In late spring 1791, Alexander Andreyevich Baranov, chief manager of the Shelikhov-Golikov Company in Russian America, ordered Bocharov to explore the northwest shore of the Alaska Peninsula.

In search of a portage, he traveled up the Egegik River into a large inland lake.

After making a portage from the easternmost point of the lake to the North Pacific Ocean, he returned to Kodiak and reported his findings to Baranov.

[3][4] The Russian Hydrological Department published the name "Oz(ero) Ugashek" on Chart 1455 in 1852.

Naturalist William Healey Dall of the Smithsonian Institution, later Acting Assistant to the United States Coast Survey, named the lake in 1868.