What is the legend of White Bear Lake?

White Bear Lake got its name from a Sioux Indian legend about a Sioux hunter who killed a white bear on Manitou Island and whose spirit lives on Manitou Island still. Manitou Days is a celebration in honor of the white bear's spirit. Nine Indian mounds were located on the Northwest shores of the lake.



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Fun Facts about White Bear Lake
  • Water level information from 1906–2002. ...
  • Watershed. ...
  • Lake area: 2,416 acres.
  • Littoral (aquatic plant) area: 1,314 acres.
  • Maximum depth: 83 feet.
  • Water clarity: 15 feet as a 9-year average from 1990-1999.
  • Dominant bottom substrate: sand, gravel and rubble.
  • Aquatic plants.


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Bear Lake contains abundant suspended microscopic particles of white-colored calcium carbonate (lime) that reflect the water's natural blue color back to the surface, giving the lake its intense turquoise-blue color.

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White Bear Lake is unusually clean as lakes in the metro area go. It sits atop a small watershed, so there aren't a lot of streams bringing in pollution.

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If you plan to camp overnight, please use one of the many public and private camping areas around the lake (see map). No camping after 10 p.m. on the public beaches or exposed bed of Bear Lake.

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It was formed by fault subsidence that continues today, slowly deepening the lake along the eastern side. In 1911 the majority of the flow of the Bear River was diverted into Bear Lake via Mud Lake and a canal from Stewart Dam, ending 11,000 years of separation between the lake and that river system.

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Bear Lake contains abundant suspended microscopic particles of white-colored calcium carbonate (lime) that reflect the water's natural blue color back to the surface, giving the lake its intense turquoise-blue color.

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Bear Lake is a natural freshwater lake on the Idaho–Utah border in the Western United States. About 109 square miles in size, it is split about equally between the two states; its Utah portion comprises the second-largest natural freshwater lake in Utah, after Utah Lake.



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Yes, there can be bears at Bear Lake. It is extremely rare to see them near the lake, they tend to stick to the higher elevations in the forested areas. Only black bears can be found in the Bear Lake area.

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Known for its intense turquoise colored water, the lake is often called the Caribbean of the Rockies. A gradual slope to the lake bottom provides an enormous swimming area in the summer. In the winter, those with buckets and nets can ice fish for the Bonneville cisco, a fish found nowhere else on earth.

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Bear Lake is stratified in summer-spring where lighter water overlies denser water. During the winter months the mixing processes of winds and surface cooling break down the layers and the lake freezes over. Bear Lake does not completely freeze over every year but typically three out of five years.

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