| Lake Nipissing, created about 12 000 years ago, is a remnant of the Ice Ages and Glacial Lake Nipissing which covered most of the present-day upper Great Lakes.
First mapped by Etienne Brule in 1611, along with the French and Mattawa Rivers, Lake Nipissing was part of the historic voyageur fur trade route.
Nipissing ("Gichn-bee" or "big water" in Ojibway) covers 215 000 acres or 336 square miles and has an average depth of 4.5 metres or 15 feet. While not considered one of the Great Lakes, Lake Nipissing is nevertheless an enormous body of water.
Lake Nipissing boasts one of Ontario's best and most diverse fisheries with some 45 indigenous fish species including abundant walleye, yellow perch, northern pike, muskellunge, smallmouth bass, freshwater drum, lake herring, whitefish, burbot and panfish. Incredibly, five per cent (5 %) of the fishing in the entire province takes place on Lake Nipissing. The lake is also one of Ontario's most popular and consistently productive ice fishing lakes. |
