Island Lake

Island Lake sits at the top of the Minnesota PCA grading rubric with an A, a mark reached by the cleanest lakes in Minnesota. Sub-grades cluster within a single letter of each other, which usually means the lake is in stable trophic balance rather than fighting one specific stressor.

The lake's low TSI puts it in oligotrophic territory — the cleanest of the four trophic classes, but also the most vulnerable to nutrient-driven shifts. The lake's 65 ft maximum depth is in the upper tier for Minnesota — deep enough for cold-water fish to find refuge in summer. Island Lake covers 222 acres alongside 5.2 miles of shoreline — a mid-sized water that supports a working fishery without being so large that conditions diverge between basins. Island Lake ranks 34 of 187 in St. Louis County, putting it in the upper tier of locally monitored lakes.

Island Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2024, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. The fishery includes walleye alongside the lake's other 8 documented species — a notable draw for Minnesota anglers. A documented public access point at Island Lake makes the lake usable for shore fishing, paddle craft, and trailered boats. Ice-out has been logged at Island Lake more than two dozen times, putting the median around Apr 27 — a useful baseline for tracking climate trends. Monitoring depth is thin here: the LakeGrade rubric is applied to a small number of sample years, and the grade will be revised as more data accumulates.