Sunday Lake
Have not yet visited this Primitive Management Area lake. The information displayed on this page are notes used for planning a future trip to this area. Use the information on this page at your own risk.
This is a good-sized lake that is known to have plenty of fish swimming in its depths. This is probably one of the most camped lakes in any PMA since it is relatively easy to get to and because it is on a route that leads somewhere (Iron Lake to Beartrap Lake).
There is at least one good campsite on Sunday Lake fairly close to the portage where the Beartrap River spills out of the lake heading west.
The area south and southwest of Sunday Lake was most recently burned by the White Feather Lake fire in 1996. This fire scorched about 4,750 acres and started along the east side of White Feather Lake and traveled east/northeast through the area where Sundial Lake is located; then continued to just west of Sunday Lake. Prior to 1996, a number of fires affected the area in the 1800's.
The known fires in this region were the 1894 fires (possibly two of them) that are known as the Oriniack/Sioux River/Lac La Croix/Crooked Lake complex and the Chad/Cummings/Lac La Croix/Crooked Lake complex. In 1875 the Mule Creek/Sterling Lake/Sunday Lake/Crooked Lake complex burned much of the area. Eleven years prior to that, in 1864, the Little Indian Sioux River/Lac La Croix/Crooked Lake complex burned here. The oldest fire known to affect the area occurred in 1822 and is referred to as the Hook Lake/Hegman Lake/Crooked Lake complex (Heinselman, 1999).
References:
Heinselman, Miron, The Boundary Waters Wilderness Ecosystem (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1999).
Pauly, Daniel, Exploring the Boundary Waters (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005), 126, 138.
Approach to Sunday Lake
Both approaches to Sunday Lake involve paddling the Beartrap River. From the north, the approach is from Iron Lake. From the south and east, it is from Beartrap Lake. The most difficult, common approach is from the west from Sterling Lake and Sterling Creek.
Bushwhack to Sunday Lake
Refer to the Beartrap River page on this website for information on getting to Sunday Lake. The entire bushwhack, from either direction is along the Beartrap River.
Exploring Sunday Lake
There is a campsite just north of the portage where the Beartrap River flows west out of Sunday Lake. This campsite used to be maintained and is displayed in the Fisher 1980 map book. The campsite is still there and is a fine site. It is also still used regularly as Sunday Lake is a fairly populer destination considering it is located in the middle of the Sundial Primitive Management Area.
A good population of walleye and northern pike can be found by interprid fisherman in Sunday Lake.
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