Lake Nipigon

Where Lake Nipigon is

Lake Nipigon lies in the District of Thunder Bay, with shoreline in the Municipality of Greenstone.

How deep is Lake Nipigon?

Ontario’s digital bathymetry records hold no soundings and no depth contours within the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline of Lake Nipigon.

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 Lake Nipigon 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 Lake Nipigon

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 49 fish species in Lake Nipigon. The province’s other records for the lake name one further species. It appears in the records below.

Popular species in the province’s records

• Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
• Brook Trouttrout and whitefish
• Brown Trouttrout and whitefish
• Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
• Ciscotrout and whitefish
• Round Whitefishtrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Walleyeperch
• Saugerperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Burbotcod
• Lake Sturgeonother

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 2 fish spawning records within the Lake Nipigon outline: 2 brook trout spawning areas covering 0.77 hectares.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Brook Trout2 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 Lake Nipigon run from 1946 to 1991 and hold 69 releases. Lake Whitefish account for most of the fish: 2,000,000 released in 1954. The last recorded release was 3,800 brook trout subadults in 1991.

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

Eating the fish

The 2026 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for eleven species taken from Lake Nipigon, tested for contaminants at a sampling location in 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 6

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

Fisheries management zones around Lake Nipigon

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. Walleye and Sauger or any combination: Only artificial lures may be used when angling through the ice. Dead smelt may be used as bait or possessed for use as bait. Walleye and Sauger or any combination: Only one barbless hook may be used. Lake Trout: Only artificial lures may be used when angling through the ice. Dead smelt may be used as bait or possessed for use as bait. Lake Trout: Only one barbless hook may be used. Brook Trout: Only artificial lures may be used when angling through the ice. Dead smelt may be used as bait or possessed for use as bait. Brook Trout: Only one barbless hook may be used. Northern Pike: Only artificial lures may be used when angling through the ice. Dead smelt may be used as bait or possessed for use as bait. Northern Pike: Only one barbless hook may be used. All species: Dead Rainbow smelt may be used as bait or possessed for use as bait.

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

Islands and names

Lake Nipigon contains 1,121 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, 154 of them over 10 hectares and 286 under a tenth of a hectare. Two of them lie mostly inside wetland the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset maps as fen.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 270 official names on the water and its islands: 152 islands, 37 bays, two shoals, five rocks, 24 harbours, one narrows, eight points on islands and six rivers. A further 31 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 37

• Albert Bay
• Bean Bay
• Bish Bay
• Black Sturgeon Bay
• Castle Bay
• Chief Bay
• Duck Bay
• East Bay
• East Bay
• English Bay
• Fire Ranger Bay
• Grand Bay
• Gull Bay
• Humboldt Bay
• Krug Bay
• Lion Bay
• McIntyre Bay
• McRitchie Shortcut
• North Bay
• North Ombabika Bay
• Ombabika Bay
• Orient Bay
• Pijitawabik Bay
• Pike Bay
• Pipestone Bay
• Portage Bay
• Post Bay
• Robson Bay
• South Bay
• South Ombabika Bay
• Stone Bay
• Three Mount Bay
• Vint Bay
• Wabinosh Bay
• West Bay
• West's Bay
• Windigo Bay

Shoals and rocks 7

• Bateau Rock
• Echo Rock
• Frog Island Shoal
• Joe's Rock
• Ken's Rock
• Scarf Rock
• Tichnor Shoal

Harbours, cuts and narrows 25

• Alexandra Harbour
• Bud's Harbour
• Caribou Harbour
• Charlie's Harbour
• Colter's Harbour
• Cregie's Harbour
• Grant Point Harbour
• Hat Mountain Harbour
• Henry's Harbour
• High Hill Harbour
• Hummingbird Harbour
• Jess' Harbour
• Lesperance Harbour
• Little Caribou Harbour
• Lynx Harbour
• Mink Harbour
• Moose's Harbour
• Moran Harbour
• North High Hill Harbour
• Ombabika Narrows
• Peninsula Harbour
• Ramsay Harbour
• South High Hill Harbour
• Two Mountain Harbour
• Weber's Harbour

Points on the shore 31

• Burnt Point
• Champlain Point
• Chisel Rock
• Columbus Point
• Dead Poplar Point
• Diamond Point
• English Point
• Furness Point
• Grant Point
• Gravel Point
• Graveyard Point
• Ingall Point
• Keezis Point
• Livingstone Point
• Long Point
• Long Point
• Mooney Point
• Mungo Park Point
• North Bay Point
• Pipestone Point
• Poplar Point
• Queen Anne Point
• Redstone Point
• Robson Point
• Rocking Chair Point
• Smoothrock Point
• Snake Point
• Speke Point
• Spruce Point
• Tchiatang Point
• Three Mount Point

Nearby lakes

• Wildgoose Lake97 km away
• Kenogamisis Lake121 km away
• Dog Lake134 km away
• Hawkeye Lake140 km away

All lakes

Questions about Lake Nipigon

• How big is Lake Nipigon?

  Its surface covers 4,498.7 square kilometers and it holds 1,121 islands. Of its 2,539 kilometers of shoreline, 1,194 kilometers is the mainland shore and 1,345 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Lake Nipigon?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 49 species, among them lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, lake whitefish and yellow perch.