Lake-of-the-Woods - The Other Great Lake

Published: Sunday, October 16, 2022 12:00 pm
By: Bruce Kemp

A version of this article appeared in the Fall (September/October) 2022 of Great Lakes Scuttlebutt magazine.

If you called Lake-of-the-Woods a Great Lake, you wouldn’t be far from right. It is the sixth largest lake in Central North America and has a range of impressive statistics. Despite this, it is a boater’s paradise missed by recreational boaters from both the United States and Canada – and it shouldn’t be.

Located on the border dividing Minnesota from Ontario and Manitoba, Lake-of-the-Woods covers more than 70 miles going in each direction from north to south and east to west. Its shores encompass 14,552 islands with a running shoreline of approximately 65,000 miles making it the 36th largest freshwater lake in the world.

Locals brag this lake has the longest shoreline of any of the region’s lakes, including Superior.

Add to this the more than excellent walleye and muskie fishing – along with shoreline camping, picnicking, plus a distinct lack of crowding and you’ve got a summer destination worth visiting.

I’d been up since shortly after dawn, but there was so much rain sunrise wasn’t a factor. It was that kind of summer in central Canada. My fishing partner, Josie, was a novice at any kind of fishing, so to her, it was all fun.

Fortunately, my frustration wasn’t registering on her as she was intensely focused on her own casting and retrieving.

Winding up and hurling the spinner bait toward the weed line, I was hoping to break my Muskie jinx by cranking in a big – hell, any Muskie – from under the lily pads.

My long-standing Muskie record is intact. Laughing Muskies: One. Sopping wet, mad-as-hell fisherman: Zero.

After a couple of hours of this strenuous exercise, our guide, Brad Doerksen, announces it's probably best if we head toward a pickerel hole between two smaller islands northwest of the Big Narrows.

For those not in the know, pickerel and walleye are the same fish, with pickerel being the English Canadian name and doré (meaning golden in French) adding a third name. Just call them the best eating fish in the Great Lakes, and everyone will be happy.

Walleye are the fallback when the Muskies don’t appear. Not that they’re such a terrible consolation prize.

During our three days of fishing, we pick off enough to make a huge shore lunch feast adding several big pike, a handful of crappies, and sauger. All of these taken on jigs we tipped with live minnows.

The county seat of Lake-of-the-Woods County, Baudette, MN, bills itself as the Walleye Capitol of the World. It could be, but then again, anywhere on Lake-of-the-Woods could lay claim to that title as the fish move around the lake and might be biting in one area and not in others.

Skimming across the lead-grey waters toward a walleye hole, Brad puts the brakes on the 18-foot Polaris, and we skid to a standstill. Standing above the windscreen, he points between two islands.

“See the bear?” Josie and I both jump up from our seats and scan the shoreline.

“No. No. In the water,” and it is only then that we see a small black dot midway across the channel. It’s working hard to make the far shore. “You guys want to see if we can catch him?”

“You bet,” and Brad slams the throttle forward, ordering the Evinrude 200 to life. It’s now a race to see if we can get to the ursine Michael Phelps before he hauls his hairy butt out of the lake and makes the tree line.

The trip to the fishing hole is slower, giving us the chance to watch the birds.

Lake-of-the-Woods is an eye-opener. The quantity and diversity of bird species is impressive. I’d already made a mental note that the mixed deciduous and coniferous forest is prime partridge and grouse territory, but it’s two unexpected species that surprise me.

Coming from the deep south of Ontario, pelicans are beyond my ken. So are bald eagles.

This far north Lake-of-the-Woods becomes the eastern edge of the Mississippi Flyway – that north-south avian super-highway.

The flyway extends all the way from the Alaskan coast of the Beaufort Sea to the tip of South America, making it the longest in the Western Hemisphere.

The number of species we encounter in three days is impressive. There are pelicans, great blue heron, kingfishers, crows, herring gulls (the larger of the two species found on the lake), ring-billed gulls, arctic terns, double-crested cormorants, and warblers.

This is the eastern range of the American white pelicans, but a fascinating story is that of the local population of bald eagles.

During the 1950s, farmers across North America sprayed a lot of DDT. Insects the pesticide didn’t kill quickly went back into the food chain, poisoning birds feeding on them and eventually killing the larger raptors that fed on the smaller birds.

Falcons, hawks, owls, and eagles took a kicking. Shells were so soft the majority of the eggs did not last long enough to incubate.

