Thunder Bay District, Ontario

Upper Shebandowan Lake

Nineteen square kilometers of cold water on Highway 11 west of Thunder Bay, with 100 islands and 117 kilometers of shoreline, charted to 36.6 meters in the 1972 survey. Seven lake trout spawning areas are mapped.

Surface: 19.0 km²
Shoreline: 117 km82 mainland + 35 islands
Islands: 100
Charted depth: 36.6 m
Depth contours: 38

All figures are derived from Ontario’s survey records.

Where Upper Shebandowan Lake is

Upper Shebandowan Lake lies in the District of Thunder Bay.

How deep is Upper Shebandowan Lake?

The deepest mapped contour on Upper Shebandowan Lake is 36.6 meters, and the water within that boundary descends even farther. Ontario’s bathymetry record holds 38 depth contours for Upper Shebandowan Lake.

The deepest charted contour on Upper Shebandowan Lake, 36.6 meters, from the survey of 23 July 1972. The circle marks the centre of that contour, and the water within it is deeper. The survey’s thirty-eight depth contours are drawn where the province published them, and along the outline where the survey placed them beyond it. Outline from the Ontario Hydro Network. Each contour is labelled with its depth in meters; zoom in where they run close.

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 Upper Shebandowan Lake is registered with the Lake Partner Program, so no phosphorus or clarity record exists for the lake.

Fish in Upper Shebandowan Lake

Ontario’s aquatic resource records name 15 fish species in Upper Shebandowan Lake. The province classes the lake as cold water. The record took effect on 8 April 2016, and it compiles what field biologists had reported by then.

Eight of the fifteen species in the province’s records

Lake Trouttrout and whitefish
Lake Whitefishtrout and whitefish
Ciscotrout and whitefish
Northern Pikepike
Walleyeperch
Yellow Perchperch
Smallmouth Basssunfish
Burbotcod

The other seven species in the province’s records
Family	Species
Perch	logperch
Sucker	white sucker
Minnow	blacknose shiner
Sculpin	deepwater sculpin, mottled sculpin, sculpins
Trout-perch	trout-perch

Spawning areas

Ontario maps 10 fish spawning records within the Upper Shebandowan Lake outline, for two species, all of them mapped areas. Every record is recorded as verified and presently suitable, and none is classed as sensitive.

By number of records

By area mapped

Lake Trout7 areas1.1 ha
Walleye3 areas148.5 ha

Spawning records mapped by the province within the Upper Shebandowan Lake outline. A record under 100 square meters is drawn as a dot; a spawning area is drawn as the outline mapped. One colour per species, the same as the bars and the list above.

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.

Fisheries Management Zone 6

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

Zone 6 seasons and limits, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence
Atlantic Salmon	Open all year	1	0
Brook Trout	4th Sat. in Apr. – Labour Day	5, not more than 1 greater than 30 cm (11.8 in.)	2, not more than 1 greater than 30 cm (11.8 in.)
Brown Trout	Open all year	5	2
Channel Catfish	Open all year	12	6
Crappie	Open all year	15	10
Lake Trout	Jan. 1 – Sept. 30	2, not more than 1 greater than 56 cm (22 in.) from Sept. 1 – Sept. 30; no size limit rest of year	1, no size limit
Lake Whitefish	Open all year	12	6
Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass or any combination	Open all year	4	2
Muskellunge	3rd Sat. in June – Dec. 15	1, must be greater than 91 cm (36 in.)	0
Northern Pike	Open all year	4, not more than 1 greater than or equal to 70 cm (27.6 in.)	2, not more than 1 greater than or equal to 70 cm (27.6 in.)
Pacific Salmon	Open all year	5	2
Rainbow Trout	Open all year	1	0
Splake	Open all year	5	2
Sunfish	Open all year	50	25
Walleye and Sauger or any combination	Jan. 1 – Apr. 14 & 3rd Sat. in May – Dec. 31	4, not more than 1 greater than 46 cm (18.1 in.)	2, not more than 1 greater than 46 cm (18.1 in.)
Yellow Perch	Open all year	50	25

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 except where exceptions apply.

Exceptions for Upper Shebandowan Lake itself, 2026
Species	Open season	Sport licence	Conservation licence
Lake Trout	Closed all year	Zone-wide	Zone-wide

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

Fish sanctuaries recorded for Upper Shebandowan Lake
Where	Closed
Kashabowie River – from the dam on Kashabowie Lake to the island in Upper Shebandowan Lake	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31
Greenwater Creek – from the dam on Greenwater Creek to the first island in Upper Shebandowan Lake	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31
Sawmill Creek and Sawmill Bay of Upper Shebandowan Lake	No fishing from Apr. 1 – May 31

Islands and names

Upper Shebandowan Lake contains 100 islands in the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, two of them over 10 hectares and 47 under a tenth of a hectare.

The ten largest islands, numbered to the table. Areas are measured on the province’s outline.

The ten largest islands
	Island	Hectares
1	unnamed	27.1
2	Copper Island	17.3
3	Anderson Island	9.4
4	Boyes Island	7.3
5	unnamed	7.0
6	unnamed	4.4
7	Birch Island	4.3
8	unnamed	3.8
9	unnamed	3.3
10	Pernu Island	2.4

Official names

Ontario’s geographic names register lists 11 official names on the water and its islands: 6 islands, two bays and one river.

