Bearskin Lake

Bearskin Lake, sometimes called West Bearskin to set it apart from nearby East Bearskin Lake, covers about 509 acres in Cook County along the Gunflint Trail near Grand Marais. It sits right at the wilderness boundary rather than inside it. Bearskin is the lake paddlers cross to reach the Duncan Lake and Daniels Lake entry points, both permitted wilderness access just beyond its shore, rather than a wilderness lake in its own right.

The lake runs deep for its size, dropping to 78 feet while averaging around 31, fed by clean, nutrient-poor glacial water. That water is clear enough, and its bottom sediment pure enough, that the federal government uses Bearskin Lake sediment as the control sample in its own toxicity testing, a baseline other contaminated sites get measured against.

The lake is also home to Camp Menogyn, a YMCA camp that can only be reached by boat.

Lake trout are the fish most worth targeting here, holding in the cold depths on a self-sustaining population that hasn't needed stocking since 2009. Rainbow smelt supply the forage that keeps them fed. Smallmouth bass turn up in strong numbers, and northern pike have been showing up more often too. Walleye, by contrast, are rarely caught here, a rarity for a lake this easy to reach.

Two accesses reach the lake: a carry-in trail on the west end that connects over a short portage to Hungry Jack Lake, and a boat launch with a dock on the east end off Clearwater Lake Road. One campsite sits on the lake itself, though most paddlers launching here are headed onward, crossing Bearskin on their way to a permit at Duncan or Daniels Lake.

Bearskin suits a paddler starting a trip into the wilderness beyond it, or an angler after lake trout close to town, more than someone looking to camp on the lake itself.