by WisCartography

Cedar Lake

About this Map

This map features Cedar Lake near Kiel, the largest inland lake in Manitowoc County. Covering about 136 acres, Cedar Lake has a wonderfully irregular shoreline with islands, bays, points, and peninsulas that made it an especially interesting lake to map. Detailed bathymetric contours show the lake’s deeper basins, shallow areas, and changing depths around these shoreline features, while roads, homes, wetlands, boat access, and other surrounding details provide geographic context.

One of the more interesting challenges in creating this map involved the lake’s changing water level. Wisconsin DNR survey data from 1965 shows a maximum depth of about 21 feet and depicts islands that are no longer visible today. According to information from the Manitowoc County Lakes Association, the lake’s more recent stable water level is approximately three feet higher than it was at the time of that survey. I used the historic DNR depth data as the best available basis for portraying Cedar Lake’s underwater topography.

Camp Rokilio, on the east side of the lake, adds another distinctive element to the map. I spent some extra time depicting buildings and features within the camp because it contains an unusual collection of structures, including forts, a train station, a Viking ship, and even a spaceship. The map is centered on Cedar Lake rather than the entire camp, but enough of Rokilio is shown to give the eastern shoreline plenty of character.

The map also highlights fish found in Cedar Lake, including Northern Pike, Largemouth Bass, Yellow Perch, Black Crappie, and Bluegill. A public boat launch is located along the southern end of the lake.

Cedar Lake also sits within the northern portion of Wisconsin’s Kettle Interlobate Moraine, a landscape shaped between lobes of the Laurentide Ice Sheet during the last glaciation. That glacial history helps explain the rolling, irregular terrain surrounding the lake and is part of the broader landscape captured on the map.

With its varied shoreline, glacial landscape, historic depth information, and the distinctive setting of Camp Rokilio, Cedar Lake turned out to be a particularly fun lake to map.