This drove many species, like the peregrine falcon, to the edges of extinction and bald eagles weren’t far behind.

Scientists soon saw the problem, and in a rare move, both the American and Canadian governments listened and banned the pesticide.

In Southern Ontario, the move did not come a moment too soon. There still aren’t any vast numbers there. However, Lake-of-the-Woods proved to be a different and successful story.

Eagles thrived on the lake because of the abundant fish, and today there are at least eighty (80) resident nesting pairs.

Cooperation like this is important because the lake is shared between the two countries and a chunk of the lake is American territory. Known as the Northwest Angle, it’s the northernmost bit of land in the lower forty-eight states.

The border slices through the entrance to Big Traverse Bay – just west of Bigsby and Big Islands.

It’s easy to stray over the international line if you’re not paying attention to your GPS. There is a U.S. Customs Station on Oak Island, and you must check in there before wandering around American waters. You must also report to Canadian customs when entering their territory from the U.S. side.

You’ll need your passport, and it’s a very good idea to have your Boaters’ Card handy.

There is a Canadian Coast Guard Station at Kenora. Both locals and the Coast Guard monitor Channel 16 on the VHF in case of emergency. Don’t count on your cell phone. Communications are spotty at the best of times and very limited at the south end of the lake.

Lake-of-the-Woods is middle-aged in geological terms. It is contained within the ancient, glacial Lake Agassiz lakebed.

Because Lake-of-the-Woods is getting older, it is also getting shallower. The average depth is twenty-seven (27) feet, and the deepest is two hundred and nine (209) feet. It is also a fairly high lake sitting at one thousand and fifty-nine (1,059) feet above sea level.

In wet summers, the lake is often as much as ten (10) inches above chart datum. Levels are controlled by the Norman and Tunnel Island Dams.

Maintaining water levels is the job of the International Joint Water Commission because the lake is shared and has historically been an important waterway for central North American trade.

The region has been a trading hub for almost 7,000 years. Archaeologists have found seashells from the Mississippi Gulf Coast, volcanic glass from Mt. St. Helens in Washington State, and copper from nearby Lake Superior.

Rainy Rivers contain the oldest burial mounds in Northwestern Ontario. There are fifteen burial mounds and two-dozen village sites here. These and the large number of pictographs (rock paintings), petroglyphs (rock carvings), and petroforms (where rocks were used to outline images) found throughout the area have spawned a movement to make Manitou Mounds a National Historic Site.

In recent history, the region was shared by three dominant tribes: the Ojibway, Cree, and Sioux.

There were constant battles throughout the region among the tribes and with white explorers when they began arriving. More than one geographic name, like Massacre Island and Aulneau Peninsula, reflects these battles.

The first recorded European visit to the region was by the Jesuit Jacques de Noyon in 1688, and he managed to survive quite nicely. But in 1732, Pierre Gaultier de Varennes (a.k.a. La Vérendrye) recognized the potential danger from his new neighbors and built Fort Saint-Charles near present-day Kenora.

La Vérendrye’s foresight was well-founded because four years later, the Sioux massacred Jean-Pierre Aulneau, Jean-Baptiste La Vérendrye, and nineteen (19) others on an island in the lake.

Despite the killings, the region became an important waypoint in westward expansion. Lumbering and mining eventually took over. In the early part of the 20th century, the lake boasted the largest gold mine in the region – the Sultana. Sultana yielded a million dollars worth of bullion when a million was still a number to be reckoned with.

When people from Thunder Bay and Minneapolis began building summer cottages on the lake, the boat builders moved in. The J.W. Stone Boat Company set up in Kenora near the town wharf in 1897 and began building power launches and runabouts for local use. The company continued operations right up until 1956.

Getting There

Even to get to the Northwest Angle, you have to go through Canada by car, then boat. Kenora is serviced by the TransCanada Highway and lies five hours west of Thunderbay on the Ontario/Manitoba border. Winnipeg is three hours to the north. Minneapolis is six hours south.

You can get to Rainy River Lake-of-the-Woods by either car or air.

Bearskin Airlines (807-548-2087) is the only airline flying into Kenora.

If you’re towing your own boat, there are a number of public and private launch ramps in Kenora and Rainy River. Most of the resorts have rental fishing boats, and Ontario Wilderness Houseboat Rental provides modern houseboats ranging in size from forty-three- (43) feet to sixty-four- (64) feet.

Websites:

Lake of the Woods Tourism