Wildgoose Lake

Where Wildgoose Lake is

Wildgoose Lake lies in the District of Thunder Bay, within the Municipality of Greenstone.

How deep is Wildgoose Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Wildgoose Lake is 14.6 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 71 depth contours for Wildgoose 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.

No monitoring site on Wildgoose Lake is registered with the Lake Partner Program, so no phosphorus or clarity record exists for the lake.

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.

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

Fish in Wildgoose Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 13 fish species in Wildgoose Lake. The province’s other records for the lake name one further species, brook trout. It appears in the records below.

Popular species in the province’s records

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

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 3 fish spawning records within the Wildgoose Lake outline: 3 walleye spawning areas covering 0.81 hectares.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Walleye3 areas0.8 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 Wildgoose Lake run from 1951 to 1953 and hold 3 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 620,000 released in two of the years between 1951 and 1953. The last recorded release was 500,000 walleye eggs in 1953.

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

Eating the fish

The 2026 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for six species taken from Wildgoose Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Colter & Lindsley Twps., Thunder Bay Dist. 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 7

Wildgoose Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 7. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Fisheries management zones around Wildgoose Lake

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

Islands and names

Wildgoose Lake contains 27 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, zero of them over 10 hectares and nine under a tenth of a hectare.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 5 official names on the water and its islands: 1 island and two bays.

Bays 2

• Lindemann Bay
• North Bay

Nearby lakes

• Kenogamisis Lake24 km away
• Lake Nipigon97 km away
• White Lake157 km away
• Dog Lake198 km away

All lakes

Questions about Wildgoose Lake

• How deep is Wildgoose Lake?

  Its deepest charted contour is 14.6 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Wildgoose Lake?

  Its surface covers 17.9 square kilometers and it holds 27 islands. Of its 87 kilometers of shoreline, 77 kilometers is the mainland shore and 10 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Wildgoose Lake?

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