Lake Level

It's that time of year again when our lake begins its gradual transition from winter to spring and it becomes time to tend to the beaver dams and lake level.

In general, the moisture trend that set up late last summer and fall of 2019 continued through the early part of the winter with a lot of early snow. Gradually though, the pattern started to shift and we have dried out compared to last fall, which is good because the beavers had a busy winter! As a reference, we are attempting to keep the level of Turtle Lake in the range of 1351.0 to 1351.8 feet and as close to 1351.0 to 1351.4 feet as possible.

We were able to make our first inspection of the dams in early April 2020 and it was evident that both dams 1 and 2 had been fully rebuilt so there was little or no water flowing from the lake. Unfortunately, due to ice we were unable to take any action at that time. On April 7th, the ice around the lake level gauge was open enough to take a reading and the level was 1352.20 feet. 

We were able to start working on the dams by mid-month, and by April 22 the water was flowing from Turtle Lake at a brisk pace. We took a follow-up trip to the dams on April 26 and, even though there had been no attempts by the beaver to rebuild the main dams, it gave us a chance to clear out some debris between the dams. The last lake level reading was taken on April 26th and was 1352.16 feet, so you can see it has begun to fall.

By the look of the current lake level numbers it might appear that the lake is very high and at this moment it is. But given that April was very dry, and the water is flowing quickly from the lake, the level will continue to drop.  Please consider this as you put your dock in the water this spring.

Thanks to Jim Brauner and his son John, Tom Foehrenbacher, Tim Goserud and Dale Hill, for their efforts this spring in working on the beaver dams! We will keep you updated with the latest information.