Dinorwic Lake

Where Dinorwic Lake is

Dinorwic Lake lies in the District of Kenora.

How deep is Dinorwic Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Dinorwic Lake is 10.0 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 1,794 depth contours for Dinorwic Lake.

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.

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

Fish in Dinorwic Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 27 fish species in Dinorwic Lake. The province classes the lake as cool water. The record took effect on 10 November 2017, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then. The province’s other records for the lake name two further species. They appear in the records below.

Twelve of the 29 species in the province’s records

• Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
• Ciscotrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Muskellungepike
• Walleyeperch
• Saugerperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Black Crappiesunfish
• Rock Basssunfish
• Pumpkinseedsunfish
• Burbotcod

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 31 fish spawning records within the Dinorwic Lake outline, for four species, all of them mapped areas. Twenty-two of the areas are one outline mapped for muskellunge and northern pike alike, and one more is filed under more than one species. An outline filed for more than one species is drawn once, striped in each of their colours.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Muskellunge14 areas410.1 ha
• Northern Pike14 areas409.3 ha
• Walleye1 area1.2 ha
• White Sucker1 area1.2 ha
• Walleye nursery1 area458.5 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 Dinorwic Lake run from 1951 to 1954 and hold 2 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 800,000 released in two of the years between 1951 and 1954. The last recorded release was 500,000 walleye eggs in 1954.

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

Eating the fish

The 2025 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for ten species taken from Dinorwic Lake, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in Stanawan Bay , Kenora 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 5

Dinorwic Lake lies in Fisheries Management Zone 5. 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. Zone-wide, Smelt may not be used as bait or possessed for use as bait.

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

Islands and names

Dinorwic Lake contains 114 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, two of them over 10 hectares and 52 under a tenth of a hectare.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 3 official names on the water and its islands: 1 island and two bays. A further 2 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 2

• Kagiwiosa Bay
• Stanawan Bay

Points on the shore 2

• Alto's Point
• McGraw's Point

Nearby lakes

• Wabigoon Lake16 km away
• Eagle Lake47 km away
• Minnitaki Lake60 km away
• Abram Lake68 km away

All lakes

Questions about Dinorwic Lake

• How deep is Dinorwic Lake?

  Its deepest charted contour is 10 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Dinorwic Lake?

  Its surface covers 49.1 square kilometers and it holds 114 islands. Of its 201 kilometers of shoreline, 159 kilometers is the mainland shore and 42 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Dinorwic Lake?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 27 species, among them walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge, lake whitefish and yellow perch.