The summer village of Gull Lake is developed on the southern shore, adjacent to Aspen Beach Provincial Park, along Highway 12.

Because it is situated between the cities of Edmonton and Calgary, Gull Lake is accessible to large numbers of people.

Its clear water and sandy beaches contribute to its popularity, and the lake is heavily used on warm, sunny weekends.

Homesteaders first settled the region south and west of Gull Lake in about 1895; many of these people came from the United States.

A 26-m-long steamboat built in 1898 was used in a sawmill operation at Birch Bay on the northwest shore of Gull Lake (Coulton 1975).

[3] In 1908, Gull Lake served briefly as a hydroelectric reservoir when the Blindman River Electric Power Company Ltd. built a concrete dam on the outlet.

Water from the lake was intended to supplement the flow of the Blindman River for power generation, but the dam was destroyed by dynamite in 1910.

The same year, the summer village of Gull Lake built an earth and concrete dam at the outlet, which is now located about 1.6 km from the present shoreline (Bailey 1970).

Between 1924 and 1968, the water level in Gull Lake dropped an average of 6 cm per year, causing great concern among recreational users.

In 1967, the Water Resources Division of Alberta Agriculture undertook a series of preliminary studies to try to solve the problem.