White Lake

Where White Lake is

White Lake lies in the County of Lanark and the County of Renfrew, with shoreline in the Township of Greater Madawaska, the Township of Mcnab/Braeside, the Township of Lanark Highlands and the Municipality of Mississippi Mills.

How deep is White Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on White Lake is 9.1 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 38 depth contours for White Lake.

See also Ontario's Largest and Deepest Lakes

Surveyed Depths

Ontario has surveyed the depths of several thousand of its lakes over more than half a century. Later surveys were conducted by boat with satellite positioning and produced hundreds of thousands of soundings per lake. Earlier surveys were charted by running transects across the water and drawing depth contours by hand.

Water quality

Ontario’s Lake Partner Program is a volunteer monitoring network. Participants collect water samples for phosphorus analysis and measure water clarity through the summer with a Secchi disk. Most sites are sampled for phosphorus once a year, in spring, and some several times a year between spring and fall. Phosphorus in many lakes rises through the summer, so the two kinds of average are measured on different bases.

Phosphorus is the nutrient that controls how much algae a lake can grow. A lake with little phosphorus stays clear and supports cold-water fish such as lake trout. As phosphorus rises, algae increase, the water clouds, and oxygen in the deep water falls as the algae decay. The province classifies each monitoring site by its average phosphorus:

• Oligotrophic, below 10 micrograms per litre: clear water and low algae.
• Mesotrophic, from 10 to 20: moderately productive water, with more algae and weed growth than an oligotrophic lake but rarely a bloom.
• Eutrophic, above 20: nutrient-rich water, prone to algal blooms and low oxygen at depth.

White Lake has 11 Lake Partner monitoring sites. Ten have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. Three of those sites are classified oligotrophic and seven mesotrophic.

The longest record is held by site 5841/2 at Three Mile Bay, with phosphorus sampled once a year over 12 years to 2015. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 18.33 micrograms per litre, within the mesotrophic band, which runs from 10 to 20.

One reading at site 5841/1, 495.0 micrograms per litre on 21 August 2017, is left out of the site’s mean. The province’s published file includes it.

One reading at site 5841/3, 51.7 micrograms per litre on 21 August 2017, is left out of the site’s mean. The province’s published file includes it.

A Secchi disk is a white or black-and-white plate lowered on a marked line until it disappears from view. The depth at which it vanishes is the Secchi depth, a direct measure of water clarity. Clearer water gives a deeper reading.

The 120 clarity readings at site 5841/2 give a median Secchi depth of 2.7 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 5841/2

See also Lake Water Quality and Blue-Green Algae in Ontario

White Lake Weather

The weather page for White Lake carries the forecast over the water, wave heights across the lake, and the modelled water temperature.

White Lake weather

Water temperature

Ontario’s aquatic resource records class White Lake as a warm-water lake, with a mean depth of 3.1 meters against its maximum of 9.1.

A lake separates into layers through the summer where it is deep enough. Sunlight and wind warm and mix the upper few meters, and beneath a band of rapid cooling, the thermocline, the water stays cold. A shallow lake mixes to the bottom instead and warms through, sooner in spring and later into autumn.

No provincial monitoring station records water temperature on White Lake. The LastLake model computes the temperature of its surface water for each day from the daily mean air temperature at Environment Canada’s Appleton climate station, 35 kilometers from the lake, or the next nearest station when its record is incomplete, and from the lake’s area of 2,377 hectares and its mean depth of 3.1 meters.

Each day’s figure carries the model’s typical error for that month on lakes of the same size. The figure in the chart below is the temperature near the surface, away from the shoreline. Bays, shallows and water deeper below the surface differ in temperature. Temperature is not measured when ice covers the lake. The weather page for White Lake carries the model’s figures for the past weeks and the coming week.

See also Lake Water Temperature in Ontario

Fish in White Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 22 fish species in White Lake.

Popular species in the province’s records

• Brook Trouttrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Muskellungepike
• Walleyeperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Largemouth Basssunfish
• Rock Basssunfish
• Pumpkinseedsunfish
• Bluegillsunfish
• Brown Bullheadcatfish

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 44 fish spawning records within the White Lake outline, for two different species, and all of them are mapped below.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Northern Pike23 areas484.7 ha
• Walleye21 areas35.0 ha

The federal Fisheries Act prohibits the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat without an authorization, so a dock, dredging, infill or shoreline work at a mapped spawning area is reviewed on that basis.

Stocking history

Ontario’s stocking records for White Lake run from 1937 to 1998 and hold 47 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 20,097,302 released in 23 of the years between 1946 and 1998. The last recorded release was 29,082 walleye frys in 1998.

The province’s record of stocking for recreational fishing, kept from 2016, lists no release into White Lake.

Eating the fish

The 2026 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for six species taken from White Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Darling Twp., Lanark Co. Each figure below is the most meals a month the guide advises for a fish of that length. Where mercury sets the advice, the figure falls as the fish gets longer, because mercury accumulates over a fish’s life. Where the guide has no result yet for certain contaminants at a location, it sets a precautionary limit of 16 meals a month. A zero means the guide advises no meals of that fish at that size.

General population: adultsSensitive population: children under fifteen, women who are or may become pregnant

Fisheries Management Zone 18

White Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 18. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Fisheries management zones around White Lake

See also Fishing Seasons in Ontario, Zone by Zone and Fish Stocking in Ontario Lakes

White Lake Ice Fishing

An ice hut on White Lake must be removed by March 15. The province sets dates for ice hut removal as a safety measure to ensure huts are removed before thawing occurs. One date applies to an entire fisheries management zone (FMZ). White Lake lies within FMZ 18.

An ice hut must also be removed before the ice breaks up, whether or not that date has passed. The deadline clears huts from the ice ahead of the thaw and does not close the fishing season.

Registration is required in FMZ 18 for an ice hut built of anything other than fabric, and for a fabric tent covering seven square meters or more. Registration is free, and the number is displayed on the outside of the hut.

Ice conditions

No public record reports the thickness or the condition of the ice on White Lake on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.

See also Lake Ice in Ontario and When the Lakes Will Freeze This Winter

Islands and names

White Lake contains 64 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, two of them over 10 hectares and 34 under a tenth of a hectare. Eight of them lie mostly inside wetland the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset maps as marsh or bog. Hardwood Island, at 40 hectares, is larger than the next ten together, which cover 36.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 26 official names on the water and its islands: 16 islands and seven bays. A further 4 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 7

• Bane Bay
• Donnellys Bay
• Eggshape Bay
• Hayes Bay
• Pickerel Bay
• Sunset Bay
• Three Mile Bay

Points on the shore 4

• Burnt Point
• Fishers Point
• Norway Point
• Ryans Point

Nearby lakes

• Calabogie Lake18 km away
• Black Donald Lake35 km away
• Mississippi Lake36 km away
• Dalhousie Lake37 km away

All lakes

Questions about White Lake

• How deep is White Lake?

  Its deepest charted contour is 9.1 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is White Lake?

  Its surface covers 23.8 square kilometers and it holds 64 islands. Of its 121 kilometers of shoreline, 100 kilometers is the mainland shore and 21 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in White Lake?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 22 species, among them walleye, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge and yellow perch.