Lake Nipissing

Where Lake Nipissing is

Lake Nipissing lies in the District of Sudbury, the District of Parry Sound and the District of Nipissing, with shoreline in the Municipality of West Nipissing, the Municipality of Callander, the Municipality of St.-Charles, the Municipality of French River, the Township of Nipissing and the City of North Bay.

How deep is Lake Nipissing?

The deepest mapped contour on Lake Nipissing is 70.0 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 2,691 depth contours recorded in Ontario’s transect survey for Lake Nipissing.

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.

Lake Nipissing has 29 Lake Partner monitoring sites. 22 have reported phosphorus for the three or more years the province requires before a status is assigned. Fourteen of those sites are classified mesotrophic and eight eutrophic.

The longest record is held by site 2467/10 at Centre Callander Bay, with phosphorus sampled several times a year between spring and fall over 17 years to 2025. Its long-term mean phosphorus concentration is 19.37 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 42 clarity readings at site 2467/10 give a median Secchi depth of 1.75 meters.

Median Secchi depth by year at site 2467/10

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

Lake Nipissing Weather

The weather page for Lake Nipissing carries the forecast over the water, wave heights across the lake, the modelled water temperature, and the water level.

Lake Nipissing weather

Water temperature

Ontario’s aquatic resource records class Lake Nipissing as a warm-water lake, with a mean depth of 4.5 meters against its maximum of 70.

A lake separates into layers through the summer where it is deep enough. Sunlight and wind warm and mix the upper few meters, and beneath a band of rapid cooling, the thermocline, the water stays cold. A shallow lake mixes to the bottom instead and warms through, sooner in spring and later into autumn.

No provincial monitoring station records water temperature on Lake Nipissing. The weather page for Lake Nipissing carries the surface temperature measured at Environment Canada buoy 45152 while the buoy is on the lake, and the LastLake model’s surface water temperature for each day of the coming week. The province’s longest in-water record is kept on eight research lakes near Dorset, sampled since 1976. A reading is taken at the surface, at one meter, at each meter to seven and then every two meters to the bottom, about every two weeks through the open-water season and about monthly under ice. The record holds 5,240 readings at a depth of one meter.

At one meter the eight lakes track one another closely. On a day when several were sampled, the warmest and the coolest lake differed by about one degree in every month of the year, and a 12 meter deep lake and a 37 meter deep lake read within 0.2 degrees of each other from June to October. The weather of the year, and not the lake, sets most of the width of the band below.

Water temperature at a depth of one meter (eight lakes near Dorset, ON)

How depth changes the temperature

The chart below is the province’s record on Harp Lake, 37 meters deep, drawn as the median temperature at each depth for each month over 49 years. In July the water at one meter is 23 degrees, at five meters 15, at seven meters 9, and from 13 meters to the bottom under 6. By October the warm layer has deepened to seven meters and cooled to 11 degrees. In February the whole column sits between 1 and 4 degrees under the ice, coldest at the top.

A shallower lake in the same record warms sooner. Heney Lake, six meters deep, reads about 1.8 degrees warmer than Harp Lake at one meter from January to May, 0.8 degrees warmer from June to August, and the same or cooler from September.

See also Lake Water Temperature in Ontario

Fish in Lake Nipissing

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 42 fish species in Lake Nipissing. 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
• Chinook Salmontrout and whitefish
• Northern Pikepike
• Muskellungepike
• Walleyeperch
• Yellow Perchperch
• Smallmouth Basssunfish
• Largemouth Basssunfish
• Rock Basssunfish
• Pumpkinseedsunfish
• Burbotcod
• Brown Bullheadcatfish
• Lake Sturgeonother

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 204 fish spawning records within the Lake Nipissing outline, for three different species. One is records of under 100 square meters each, and the other 203 are mapped areas.

By number of records

By area mapped

• Walleye162 areas16.1 ha
• Northern Pike41 areas2.8 ha
• Muskellunge1 records0 m²

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 Nipissing run from 1946 to 1991 and hold 137 releases. Walleye account for most of the fish: 9,604,578 released in twelve of the years between 1946 and 1991. The last recorded release was 300,000 walleye frys in 1991.

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

Eating the fish

The 2026 Guide to Eating Ontario Fish carries consumption advice for fourteen species taken from Lake Nipissing, 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. Where mercury sets the advice, the figure 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 Nipissing lies in Fisheries Management Zone 11. Ontario sets its fishing seasons and catch limits by zone.

