Lower Shebandowan Lake

Where Lower Shebandowan Lake is

Lower Shebandowan Lake lies in the District of Thunder Bay.

How deep is Lower Shebandowan Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Lower Shebandowan Lake is 12.2 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 25 depth contours for Lower Shebandowan 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.

Lower Shebandowan Lake has 4 Lake Partner monitoring sites. Three have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. One of those sites is classified oligotrophic and two mesotrophic.

The longest record is held by site 6675/1 at Lower-Cache Is, E, with phosphorus sampled several times a year between spring and fall over 23 years to 2025. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 11.67 micrograms per litre, within the mesotrophic band, which runs from 10 to 20.

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 98 clarity readings at site 6675/1 give a median Secchi depth of 2.4 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 6675/1

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

Fish in Lower Shebandowan Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 9 fish species in Lower Shebandowan Lake. The province’s other records for the lake name one further species, lake trout. It appears in the records below.

Popular species in the province’s records

• Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
• Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
• Ciscotrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Walleyeperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Burbotcod

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 2 fish spawning records within the Lower Shebandowan Lake outline: 2 walleye spawning areas covering 81.91 hectares. Every record is recorded as verified and presently suitable, and none is classed as sensitive.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Walleye2 areas81.9 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.

Fisheries Management Zone 6

Lower Shebandowan Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 6. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Fisheries management zones around Lower Shebandowan Lake

Zone-wide, Smelt may not be used as bait or possessed for use as bait except where exceptions apply.

Where a row reads zone-wide, the zone’s own season or limit above applies.

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

Islands and names

Lower Shebandowan Lake contains 33 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, three of them over 10 hectares and eleven under a tenth of a hectare.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 20 official names on the water and its islands: 5 islands, ten bays, one narrows and one point on an island. A further 5 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 10

• Ambush Bay
• Blizzard Bay
• Camp One Bay
• Discovery Bay
• Green Bay
• Moose Bay
• Shelter Bay
• Southwest Bay
• Stewart Bay
• Swamp Bay

Harbours, cuts and narrows 1

• The Narrows

Points on the shore 5

• Carson Point
• Crescent Point
• Discovery Point
• Munro Point
• Rudolph's Point

Nearby lakes

• Middle Shebandowan Lake9 km away
• Upper Shebandowan Lake21 km away
• Lac des Mille Lacs38 km away
• Whitefish Lake45 km away

All lakes

Questions about Lower Shebandowan Lake

• How deep is Lower Shebandowan Lake?

  Its deepest charted contour is 12.2 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Lower Shebandowan Lake?

  Its surface covers 23.3 square kilometers and it holds 33 islands. Of its 83 kilometers of shoreline, 64 kilometers is the mainland shore and 19 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Lower Shebandowan Lake?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name nine species, among them walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, lake whitefish and yellow perch. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name lake trout.