Ganoga Lake

The state tried to purchase the lake in 1957, but was outbid by a group of investors who turned the land around it into a private housing development; as such it is "off limits" to the public.

The Wisconsin Glaciation some 20,000 years ago changed the drainage patterns of the lake; this diverted its waters to Kitchen Creek and carved the 24 named waterfalls in Ricketts Glen State Park in the process.

Ganoga Lake has a continental climate, with average monthly high temperatures ranging from 33 °F (1 °C) in January to 82 °F (28 °C) in July.

It is near the meeting point of Sullivan, Columbia and Luzerne counties, and is less than 0.4 miles (0.6 km) northwest of Ricketts Glen State Park.

[9] Ganoga Lake is in the Susquehanna River drainage basin, the earliest recorded inhabitants of which were the Iroquoian-speaking Susquehannocks.

After this, the lands of the Susquehanna valley were under the nominal control of the Iroquois, who encouraged displaced tribes from the east to settle there, including the Shawnee and Lenape (or Delaware).

[10] On November 5, 1768, the British acquired land, known in Pennsylvania as the New Purchase, from the Iroquois in the Treaty of Fort Stanwix; this included what is now Ganoga Lake.

[14] The lake drains into Kitchen Creek, where a Native American pot, decorated in the style of "the peoples of the Susquehanna region", was found under a rock ledge around 1890.

From 1822 to 1827 the Susquehanna and Tioga Turnpike, which followed the lake's western shore, was built between the Pennsylvania communities of Berwick in the south and Towanda in the north.

Beginning in 1827 the northbound daily stagecoach left Berwick in the morning and stopped for lunch at the Long Pond Tavern on the lake about noon.

[2][16][17] While on a hunting trip north of the lake in 1850, brothers Elijah and Clemuel Ricketts were frustrated at having to spend the night on a hotel's parlor floor.

In 1876 and 1877, Ricketts ran the first summer school in the United States at his house and hotel; one of the teachers was Joseph Rothrock, later known as the "Father of Forestry" in Pennsylvania.

[2][16] By 1874 Ricketts had renamed Long Pond as Highland Lake,[25] and by 1875 had named the highest waterfall on Kitchen Creek as Ganoga Falls.

Pennsylvania senator Charles R. Buckalew suggested the name Ganoga, an Iroquoian word which he said meant "water on the mountain" in the Seneca language.

A 3.85-mile (6.20 km) branch line of the Lehigh Valley Railroad ran from Ricketts to the north end of the lake, opening in 1893.

There was daily passenger service to Wilkes-Barre and Towanda on this line, which also served freight trains hauling ice from the lake for use in refrigeration from 1895 on.

[22][36] After World War II, William Reynolds Ricketts also sold the old-growth timber around Ganoga Lake to help pay property taxes.

"[3] The rocks underlying Ganoga Lake are from the Mississippian Pocono Formation, which is a "light-gray to buff or light-olive-gray, medium-grained, crossbedded sandstone", with some siltstone and conglomerates.

[42] The Pocono Formation formed more than 340 million years ago, when the land was part of the coastline of a shallow sea that covered a great portion of what is now North America.

The high mountains to the east of the sea gradually eroded, causing a build-up of sediment made up primarily of clay, sand and gravel.

Tremendous pressure on the sediment caused the formation of the rocks that are found at the lake and in the drainage basin for Kitchen Creek: sandstone, shale, siltstone, and conglomerates.

Kitchen Creek, which drains the lake, drops approximately 1,000 feet (300 m) in 2.25 miles (3.62 km) as it flows down the steep escarpment of the Allegheny Front.

This happened long after the sedimentary rocks at the lake were deposited, when the part of Gondwana that became Africa collided with what became North America, forming Pangaea.

The retreating glaciers also left deposits of debris 20 to 30 feet (6.1 to 9.1 m) thick, which formed a dam blocking water from draining into Big Run.

Fish which are acid tolerant are predominant, including fathead minnow, muskellunge, pumpkinseed, walleye, and yellow perch.

There are relatively few predators like chain pickerel and largemouth bass, and adult fish "appear to have good growth rates but poor reproductive success".

[7][9] Despite the increased acidity, all of the Kitchen Creek drainage basin, which includes Ganoga Lake, is classified by the state of Pennsylvania as a "High Quality-Cold Water Fishery".

[55] Under the Clean Water Act a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) has been established for acidic pollution in the Lake Jean watershed.

[9] Long term exposure to acid rain also damages soil, depleting calcium levels, which may in turn affect insect populations and reproduction in birds.

Animals found on North Mountain and in the park include squirrel, black bear, fisher, hoary bat, otter, porcupine, raccoon, and white-tailed deer.

Grass and gravel lawn in the foreground, with a pair of benches on a shoreline in the center. In the background is a smooth lake surrounded by trees under a dusk sky.
View from the southern end of the lake; the outlet for Kitchen Creek is at left
Black and white image of a two story house with dormer windows on the roof and a porch with vines on the ground floor. A standing man in a suit and two large trees are in front of the house.
The front of the 1852 stone house , which became the Ricketts family mansion on the lake (photo taken in 1935)
Pink clouds in a dark purple-blue sky are reflected in a smooth lake. At the horizon is a line of dark trees, and two branches stick out of the water in the middle of the image.
R. B. Ricketts "protected his 'pet ' ", Ganoga Lake, from clearcutting . [ 23 ]
Triangular yellow prow of a boat in the foreground, on a smooth lake lined by dark trees under and reflecting a grey cloudy sky
View of the lake from a kayak
Map shows Kitchen Creek flows southeast from Ganoga Lake, through Lake Jean, dry Lake Rose, and ten waterfalls in Ganoga Glen. A second branch flows south through dry Lake Leigh, then eight waterfalls in Glen Leigh. The branches meet at Waters Meet then flow south through six waterfalls in Ricketts Glen. South Branch Bowman Creek is east of Lake Leigh and Big Run is west of Lake Rose. Pennsylvania Route 487 runs north-south at left, and Pennsylvania Route 118 runs east-west at the bottom of the map.
Map of Ganoga Lake and the upper part of Kitchen Creek and Ricketts Glen State Park
Four image composite of a black bear walking on grass, a hummingbird hovering in front of a red plastic flower, a butterfly hanging upside down from pink flowers, and a deer with white spots and tail leaping from a road to grass.
Animals photographed at the lake (clockwise from top left): black bear, hummingbird , white-tailed deer, and monarch butterfly
Bright blue lake beneath a light blue sky, with a line of dark forest in the background. A tree branch with leaves is in the top left foreground and the top of a bush is in the bottom right corner.
Today the lake is still surrounded by forest.