Bays 2

Sawmill Bay
Three Mile Bay

Nearby lakes

Lac des Mille Lacs27 km away
Whitefish Lake55 km away
Dog Lake72 km away
Hawkeye Lake74 km away

All lakes

Questions about Upper Shebandowan Lake

How deep is Upper Shebandowan Lake?
Its deepest charted contour is 36.6 meters, and the water within it is deeper.
How big is Upper Shebandowan Lake?
Its surface covers 19.0 square kilometers and it holds 100 islands. Of its 117 kilometers of shoreline, 82 kilometers is the mainland shore and 35 kilometers is the shore of the islands.
What fish are in Upper Shebandowan Lake?
Ontario’s aquatic resource records name fifteen species, among them lake trout, walleye, smallmouth bass, northern pike, lake whitefish and yellow perch.

A print of Upper Shebandowan Lake

Upper Shebandowan Lake has not yet been drawn as a print. The lakes drawn so far are on the lake maps page, and a print of Upper Shebandowan Lake can be requested by email; whether it can be drawn is confirmed before any payment.

Ask about a Upper Shebandowan Lake print

Looking at a property on Upper Shebandowan Lake?

Depth and water quality are two records out of many. Our Rural & Cottage Buyer’s Report gathers what the public record holds about one specific address: shore road allowance, road access, wells, flood mapping, Crown land, wetlands and more, read and checked by a person before it is sent.

See what is in the report

What these figures do and do not say

Depth: A depth reading is the distance from the water surface on the day of survey to the lake bottom. Lake levels vary through the season and between years. The depth figure above is the deepest contour charted and is a minimum; the depth within it was not recorded. The figures for Upper Shebandowan Lake are read from the province’s bathymetry records within the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline of the lake: the deepest figure is the deepest record inside that outline, and the count is every record inside it.
Shoreline and surface: The shoreline figure is the length of the mainland shore and of every island shore added together, measured on the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline of the lake. The surface figure is the area of water inside that outline, less the area of its islands. The provincial outline is mapped to within a few meters of the shore, and a shoreline measured from a coarser map comes out shorter, which is why a figure published elsewhere is often lower.
Survey coverage: Not every survey covered every arm of a lake, and the province’s index does not always record where a survey ended.
Nearby lakes: Distances are measured between lake centres.
Islands and names: Islands are counted and measured on the Ontario Hydro Network outline; names are the register’s, placed by its own coordinate. The register names islands the outline draws as part of a larger one, and the outline holds islands the register has not named, so the two counts differ. The outline carries some lakes across marsh, so a gap in the marsh is drawn as land, and every such gap is included in the island count. Where the register has not named one and it lies mostly inside a wetland in the province’s Wetland With Significance dataset, the page names the wetland and the table of largest islands leaves it out. Wetland boundaries are mapped at their own scale and can cover a small island whole.
Depth contours: Each contour is drawn where the survey placed it, at the survey’s own positional accuracy. The survey carries its own shoreline, which differs from the Ontario Hydro Network’s outline, so a contour near the shore can run to or past the outline. Such a stretch is drawn along the outline, as a drawing convention, and is not the survey’s line there. The contour count in the stat band is the province’s, and it includes the survey’s own shoreline contour, one ring around the mainland and one around each charted island, which the map leaves off; the map’s small print gives the split.
Location: Municipal boundaries are read from the province’s records as published and can lag a boundary change.
Fish: Ontario’s fish records are compilations of existing knowledge from field biologists and do not represent exhaustive inventories. A species that is not listed was not ruled out. The species list carries one date for the whole record and none for any species.
Spawning areas: A spawning area is drawn where the province mapped it, at the province’s stated accuracy, and the record says nothing about how many fish use it in a given year. A nest record is one nest seen on one day; a count of nests is not a count of fish, and a count of records is not a comparison between species. Whether a given piece of work needs an authorization is a determination made by Fisheries and Oceans Canada on the work itself.
Fishing rules: Seasons and limits are the zone’s, for the year of the dataset the page was built from, and a licence’s own conditions and any waterbody exception apply over them. The province’s regulations summary is the authority.

Where these figures come from

Depth, shoreline, islands and named places: Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources bathymetry and the Ontario Hydro Network, © King’s Printer for Ontario, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Aerial photography: Ontario Imagery Web Map Service, Open Government Licence – Ontario, drawing this frame from Northwestern Ontario Orthophotography Project 2017, Forest Resource Inventory T2 (T2) 2018-2027 and Sentinel 2 2025, satellite.
Official names: Geographic Names Ontario, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario. Marinas: Overture Maps Foundation places data, CDLA-Permissive 2.0.
Lake outline and municipal boundaries: Ontario Hydro Network and Ontario municipal boundary records, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Fish species and thermal regime: Ontario Aquatic Resource Area records. Spawning areas: Ontario Fish Activity Area records. Both Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Seasons and limits: Ontario recreational fishing regulations data, Ministry of Natural Resources, Open Government Licence – Ontario.
Fish plates: Duane Raver, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; Ellen Edmonson and Hugh Chrisp, New York State Conservation Department; Timothy Knepp, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. All public domain.