Alice Lake

Alice Lake covers about 1,469 acres in the Kawishiwi district, connected into the Kawishiwi River system by way of neighboring Cacabic Lake. It sits a good way in from the nearest entry points at Kawishiwi Lake and Snowbank, several lakes and portages removed from the nearest landing.

With close to 28 miles of shoreline packed into under 1,500 acres, the lake folds into bays and points rather than running as one open basin, so the water feels bigger than the acreage alone suggests. It drops to 53 feet at its deepest point, but only about 30 percent of the lake is shallow enough to hold weeds, leaving a good stretch of open water at the center.

Walleye are the fish to know here, and they reproduce well enough on their own that the population holds up without stocking. Northern pike turn up at average numbers alongside them. Cisco hold in the cold, oxygen-rich water of the deep basin, the kind of habitat a coldwater fish needs to survive through the heat of summer.

Sixteen campsites ring the lake, none of them currently closed, spread out enough across this much shoreline that groups have real room between camps. The lake's length and open center mean a straight run down its main body can build chop in a hard wind, though the bays along the edges offer somewhere to duck out of it.

Alice Lake suits a group looking for a self-sustaining walleye fishery and some real distance from the entry points, not a lake close to the landing. Its bays and points give paddlers room to spread out, without crowding sixteen campsites onto a small or simple shoreline.