It is located on Baffin Island's Meta Incognita Peninsula.

The Inuit name references the lake's meromictic attribute, a mixture of fresh and salt water caused by a set of reversing falls and 9–10 m (30–33 ft) tides in Pleasant Inlet.

The hamlet of Kimmirut (previously, Lake Harbour) is situated at Glasgow Bay.

In 1911, Hudson's Bay Company established its first south Baffin trading post at Lake Harbour.

[3] The river and lake were named by Canadian biologist and Arctic explorer, J. Dewey Soper who travelled in the area in 1931.