Siskiwit Lake is the largest lake on

Isle Royale Isle Royale National Park is an American national park consisting of Isle Royale – known as Minong to the native Ojibwe – along with more than 400 small adjacent islands and the surrounding waters of Lake Superior, in the state of Michigan ...

Lake Superior Lake Superior in central North America is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface areaThe Caspian Sea is the largest lake, but is saline, not freshwater. and the third-largest by volume, holding 10% of the world's surface fresh wa ...

. in area, the lake has cold, clear water which is relatively low in nutrients. Tributaries include the Little Siskiwit River, and the lake's outlet is the

Siskiwit River The Siskiwit River is a stream on Isle Royale in Lake Superior, in the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms the outlet of Siskiwit Lake and drops over its short course, dropping over Siskiwit Falls and entering Lake Superior at Malone Bay.U.S. Geolog ...

which flows into Lake Superior. Siskiwit Lake is available for fishing, with restrictions (no motorized boats, no natural bait).

Lake Trout The lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush'') is a freshwater char living mainly in lakes in northern North America. Other names for it include mackinaw, namaycush, lake char (or charr), touladi, togue, and grey trout. In Lake Superior, it can also ...

Brook Trout The brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a species of freshwater fish in the char genus ''Salvelinus'' of the salmon family Salmonidae. It is native to Eastern North America in the United States and Canada, but has been introduced elsewhere ...

Rainbow Trout The rainbow trout (''Oncorhynchus mykiss'') is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in Asia and North America. The steelhead (sometimes called "steelhead trout") is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coasta ...

, and

Yellow Perch The yellow perch (''Perca flavescens''), commonly referred to as perch, striped perch, American perch, American river perch or preacher is a freshwater perciform fish native to much of North America. The yellow perch was described in 1814 by Samu ...

are found in the lake. A 2004 study of

toxaphene Toxaphene was an insecticide used primarily for cotton in the southern United States during the late 1960s and the 1970s. Toxaphene is a mixture of over 670 different chemicals and is produced by reacting chlorine gas with camphene. It can be most ...

concentrations found that concentrations were lower in Siskiwit Lake trout than in Lake Superior trout, possibly due to shorter food chains and greater reliance on

zooplankton Zooplankton are the animal component of the planktonic community ("zoo" comes from the Greek word for ''animal''). Plankton are aquatic organisms that are unable to swim effectively against currents, and consequently drift or are carried along by ...

or other

pelagic The pelagic zone consists of the water column of the open ocean, and can be further divided into regions by depth (as illustrated on the right). The word ''pelagic'' is derived . The pelagic zone can be thought of as an imaginary cylinder or wa ...

invertebrates. Siskiwit Lake contains several

lake island A lake island is any landmass within a lake. It is a type of inland island. Lake islands may form a lake archipelago. Formation Lake islands may form in numerous ways. They may occur through a build-up of sedimentation as shoals, and become ...

s, including Eagle Nest Island, Teakettle Island, Lost and Found Island, and Ryan Island.

Common loon The common loon or great northern diver (''Gavia immer'') is a large member of the loon, or diver, family of birds. Breeding adults have a plumage that includes a broad black head and neck with a greenish, purplish, or bluish sheen, blackish o ...

s nest and breed on some of these islands. Siskiwit Lake and Ryan Island were together part of the subject of the Moose Boulder hoax, which claimed that a boulder existed in the seasonal pond of Moose Flats on Ryan Island in Siskiwit Lake. This would have made Moose Boulder the largest known island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island in a lake. In 2020 Moose Boulder was reported to be a hoax.

References

{{authority control Siskiwit Bodies of water of Keweenaw County, Michigan Isle Royale

See also

References