Fisheries management zones around Lake Nipissing

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

Lake Nipissing Ice Fishing

An ice hut on Lake Nipissing must be removed by March 31. The province sets dates for ice hut removal as a safety measure to ensure huts are removed before thawing occurs. One date applies to an entire fisheries management zone (FMZ). Lake Nipissing lies within FMZ 11.

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 FMZ 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 In / Out Date

Ice has been recorded on Lake Nipissing in 62 winters between 1956 and 2019. The median date of complete ice cover is December 8 and the median date of complete ice loss is April 29, a median season of 142 days.

The longest recorded season is 161 days in 1983-84, and the shortest is 127 days in 1987-88.

Ice in to ice out by winter on Lake Nipissing

The record was contributed by W. R. Skinner, Environment Canada to the Global Lake and River Ice Phenology Database, and the ice was read at a weather station rather than from the middle of the lake. Observations were last contributed for 2019, and none have been added since.

Ice conditions

No public record reports the thickness or the condition of the ice on Lake Nipissing on any given day. Ontario publishes ice safety guidance for anyone going out on the ice, at ontario.ca.

See also Lake Ice in Ontario and When the Lakes Will Freeze This Winter

Getting on the water

Nine access marks are mapped on Lake Nipissing.

See also Boat Launches on Ontario Lakes

Islands and names

Lake Nipissing contains 1,037 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, 24 of them over 10 hectares and 519 under a tenth of a hectare. Twenty-seven of them lie mostly inside wetland the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset maps as marsh or open water.

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 177 official names on the water and its islands: 94 islands, 43 bays, one shoal, five rocks, two narrows, five points on islands and two rivers. A further 29 named points stand on the mainland shore.

Bays 43

• Atkin Bay
• Bear Bay
• Bear Bay
• Blind Bay
• Cache Bay
• Callander Bay
• Campbell's Bay
• Collins Bay
• Coté Bay
• Crosspoint Bay
• Deep Bay
• Durrell's Bay
• Dutrisac's Bay
• Fish Bay
• Frank's Bay
• Great North Bay
• Greening's Bay
• Hinchberger Bay
• Hunters Bay
• Keith's Bay
• Kervin's Bay
• Meadow Bay
• Merganser Bay
• Middle West Bay
• Mud Bay
• Muskie Bay
• North Muskrat Bay
• Northwest Bay
• Pike Bay
• Rogers Bay
• Round Bay
• Sandy Bay
• Sawmill Bay
• Shanty Bay
• Simpson's Bay
• South Bay
• South Muskrat Bay
• Sunlit Bay
• Tillicum Bay
• Waltonian Bay
• Warren Bay
• West Bay
• Wigwam Bay

Shoals and rocks 6

• Delorme's Rock
• Gull Rock
• Gull Rock
• Hay Rock
• Pickerel Rock
• Three Sisters

Harbours, cuts and narrows 2

• Doster's Narrow
• Hay Narrows

Points on the shore 29

• Beaucage Point
• Burford Point
• Campbell's Point
• Cross Point
• Deepwater Point
• Dokis Point
• Doran Point
• Ferris Point
• First Rocky Point
• Frank's Point
• Gibraltar Point
• Goulais Island Point
• Jennings Point
• Jocko Point
• Johnston Point
• Keso Point
• Lafleche Point
• Lake Point
• Mousseau Point
• Pike Point
• Pilot Point
• Playfair Point
• Scott Point
• Stormy Point
• Sunset Point
• Wabiscaunk Point
• Wigwam Point
• Windy Point
• Yellek Point

Communities on the lake 8

• North Bay
• Callander
• Sturgeon Falls
• Lavigne
• Garden Village
• Beaucage
• Monetville
• Wade's Landing

Nearby lakes

• Restoule Lake24 km away
• Trout Lake45 km away
• Red Cedar Lake52 km away
• Trout Lake52 km away

All lakes

Questions about Lake Nipissing

• How deep is Lake Nipissing?

  Its deepest charted contour is 70 meters, and the water within it is deeper.

• How big is Lake Nipissing?

  Its surface covers 834.5 square kilometers and it holds 1,037 islands. Of its 1,009 kilometers of shoreline, 610 kilometers is the mainland shore and 399 kilometers is the shore of the islands.

• What fish are in Lake Nipissing?

  Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 42 species, among them walleye, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, northern pike, muskellunge and lake whitefish. The lake’s spawning, consumption and stocking records also name brook trout.

• Is there a public boat launch?

  No boat launch on Lake Nipissing is marked in the records this page draws on.