial impact upon the local climate, particu ...

Raspberry cultivation

Bear Lake has become famous for the surrounding valley's crops of raspberries and for the annual Raspberry Days festival held in Garden City to celebrate the harvest of raspberries, generally during the first week of August. This event is said to bring thousands of people from all over the world and features

rodeo Rodeo () is a competitive equestrian sport that arose out of the working practices of cattle herding in Spain and Mexico, expanding throughout the Americas and to other nations. It was originally based on the skills required of the working vaq ...

parade A parade is a procession of people, usually organized along a street, often in costume, and often accompanied by marching bands, floats, or sometimes large balloons. Parades are held for a wide range of reasons, but are usually celebrations of s ...

fireworks Fireworks are a class of low explosive pyrotechnic devices used for aesthetic and entertainment purposes. They are most commonly used in fireworks displays (also called a fireworks show or pyrotechnics), combining a large number of devices ...

dance Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...

s, a craft

fair A fair (archaic: faire or fayre) is a gathering of people for a variety of entertainment or commercial activities. Fairs are typically temporary with scheduled times lasting from an afternoon to several weeks. Types Variations of fairs incl ...

, "Miss Berry Princess contest", raspberry recipe cookoff, a

talent show A talent show is an event in which participants perform the arts of singing, dancing, lip-syncing, acting, martial arts, playing an instrument, poetry, comedy or other activities to showcase skills. Many talent shows are performances rather ...

fun run A fun run is a friendly race that involves either road running or cross country running with participants taking part for their own enjoyment rather than competition. A fun run will usually be held to raise funds for a charity, with sponsors pr ...

and

concert A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide var ...

s. A majority of the originally introduced Bear Lake Raspberry plants were infected with a fungal virus during 2001 called the "

raspberry bushy dwarf virus ''Idaeovirus'' is a genus of positive-sense ssRNA viruses that contains two species: ''Raspberry bushy dwarf virus'' (RBDV) and ''Privet idaeovirus''. RBDV has two host-dependent clades: one for raspberries; the other for grapevines. Infections ...

". Fewer than five acres survived. The epidemic resulted in most of the large berry businesses in Garden City being wiped out. Some crop acreage was replaced by newly introduced virus-resistant plants. Although some varieties of raspberries are resistant to the virus, none produce fruit as succulent and sweet as the previously cultivated plants. The raspberry business has since been redeveloped, and raspberries are again thriving, mostly in the southern end of the valley.

Recreation

One of the main reasons Bear Lake has become a popular vacation destination is due to the high amount of recreational activities and attractions that are available throughout the year. In the summertime, swimming, water-skiing, jet-skiing, boating, and sailing draw people to the water. Tourists also pass the time exploring the local caves or golf courses or taking mountain trails on foot, bike, ATV, or horseback. In the cooler months, hunting, snow skiing, snowmobiling, or ice fishing are common attractions. Many people try a "famous raspberry shake" at one of the local restaurants, or see a play at the Pickleville Playhouse.

References

External links

Official Bear Lake State Park websiteOUTDOOR IDAHO: Bear Lake, Caribbean of the Rockies
(2016) {{DEFAULTSORT:Bear Lake (Idaho-Utah) Bear River (Great Salt Lake) Great Salt Lake watershed Lakes of Idaho Lakes of Utah Lakes of the Great Basin Lakes of the Rocky Mountains Lakes of Bear Lake County, Idaho Lakes of Rich County, Utah Tourist attractions in Rich County, Utah American folklore