Tamarack Lake

Tamarack Lake pulls a D on the LakeGrade rubric — phosphorus loading and limited clarity hold it below the Minnesota average. 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.

Eutrophic conditions are the baseline here: clarity drops noticeably in late summer, and dissolved oxygen near the bottom can become a concern. Tamarack Lake reaches 48 ft at its deepest point — typical for Minnesota mid-sized lakes, with seasonal stratification but limited cold-water refuge. The lake's 235 acres and 4.7 miles of shoreline put it in the mid-range bucket — large enough for varied use, small enough that watershed inputs reach the whole basin. Tamarack Lake ranks 28 of 33 in Carlton County — at the lower end of the locally monitored distribution.

Tamarack Lake has no invasive species recorded in Minnesota state databases as of 2023, though prevention practices still apply at all access points. Walleye are documented at Tamarack Lake, one of 15 fish species on record for the lake. Public access is available — the lake is on the Minnesota PCA public-access list. The lake has a partial ice record — 13 observed ice-outs, centered near Apr 13. 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.