Lake Sakakawea is 294,599 acres of water you cannot see the end of from most ramps, and what kind of day you get on it comes down mostly to what the wind does to a fetch that long. Devils Lake fishes nothing like it. It is 79,098 acres spread out across low ground rather than filling a valley, water standing over ground that used to be dry, and the level it stands at has moved a great deal over the years. Then there is the other kind of water out here, the slough or the stock dam at the end of a section road, with a rough ramp and nobody else on it.
The North Dakota pack carries 18,745 charted water bodies, the third largest count of the 48 state lake packs. Of those, 1,524 carry a name, and 219 named lakes are larger than a square kilometer, which puts the pack tenth of the 48 on that measure. Depth on inland water is built from state elevation surveys, and the water bodies themselves come from the National Hydrography Dataset. That is what puts contours and a depth number on a reservoir instead of a flat blue shape.
Third of 48 for the sheer number of charted water bodies is a high place to sit, and it is worth knowing what the count is made of. The named count ranks twentieth. A pack can be third for water and twentieth for names at the same time, and that gap is the prairie. Roughly one water body in twelve here carries a name. The rest are basins with a shoreline, a shape and no label on them, and they are on the chart all the same.
That matters more than it sounds. The water somebody actually launches a fourteen foot boat on is often the one nobody bothered to name, and a chart that only draws the famous lakes leaves that man looking at an aerial photo and guessing where the ramp went. An unnamed basin in this pack has an outline you can find, measure across and plan a line on.
Of the named water, 219 lakes are larger than a square kilometer, about 247 acres. That is tenth of the 48 packs, and it is a lot of real water for one box on the map.
| Lake | Charted surface area |
|---|---|
| Lake Sakakawea | 1,192 km² (294,599 acres) |
| Devils Lake | 320 km² (79,098 acres) |
| Pelican Lake | 84 km² (20,880 acres) |
| Audubon Lake | 64 km² (15,741 acres) |
| Long Lake | 56 km² (13,838 acres) |
| Lake Alice | 44 km² (10,749 acres) |
| Lake Irvine | 43 km² (10,724 acres) |
| Dry Lake | 38 km² (9,341 acres) |
| East Devils Lake | 37 km² (9,069 acres) |
| Lake Darling | 34 km² (8,476 acres) |
| Horsehead Lake | 30 km² (7,339 acres) |
| Swan Lake | 23 km² (5,758 acres) |
The twelve largest named lakes the North Dakota pack carries, by charted surface area, measured from the chart polygon itself. The pack carries 18,745 charted water bodies in all, 1,524 of them named, and 219 named lakes larger than one square kilometer.
There is no NOAA chart for a reservoir. The federal nautical charts follow the coast and the navigable rivers, and an impoundment on a prairie river is not on them. Inland depth in Helm is built from state elevation surveys instead, and the water bodies come from the National Hydrography Dataset. That is the whole reason Lake Sakakawea reads as charted water on the screen, with contours and a number under the boat, rather than as a blue shape with a name printed across it.
A reservoir also sits at whatever level it is being held at that month. The ground under it does not move, and the ground is what the survey measured, so the contours you are reading are the shape of the basin. What changes through the season is where the surface meets that shape. A pool drawn down in August pulls the shoreline in toward the old creek channel, and the channel is still running the same line it ran in June. Read a contour on a reservoir that way and it stays useful at any level: the shoal is where the ground comes up, and how much water is over it is a question about how the pool is being held.
Your draft goes on top of that, and the shading and the shallowest point on a line you draw work the same here as they do anywhere else on the chart, which is a subject for the depth and routing pages rather than this one.
Lake Sakakawea is the largest lake the pack carries, at 1,192.2 square kilometers, or 294,599 acres. Set against the rest of the pack it is larger than the next nineteen biggest named lakes added together. Devils Lake is second at 320.1 square kilometers, 79,098 acres, and those two are the only water in the pack above a hundred square kilometers.
Below them the drop is steep. Pelican Lake comes in at 20,880 acres and Audubon Lake at 15,741, with Long Lake at 13,838. Lake Alice and Lake Irvine land within twenty five acres of each other, 10,749 against 10,724, close enough to be the same size for any purpose you have at a ramp.
The Devils Lake water is carried as separate bodies rather than one blob, so East Devils Lake has its own outline at 9,069 acres and Stump Lake at 4,324. Lake Darling is 8,476 acres and Lake Ashtabula 5,436. Twentieth on the size list is Shadehill Reservoir at 3,781 acres, and with 219 named lakes above a square kilometer in the pack, the list runs a long way further down than that.
The ten largest named lakes the pack carries, measured from the chart polygon itself:
Water spread this thin means the drive counts for as much as the run. A ramp on a far arm of Sakakawea can be a long stretch of gravel from the nearest town, and the phone out there does what it does. The pack comes down at home on wifi, and then the charts, the depth shading, the measure tool and the anchor alarm keep working at the ramp with no service on the phone.
Before an unfamiliar crossing, the measure tool earns its keep. Draw a line from the ramp to the far shore of a bay and you get the distance and the depth along it, with the shallowest point marked instead of averaged away. On 294,599 acres that is how you learn whether the direct line across a bay has a flat sitting in the middle of it, at the kitchen table the night before rather than on the water at half throttle.
The other thing to read before you leave is the afternoon. Wind across open water that long has nothing to stop it, and the column for four o'clock tells you whether the run back is going to be the same trip as the run out.
Inland lake depth comes from state elevation surveys rather than from nautical charts, and a reservoir sits at whatever level it is being held at that week. Treat the shape and the depth as a guide, keep a lookout, and verify locally.
Depth data. Lake Sakakawea is the largest lake the North Dakota pack carries, at 294,599 acres, and it comes with contours and a depth reading on the water itself. The depth is built from state elevation surveys and the lake outline comes from the National Hydrography Dataset. Enter your draft once and the water your boat cannot take shades on the chart.
All three are in the pack, each carried as its own water body. Devils Lake is 79,098 acres, East Devils Lake is 9,069 and Stump Lake is 4,324. Devils Lake is the second largest water the pack carries, and apart from Sakakawea it is the only one above a hundred square kilometers. Depth comes from state elevation surveys, so what you are reading is the shape of the basin, and where the surface meets that shape depends on the level the water is standing at.
They show up. The pack carries 18,745 charted water bodies, the third highest count of the 48 state lake packs, and only 1,524 of them carry a name. A slough or a stock dam with no name still has an outline you can find and measure across. Of the named water, 219 lakes are larger than a square kilometer, which is about 247 acres.
Helm Boating