Lake of Bays is a large lake in the

District Municipality of Muskoka The District Municipality of Muskoka, more generally referred to as the District of Muskoka or Muskoka, is a List of regional municipalities in Ontario, Canada, regional municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. It extends from Georgian Bay in the ...

in Central

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. It is located almost entirely in the Township municipality of

Lake of Bays Lake of Bays is a township municipality within the District Municipality of Muskoka, Ontario, Canada. The township, situated north of Toronto, is named after the Lake of Bays. During the 2016 census, the township had a population of 3,167 and ...

, which is named after the lake, with the exception of the southwest arm of the lake which is in the Town of

Huntsville Huntsville is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Alabama. The population of the city is estimated to be 241,114 in 2024, making it the 100th-most populous city in the U.S. The Huntsville metropolitan area had an estimated 525,465 ...

Ontario Highway 35 King's Highway 35, commonly referred to as Highway 35, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario, linking Highway 401 with the Kawartha Lakes, Haliburton, and Algonquin Provincial Park. The highway travels from wes ...

runs north and east of the lake. Port Cunnington is a community established on a peninsula reaching out deep inside the lake. Other settlements on the lake shore include

Dwight Dwight may refer to: People and fictional characters * Dwight (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Dwight (surname), a list of people Places Canada * Dwight, Ontario, village in the township of Lake of Bays, Ontario ...

, South Portage, Baysville and

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

Geography

The lake is fed by Oxtongue River, as well as other rivers and creeks flowing from the north-east ( Boyne River and its tributary Sixteen Mile Creek, Ten Mile Creek, Hollow River, St. Mary Creek).

Bigwin Island Bigwin Island is an island in the municipality of Lake of Bays, District Municipality of Muskoka in Central Ontario, Canada. It the largest island on Lake of Bays. There are multiple Indigenous burial grounds on the island and immediately offs ...

is the largest island in the lake; other islands include Burnt Island, Fairview Island, Langmaids Island, Pancake Island, Raynor Island, Rock Island, Haystack Island, Millichamp Island, Reuben Island, Crown Island and Peanut Island. The irregular shape of the lake is defined by many bays such as Rabbit's Bay, Burnt Island Bay, Whitehouse Bay, Montgomery Bay, Portage Bay, Haystack Bay, Ten Mile Bay, Dwight Bay, Trading Bay and Murky Bay.

Lake characteristics

Lake of Bays is a deep, cold, infertile lake which forms an important part of the Muskoka

watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...

. Despite its size and basin shape, low fertility and a short

residence time The residence time of a fluid parcel is the total time that the parcel has spent inside a control volume (e.g.: a chemical reactor, a lake, a human body). The residence time of a set of parcels is quantified in terms of the frequency distribu ...

combine to make it only moderately productive. Lake of Bays water is clear, and the maximum

secchi disc The Secchi disk (or Secchi disc), as created in 1865 by Angelo Secchi, is a plain white, circular disk in diameter used to measure water transparency or turbidity in bodies of water. The disc is mounted on a pole or line and lowered slowly dow ...

reading obtained was . The

surface layer The surface layer is the layer of a turbulent fluid most affected by interaction with a solid surface or the surface separating a gas and a liquid where the characteristics of the turbulence depend on distance from the interface. Surface layers a ...

, which is in depth, varies in temperature throughout the year. In the summer months of July and August, the surface layer can have an average temperature approaching , while the top few metres can warm to about . Below the top layer, the summer temperature drops rapidly to around .

Origin of name

The

First Nations First nations are indigenous settlers or bands. First Nations, first nations, or first peoples may also refer to: Indigenous groups *List of Indigenous peoples *First Nations in Canada, Indigenous peoples of Canada who are neither Inuit nor Mé ...

apparently called the lake ''Num g e low e nee g go mark lak a hagan'' which means Lake of Forks. It was also known as Baptiste Lake, Forked Lake and Lake of Two Bays. In 1837, David Thompson traversed the lake and drew a map of the lake that refers to it as Forked Lake. On September 5, 1837, Thompson mentioned catching

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

in the lake. Thomas Moffatt, an agent for the

Hudson's Bay Company The Hudson's Bay Company (HBC), originally the Governor and Company of Adventurers of England Trading Into Hudson’s Bay, is a Canadian holding company of department stores, and the oldest corporation in North America. It was the owner of the ...

(Moffatt reported an outpost on

) referred to it as Trading Lake. In 1853, a geological survey by Alexander Murray of the

Geological Survey of Canada The Geological Survey of Canada (GSC; , CGC) is a Canadian federal government agency responsible for performing geological surveys of the country developing Canada's natural resources and protecting the environment. A branch of the Earth Science ...

referred to the lake as Lake of Bays.Government of Ontario, Department of Lands and Forests Map, August 1969

Amenities

Due to the many bays and large size of the lake, a number of amenities have appeared around the lake including lodges, resorts, campgrounds, and golf clubs.

Fish species

There are many

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

species in Lake of Bays. Those known to exist are: *

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

Brook trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada. Two ecological forms of brook trout h ...

Rainbow trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributary, tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead (sometimes called steelhead trout) is an Fish migration#Classification, ...

Northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus ''Esox'' (pikes). They are commonly found in brackish water, moderately salty and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). T ...

Pumpkinseed The pumpkinseed (''Lepomis gibbosus''), also referred to as sun perch, pond perch, common sunfish, punkie, sunfish, sunny, and kivver, is a small to medium–sized freshwater fish of the genus ''Lepomis'' (true sunfishes), from the sunfish fami ...

