Lake Temagami

Where Lake Temagami is

Lake Temagami lies in the District of Nipissing, within the Municipality of Temagami.

How deep is Lake Temagami?

The deepest mapped contour on Lake Temagami is 73.2 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 347 depth contours for Lake Temagami.

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 a water sample each spring for phosphorus analysis and measure water clarity through the summer with a Secchi disk.

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 spring phosphorus. Below 10 micrograms per litre is oligotrophic: clear water and low algae. From 10 to 20 is mesotrophic: moderately productive water, with more algae and weed growth than an oligotrophic lake but rarely a bloom. Above 20 is eutrophic: nutrient-rich water, prone to algal blooms and low oxygen at depth.

A Secchi disk is a 20 centimeter 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.

Lake Temagami has 47 Lake Partner monitoring sites. 33 have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. All are classified oligotrophic.

The longest record is held by site 2477/2 at S/W Arm, deep spot, sampled over 22 springs to 2025. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 4.56 micrograms per litre, within the oligotrophic band, which extends to 10. The site’s 180 clarity readings give a median Secchi depth of 6.75 meters.

Fish in Lake Temagami

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 27 fish species in Lake Temagami. The province classes the lake as cold water. The record took effect on 21 March 2017, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name two further species, atlantic salmon and brook trout. They appear in the records below.

Eleven of the 29 species in the province’s records

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

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 77 fish spawning records within the Lake Temagami outline, for three species, all of them mapped areas.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Lake Trout50 areas102.7 ha
• Walleye26 areas521.8 ha
• Smallmouth Bass1 area3.0 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 Lake Temagami run from 1946 to 2005 and hold 73 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 5,221,479 released in fifteen of the years between 1947 and 2005. The last recorded release was 30,000 walleye eyed eggs in 2005.

The province’s current stocking programme, recorded from 2016, lists no release into Lake Temagami.

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for nine species taken from Lake Temagami, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Nipissing Dist. Each figure below is the most meals a month the guide advises for a fish of that length. The advice falls as the fish gets longer, because mercury accumulates over a fish’s life. 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 11

Lake Temagami lies in Fisheries Management Zone 11. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

The figures are the number of fish an angler may catch and keep in a day and have in possession, under a sport fishing licence and under a conservation licence. The rows are the whole zone’s, and they apply to every lake in it.

Where a row reads zone-wide, the zone’s own season or limit above applies. Only live or dead baitfish less than 13 cm (5.1 in.) in length may be used as bait.

Lake Temagami Ice Fishing

An ice hut on Lake Temagami must be removed by March 31. Lake Temagami lies in fisheries management zone 11, one of the twenty zones Ontario sets its fishing rules by, and one removal date applies across the whole zone.

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 zone 11 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 Lake Temagami on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.

Islands and names

Lake Temagami contains 1075 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, 36 of them over 10 hectares and 588 under a tenth of a hectare.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 85 official names on the water and its islands: 31 islands, 22 bays, one narrows, one point on an island and two rivers. A further 8 named points stand on the mainland shore. The register records the origin of two names.

Bays 22

• Amphibolite Bay
• Austin Bay
• Cross Bay
• Devil Bay
• Dewy Bay
• Ferguson Bay
• Granny Bay
• Hammerhandle Bay
• Inlet Bay
• Island Bay
• Kokoko Bay
• Loon Bay
• Muddy Water Bay
• Mule Bay
• Outlet Bay
• Pickerel Bay
• Portage Bay
• Portage Bay
• Shiningwood Bay
• Spawning Bay
• Whitefish Bay
• Witch Bay

Harbours, cuts and narrows 1

• Axe Narrows

Points on the shore 8

• Denedus Point
• Devil Point
• Ferguson Point
• Matagama Point
• Raccoon Point
• Sand Point
• Sealrock Point
• Squirrel Point

Nearby lakes

• Obabika Lake21 km away
• Net Lake22 km away
• Cassels Lake24 km away
• Rabbit Lake29 km away

All lakes

Questions about Lake Temagami

• How deep is Lake Temagami?

  Its deepest charted contour is 73.2 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Lake Temagami?

  Its surface covers 208.6 square kilometers and it holds 1,075 islands. Of its 1,048 kilometers of shoreline, 629 kilometers is the mainland shore and 419 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Lake Temagami?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 27 species, among them lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, lake whitefish and yellow perch. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name atlantic salmon and brook trout.

• Is the water clear?

  All 33 monitoring sites with a phosphorus status are classified oligotrophic, the clearest of the province’s three bands.