Walloon Lake

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Walloon Lake

Walloon Lake is the headwater for the Bear River located in Charlevoix and Emmet counties in Northern Michigan. Formerly known as Bear Lake, the glacierally formed lake has had a rich history. It once housed two sawmills and the surrounding wood was used to help build Chicago and Detroit. It quickly became a prime vacation spot for many. A long train ride was followed by steam ferry rides that took vacationers to their cabins. The childhood summer home of Ernest Hemingway was located on Walloon Lake. The house is still kept in the Hemingway family. A local butcher named J. R. Haas named the lake. He had seen that a group of Walloons from Belgium had settled the north end of the lake on an old railroad map, and so it was named.

Today, the once rustic shoreline of the lake is being populated with a great many large homes as real-estate value has increased rapidly since the 1970s. There are two camps on the lake: Camp Daggett and Camp Michigania. The lake is widely noted for its excellent swimming, boating, sailing and fishing.

The lake covers 4,270 acres and is primarily fed from groundwater. Its deepest hole is just over 100 ft. deep. Recently, a foreign introduction of zebra mussels has made the clear waters even clearer. For a few months after the ice melts (usually in April), it is possible to see to the bottom of the lake at depths up to twenty feet. Unfortunately, this clarity causes certain underwater vegetation to grow explosively, which clogs the lake as part of the Zebra Mussel's life cycle.