North Bay has massive pink granite, partially tree-covered cliffs, rising hundreds of feet out of the lake along the shoreline.

During the last Ice age, glaciers scraped away a 1.6 km (0.99 mi) deep layer of rock, through to metamorphosed sedimentary deposits and the original Precambrian bedrock.

[1] As a result, the soil atop the Canadian Shield is typically thin, less than a 30 cm (0.98 ft) deep in many cases.

All of the lakes in the Shield were carved out or sculpted by glaciers, and usually have the characteristically rocky shorelines, although many depressions contain deep glacial deposits in addition to water.

In the case of Paudash Lake, the local bedrock is metamorphosed sedimentary rock, including limestone (now marble), which helps to neutralize acid rain [citation needed].

Based on this inflow, and the outflow to the Crowe River, the provincial government estimates that the water of the lake is replaced every three years.

The lake is normally totally frozen over from mid-December to the third week in April, when the ice usually breaks up.

While the first summer cottage was built on Big Island by the Johnson family in North Bay in the early 1920s, there was very little development on the lake, and indeed in Haliburton as a whole, until the late 1930s, when the two great access highways from the south were constructed.

From the 1880s to the 1940s there were commercial resorts in Muskoka and Haliburton that were accessible by railroad and boat, with local transport over dirt roads by horse and buggy and later, cars and buses.

The uncoordinated and ill-advised attempts by the government to develop Muskoka and Haliburton between 1850 and World War II for other purposes were a failure, however, due to the area's general unsuitability for agriculture and industry.

Chief Paudash's "mark" on the Treaty was, in accordance with the custom of signing as a representative of the Crane-doodem, a tiny stick drawing of a Crane (Public Archives of Canada R.G.

Despite the fact that Paudash Lake is named after an Indian Chief, there is universal agreement among anthropologists and archeologists that the Ojibwa tribe of Ontario never established regular settlements in most of Haliburton.

But this is actually irrelevant because it is common knowledge among Ojibwa themselves and among scholars of other aboriginal hunter-fisher-gatherer peoples, that they did not establish permanent settlements because they had to move from one site of hunting-fishing-gathering to another and stayed only as long as needed.

As Haliburton did, and still does, contain a tremendous amount of game, the Ojibwa tribe did use the area as a summer hunting ground at least at the time of early settlers.

At the time of the early settlers in the 1870s and 1880s, there were still small Indian hunting parties passing through the Paudash Lake area during the summer.

Aboriginal boat using hunter gatherer tribes were organized in this way - and it is a natural pattern because it can be found throughout the northern wilderness among boat-using peoples - they defined their hunting territories according to water basins, and if it was a river, then the extended families or clans claimed tributaries and lakes of that river system.

The smaller mammals include the red fox, beaver, raccoon, muskrat, mink, otter, marten, fisher, weasel, ermine, skunk, porcupine, woodchuck, red and gray squirrel, northern flying squirrel, the snowshoe rabbit, and various shrews, moles, bats, chipmunks, voles, mice, and lemmings.

[6] During the last 40 years, a great deal of time and effort has been expended by both the government and the residents to ensure that Paudash Lake remains in as natural a state as possible and free of pollution.

In addition, all property owners are encouraged to maintain their shoreline in a natural state, with attractive native foliage, and avoid fertilizing lawns.

There have been efforts in recent years to ensure the undisturbed retention of the natural wetland areas of the lake which act as both a biofilter and a refuge for wildlife.

Maintaining and improving water quality has been and continues to be a key objective of permanent and seasonal residents of Paudash Lake.

The Paudash Lake Conservation Association, formed in 1973, has been engaged and effective in a number of initiatives to support this objective.

[8] Subsequent testing by the Ministry of the Environment concluded in a 2003 report that only sites immediately downstream of Madawaska Mine (none of which are on Paudash Lake) "consistently exceeded Provincial Water Quality Objectives (PWQO) for uranium contamination", but noted as well that concentrations of uranium and radon-226 in the top level of sediments in lower Paudash Lake are higher than background levels and higher than in subsurface sediments, suggesting relatively recent dispersal of these contaminants.

[9] In general terms, the association tests each year for phosphorus and for water clarity and the results are shown to be relatively normal.

The association has significantly contributed to education and practical action in sponsoring a Shoreland Restoration Project involving the planting of indigenous plants in shoreland areas with voluntary public support in the 1990s, and subsequently in 2007 has offered a Dock Talk Program to local participants providing advice on a variety of issues affecting water quality, such as erosion, septic tank maintenance, water pollution and other issues with proposed recommendations for prevention and mitigation.

The plan, published in 2006, contains more than a hundred recommendations relating on the one hand to proposals for inclusion in official plans and zoning bylaws and on the other hand advice to local residents concerning protection of water quality, water levels and fisheries and mitigation of noise, excessive boating traffic, reduction of night light exposure and many other factors.