Thumb Lake, also known as Lake Louise by the "Lake Louise Camp" community, is a

kettle lake A kettle (also known as a kettle lake, kettle hole, or pothole) is a depression/hole in an outwash plain formed by retreating glaciers or draining floodwaters. The kettles are formed as a result of blocks of dead ice left behind by retreating gla ...

located in

Hudson Township, Charlevoix County, Michigan Hudson Township is a civil township of Charlevoix County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 691 at the 2010 census. Communities *Thumb Lake is a former settlement located within the township on the eastern shores of Thumb Lake. ...

. The

epithet An epithet (, ), also byname, is a descriptive term (word or phrase) known for accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, di ...

''Thumb Lake'' derives from the lake's

bathymetry Bathymetry (; ) is the study of underwater depth of ocean floors (''seabed topography''), lake floors, or river floors. In other words, bathymetry is the underwater equivalent to hypsometry or topography. The first recorded evidence of water de ...

. An

islet An islet is a very small, often unnamed island. Most definitions are not precise, but some suggest that an islet has little or no vegetation and cannot support human habitation. It may be made of rock, sand and/or hard coral; may be permanent ...

protrudes from the lake's west basin. The total surface area of the lake is , with maximum depths of . The misnomer "Lake Louise" comes from a former Camp director who wanted to rename the lake after his wife. The lake is nestled in the highlands east of the village of

Boyne Falls Boyne Falls is a village in Charlevoix County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 358 at the 2020 census. The village is located within Boyne Valley Township. History Boyne Falls was first settled with the coming of the Grand Ra ...

, centered at , and is surrounded by wooded hills. Because of its depth and the dearth of run-off into the lake, its waters are exceptionally clear. The lake is inhabited by

splake The splake or slake (''Salvelinus namaycush x Salvelinus fontinalis'') is a hybrid of two fish species resulting from the crossing of a male brook trout (''Salvelinus fontinalis'') and a female lake trout (''Salvelinus namaycush''). The name its ...

, a stocked hybrid species (

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 ...

and

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 ...

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 ...

, smallmouth bass,

northern pike The northern pike (''Esox lucius'') is a species of carnivorous fish of the genus '' Esox'' (the pikes). They are typical of brackish and fresh waters of the Northern Hemisphere (''i.e.'' holarctic in distribution). They are known simply as a ...

largemouth bass The largemouth bass (''Micropterus salmoides'') is a carnivorous freshwater gamefish in the Centrarchidae ( sunfish) family, a species of black bass native to the eastern and central United States, southeastern Canada and northern Mexico, but ...

smelt Smelt may refer to: * Smelting, chemical process * The common name of various fish: ** Smelt (fish), a family of small fish, Osmeridae ** Australian smelt in the family Retropinnidae and species ''Retropinna semoni'' ** Big-scale sand smelt ''At ...

, and other panfish. Public access is available on the eastern shore of the lake in the form of a park with swimming beach, and on the southwestern shore in the form of a boat launch.

External links

Thumb Lake Inventory Map
produced and published by the Institute for Fisheries Research (IFR)

References

Lakes of Charlevoix County, Michigan Lakes of Michigan {{CharlevoixCountyMI-geo-stub

See also

External links

References