Home Lake
Kawishiwi Ranger District
HOME LAKE CAMPSITES:
Campsite 1 (#2097): Campsite on north side of lake just west of the Gull Lake/Home Lake portage (accessible to both hikers and canoeists)
Campsite 2 (#1890): Located on the east side of the lake
Home Lake is a relatively small lake, surrounded by a predominantly spruce forest, found just north of Angleworm Lake. Home Lake's drainage is to the north. A creek called Home Creek flows from Home Lake up to Beartrap Lake. The creek loses 58 feet of elevation between the two lakes. Home Creek is not passable. To get to Beartrap Lake from Home Lake, you will need to go through Gull Lake and Thunder Lake using the maintained portages.
There are two campsites on Home Lake. The site on the north shore is accessible to hikers who are traveling along the Angleworm Trail. That trail goes all the way around Home Lake.
There is a long portage located in the northeast corner of Home Lake that leads to Gull Lake. This portage intersects the Angleworm Lake Trail. A shorter portage of 65 rods extends out of the south bay of Home Lake and connects to Angleworm Lake.
Logging took place along the shores of Home Lake (mostly the east side of the lake) in the early 1900's and then at a smaller operational scale in the 1940's until as late as the 1970's (this area wasn't yet part of the BWCA in the 1970's). These later logging operations were conducted by the General Logging Company. This company had a temporary sawmill set up on the edge of Angleworm Lake (Heinselman, 1999).
The General Logging Company had a railway that ran up the east side of Home Lake. It crossed the existing portage between Home Lake and Gull Lake. This was part of the Cloquet Line. Remants of this old railway are easily visible on satellite images of the area. From Home Lake, this railway continued north, eventually ending near the start of the bushwhack portage that connects the Beartrap River (now in the Sundial PMA) and Beartrap Lake.
East of Home Lake (and just east of Whiskey Jack Lake), there used to be another lake known as Bull Lake. Most of this lake has dried up, but remants of its past expanse are visible on satellite images as a wetland now.
The Hook-Hegman-Crooked lakes fire of 1822 burned 48,000 acres, including some of the shoreline of Home Lake (Heinselman, 1999).
References:
Beymer, Robert, Boundary Waters Canoe Area – Volume 1 – Western Region (Berkeley: Wilderness Press, 2006), 120, 124, 127, 130, 131, 133.
Heinselman, Miron, The Boundary Waters Wilderness Ecosystem (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999), 57, 104, 114.
Pauly, Daniel, Exploring the Boundary Waters (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 129.
Rom, William N., M.D., Canoe Country Wilderness (Stillwater: Voyageur Press, 1987), 95, 96.
Exploring Home Lake
Click on the photos below to see the full resolution image - Use your browsers back button to close photo and return to this page.
Home Lake, looking north from the bay on the south side of the lake, where the Angleworm Lake portage is located.
This view is from near the middle of the north shoreline peering generally in a southward direction.
Home Lake seen from an overlook along the Angleworm Trail in the northwest part of the lake. View is to the southeast.
Route Connections for Home Lake
From Home Lake, you can portage to Angleworm Lake or Gull Lake. You can also access the Angleworm Lake Trail. Home Creek flows through the lake, but it is not navigable.
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