The Lakes Worth the Gas Out of Grande Prairie

Every July someone at a barbecue says the Peace Country has no real lakes, and every July someone else has to explain that we have plenty. They are just shallow, weedy, and the colour of steeped tea. That is a different complaint.

So lower your expectations about clarity and raise them about everything else. Here is where I'd spend the gas.

Start close. Saskatoon Island Provincial Park sits a short hop west of the city near Wembley. It isn't an island anymore, if it ever properly was. The lake is shallow and warms up fast, which makes it friendly for small children and less friendly for anyone who likes to see their own feet. It shines elsewhere. Trumpeter swans nest in the area, the saskatoon bushes earn the name in late summer, and the drive is short enough that you can go after work and still be home before the mosquitoes reach their evening shift. As a swimming lake it is fine. As an excuse to be outside without committing to anything, it is excellent.

Sturgeon Lake is the serious one. It's east along Highway 43 toward Valleyview, big enough to have weather of its own, and it has two provincial parks on its shores: Williamson and Young's Point. Young's Point has the better feel, I'd argue, with aspen forest running down to the beach and enough room that a long weekend crowd doesn't feel like a mall parking lot. Anglers come for walleye, pike and perch. Boaters come because it's one of the few lakes nearby where a boat has somewhere to go. The wind can come up across that water in the afternoon with very little warning, which is worth knowing before you paddle a kayak out to the middle on a calm morning and feel clever about it.

Moonshine Lake is the one people forget, and that is part of its appeal. It's north, past Spirit River, a small provincial park lake that gets stocked with rainbow trout. It is quiet. The campground is tidy and the lake is small enough to walk around in your head before you've finished your coffee. If your idea of a fishing trip involves a thermos and very little conversation, this is your lake. If you need a marina, keep driving. There isn't one coming.

South, off Highway 40 toward Grande Cache, Musreau Lake trades convenience for the foothills. The water is colder, the trees are darker, and the whole place feels a long way from the Costco parking lot, which, on some weekends, is the point. Pike fishing is the draw. Swimming is for the brave or the recently overheated.

A few honest notes. Blue-green algae advisories are a fact of summer on prairie and parkland lakes, Sturgeon included, so check before you let the dog in. Fishing regulations change, and they vary lake by lake, so read the current ones rather than relying on what your uncle remembers from 1994. And provincial park campsites on long weekends book up early. That is not a secret anyone is keeping from you.

My ranking, for what it's worth: Young's Point for a full day, Moonshine for a quiet one, Saskatoon Island for a Tuesday.

And yes, the water will be brown. It's tannin from the muskeg and the trees, not anything sinister. Rinse off at home and stop complaining to the person at the barbecue.