Rock bass The rock bass (''Ambloplites rupestris''), also known as the rock perch, goggle-eye, red eye, and black perch, is a freshwater fish native to east-central North America. This red-eyed fish is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family (bi ...

Smallmouth bass The smallmouth bass (''Micropterus dolomieu'') is a species of freshwater fish in the Centrarchidae, sunfish family (biology), family (Centrarchidae) of the order (biology), order Centrarchiformes. It is the type species of its genus ''Micropterus ...

Largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus nigricans'') is a carnivorous, freshwater fish, freshwater, ray-finned fish in the Centrarchidae (sunfish) family, native to the eastern United States, eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada an ...

Cisco Cisco Systems, Inc. (using the trademark Cisco) is an American multinational digital communications technology conglomerate corporation headquartered in San Jose, California. Cisco develops, manufactures, and sells networking hardware, s ...

Whitefish Whitefish or white fish may refer to: Fish * Whitefish (fisheries term), referring to species commercially caught in the North Atlantic * Freshwater whitefish, members of the subfamily Coregoninae in the family Salmonidae, including: ** Atlant ...

Lake herring ''Coregonus artedi'', commonly known as the cisco, is a North American species of freshwater whitefish in the family Salmonidae. The number of species and definition of species limits in North American ciscoes is a matter of debate. Accordingly, ...

White sucker The white sucker (''Catostomus commersonii'') is a species of freshwater cypriniform fish inhabiting the upper Midwest and Northeast in North America, but it is also found as far south as Georgia and as far west as New Mexico. The fish is common ...

Longnose sucker The longnose sucker (''Catostomus catostomus'') is a species of cypriniform freshwater fish in the family Catostomidae. It is native to North America from the northern United States to the top of the continent. It is also found in Russia in riv ...

Burbot The burbot (''Lota lota''), also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, or eelpout, is a species of coldwater ray-finned fish native to the subarctic regions of ...

Yellow perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samuel Latham Mitchill fr ...

Trout-perch ''Percopsis omiscomaycus'', also known as the trout-perch, the grounder or the sand minnow, is one of two species in the family Percopsidae. Its name comes from the Greek root words ''perc'', meaning perch and ''opsi'' meaning appearance. The spe ...

Rainbow smelt The rainbow smelt (''Osmerus mordax'') is a North American species of fish of the family (biology), family Osmeridae. Walleye, trout, and other larger fish prey on these smelt. The rainbow smelt prefer juvenile cisco (fish), ciscoes, zooplankton ...

Brown bullhead The brown bullhead (''Ameiurus nebulosus'') is a fish of the family Ictaluridae that is widely distributed in North America. It is a species of bullhead catfish and is similar to the black bullhead (''Ameiurus melas'') and yellow bullhead (' ...

Fathead minnow Fathead minnow (''Pimephales promelas''), also known as fathead or tuffy, is a species of freshwater Actinopterygii, ray-finned fish belonging to the Family (biology), family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. The natural geographic ra ...

Bluntnose minnow :''"Bluntnose minnows" is also used for the genus '' Pimephales'' as a whole.'' The bluntnose minnow (''Pimephales notatus)'' is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. Its natur ...

Common shiner The common shiner (''Luxilus cornutus'') is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae, the shiners, daces and minnows. This fish is found in North America. It ranges in length between , although they can reach le ...

Blacknose shiner The blacknose shiner (''Notropis heterolepis'') is a species of freshwater ray-finned fish belonging to the family Leuciscidae Leuciscidae is a family of freshwater ray-finned fishes, formerly classified as a subfamily of the Cyprinidae, whi ...

* Northern redbelly dace *

Brook stickleback The brook stickleback (''Culaea inconstans'') is a small freshwater fish that is distributed across the US and Canada. It grows to a length of about 2 inches. It occupies the northern part of the eastern United States, as well as the southe ...

* Northern pearl dace *

Creek chub ''Semotilus'' is the genus of creek chubs, ray-finned fish in the family Leuciscidae. The term "creek chub" is sometimes used for individual species, particularly the common creek chub, ''S. atromaculatus''. The creek chub species of minnows can ...

Fishing

Lake of Bays is fished by cottagers, local residents and many visitors to the area.

and

smallmouth bass The smallmouth bass (''Micropterus dolomieu'') is a species of freshwater fish in the Centrarchidae, sunfish family (biology), family (Centrarchidae) of the order (biology), order Centrarchiformes. It is the type species of its genus ''Micropterus ...

are the main sport species and the lake has produced a number of trophy

in excess of 20 pounds. These trout are difficult to catch, and require heavy trolling equipment once the lake warms up.

are often found in the shallower water around the shores and on shoals. During the winter, the lake provides fishing for

whitefish Whitefish or white fish may refer to: Fish * Whitefish (fisheries term), referring to species commercially caught in the North Atlantic * Freshwater whitefish, members of the subfamily Coregoninae in the family Salmonidae, including: ** Atlant ...

smelts Smelts are a family of small fish, the Osmeridae, found in the North Atlantic and North Pacific oceans, as well as rivers, streams and lakes in Europe, North America and Northeast Asia. They are also known as freshwater smelts or typical smelts ...

, and

burbot The burbot (''Lota lota''), also known as bubbot, mariah, loche, cusk, freshwater cod, freshwater ling, freshwater cusk, the lawyer, coney-fish, lingcod, or eelpout, is a species of coldwater ray-finned fish native to the subarctic regions of ...

References

External links

{{Commons category
Lake of Bays township
Lakes of the District Municipality of Muskoka