Lake Jeanette

Lake Jeanette covers about 612 acres in St. Louis County, roughly 11 miles east of Buyck off the Echo Trail. It falls inside the La Croix district on paper, but the lake sits outside the wilderness boundary: no portage reaches it from the interior, and every nearby entry point sits several miles away as the crow flies. This is a lake you drive to and launch a boat on, with a concrete public ramp and access through the Forest Service's Jeanette Lake campground on its shore.

The lake stays shallow throughout, topping out at 15 feet, with aquatic plants thinning out by 6 feet down. The bottom is a mix of boulder, gravel, ledge rock, and muck, and shallow reefs scattered through the lake are enough of a hazard that they're worth watching for when running a motor.

Walleye, yellow perch, and northern pike make up the fishery, though walleye here run smaller and grow slower than the regional average, most around 13 inches. Perch are plentiful and pike average around 20 inches. White sucker round out the population, with burbot, golden shiner, and the occasional largemouth bass turning up as well.

Six campsites are mapped on the lake, part of the Forest Service's developed campground rather than a backcountry quota system, so they're reached by road, not by canoe.

Lake Jeanette suits a car-camping trip or a day of fishing off the Echo Trail rather than a paddle into the wilderness. It's a developed, motor-accessible lake at the forest's edge, without the portages that lead to the BWCA lakes nearby.