Windigo Lake

About Windigo Lake & WLPOA

The Windigo Lake Property Owners Association (WLPOA) formed in 1992 and incorporated in 2000 with the purpose to preserve and protect Windigo and its surroundings, and to enhance the water quality, fishery, boating safety, and aesthetic values of Windigo, as a public recreational facility for today and for future generations. We also work to protect the delicate ecological balance of the lake from over development, motorized vehicle usage, pollution and over fishing.  WLPOA members include property owners and friends of Lakes Windigo, Hub and Lake 27.  To contact us, email us at info@windigolake.org.

The current Board (2024) is Dick Steininger (President), Paul Martin (Vice President), Kris Soegaard (Treasurer), Anne Marie and Mike Fries ( Membership), Open (Lake Environment and Safety Committee), Dave & Donna Roeker (Social) Barb Pjevach (Secretary), Paul Martin (Fish and Wildlife Committee), and Barb Pjevach (Communications).  We welcome all property owners and friends to become members of WLPOA.  To join here is the form to be returned to Anne Marie Fries with your dues: CLICK HERE.

Windigo Lake is a freshwater lake located in north central Wisconsin in the Town of Bass Lake, Sawyer County, United States, in township 40 north, range 9 west. The lake is irregular in shape, with numerous peninsulas and bays, and is approximately one mile in diameter. Windigo Lake is 529.6 acres (2.143 km2) in size (including islands) with a maximum depth of 51 feet (16 m) and a shoreline of 9 miles (14 km).[1] The lake does not have an obvious inflow or outflow stream and is classified as a seepage lake, i.e., a lake without an inlet or an outlet.[2]

Windigo Lake is approximately six miles south of the city of Hayward, the primary commercial and retail center of the area. The shore of the lake is principally occupied by seasonal lake cabins and homes. There is one public boat landing on the southeastern shore of the lake. Windigo Lake is a popular resort area, drawing cabin owners and visitors from the Minneapolis-St. Paul, Milwaukee, and Chicago metropolitan areas

Origin of Name

Windigo Lake is named after the Indian term “Windigo” (sometimes spelled Wendigo) which is a mythological cannibalistic creature in Ojibwa and Ottawa folklore.[3] However, the lake has not always been referred to as “Windigo Lake.” Schoolcraft, in the report of his expedition through this area in 1831, called it “Lac des Isles,” which means “Lake of the Isles” in French.[4] Captain James Allen who accompanied Schoolcraft on the expedition in the following year (1832) to the source of the Mississippi River produced a detailed map of the northern Minnesota/Wisconsin area after that trip. On this map he labeled Windigo Lake in English as “Lake of the Isles.”[5][6] The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources lake map for Windigo Lake gives “Bass Lake” as an alternative name for the lake;[1] and an article from the Sawyer County Historical Society also indicates that Windigo Lake was formerly known as “Bass Lake.”[7]

“Windigo”  translates into ” lake of many winds ” as seen by the multiple patterns of ripples on the water. The lake was considered a place to journey for inspiration and insight. It remains that way for those who know it.

History

Prior to European exploration, the area of Windigo Lake was inhabited by the Ojibwa Indians. The first known visit by Europeans to the area was around 1660. Pierre-Esprit Radisson and Médard des Groseilliers traveled from Chequamegon Bay on Lake Superior southward through the area in 1659 and stayed for a period at an Indian village that has been identified as being located on nearby Lac Courte Oreilles.[8]

Windigo Lake was apparently well traveled by Indians and early traders and explorers who used it as part of the route from Lac Courte Oreilles in the Chippewa River watershed, through Grindstone Lake and Windigo Lake and over the Namekagon Portage, to the Namekagon River in the St. Croix River watershed. A later explorer, Jonathan Carver, passed through the area in 1767 and traveled through what the editor identifies as Windigo Lake on June 29, 1767 on his way from the Indian village on Lac Courte Oreilles to the Namekagon River.[9] The area was later visited by Henry Schoolcraft in 1831 who described crossing from the St. Croix River watershed to the Chippewa River watershed by ascending the Namekagon River, crossing the Namekagon Portage, and passing through Windigo Lake (called by him Lac des Isles) and Grindstone Lake (called by him Lac du Gres) to Lac Courte Oreilles.[10]

This article was taken from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windigo_Lake