Cree Lake


Cree Lake is a lake in Saskatchewan, Canada. The lake is the fourth largest in the province and is located west of Reindeer Lake and south of Lake Athabasca. There is no highway access, but the lake is reachable by float plane.
Cree Lake Airport and Cree Lake Water Aerodrome serve Crystal Lodge, a fly-in fishing lodge.

Cree Lake settlements

A Dene settlement with an airport was located on the south-west shore of the lake. It may have been the location of a Hudson's Bay Company trading post from 1891 to 1902. In 1971 there were 36 residents.
Another settlement was located at the north-east end of the lake near the Cree River outflow. In the 1960s it had an airport, a small log church and numerous houses.
A fish plant on Turner Island was built in 1957 by Waite Fisheries and is located at co-ordinates.
Other locations on Cree Lake with populations in the 1970s were the Cree Lake Weather Station in the south-west at the entrance to Cable Bay and airfield operated by the Canadian Government, the Cree Lake D.N.S. Radio Station on Turner Island and a camp at the north-end.
Although officially named Cree Lake in 1938 the lake lies in the traditional territory of the Dene and the English River Dene Nation based in Patuanak has reserves at three sites on the lake. One site on the south west side of the lake is 1607.40 hectares another on Cable Bay is 538.30 hectares and another on Barkwell Bay at the northern end of Cree Lake is 2344 hectares.

Fish species

species include walleye, yellow perch, northern pike, lake trout, lake whitefish, cisco, burbot, Arctic grayling, white sucker and longnose sucker.

Islands

The lake has several named and unnamed islands. Some of the named islands include: