Канададағы Нипигон көлінің геологиялық құрылымы

Lake in Ontario, Canada
the defunct provincial electoral districtthe First Nations reserve
Lake Nipigon has a total area (including islands within the lake) of , compared to for Lake of the Woods. It is the 32nd largest lake in the world by area. The largest islands are Caribou Island, Geikie Island, Katatota Island, Kelvin Island, Logan Island, Murchison Island, Murray Island, and Shakespeare Island. Maximum depth is
Its original watershed area is This was increased by about 60% to after of the Ogoki River basin were diverted in 1943 to the headwaters of the Little Jackfish River, a tributary of Lake Nipigon.

Lake Nipigon occupies a basin created by repeated and preferential erosion of relatively flat lying and faulted, Proterozoic sedimentary strata and igneous sills by repeated Pleistocene glaciations. The Sibley Group consists of about of unmetamorphosed Mesoproterozoic red beds that are typically flat lying. These red beds consist of basal fluvial lacustrine conglomerates, sandstones, and shales overlain by cyclic dolomite siltstone layers, stromatolites and red mudstones, which represent a playa lake, sabkha, and mudflat environments; purple shales and siltstones interpreted as subaerial mudflat deposits; and an upper unit of cross stratified sandstone beds, which are interpreted to be aeolian in origin. They accumulated in an intracratonic rift basin between 1450 and 1500 million years (Ma) ago. The Sibley Group unconformably overlies highly deformed and metamorphosed Archean turbiditic sandstones and metavolcanic and granitic rocks. The strata of the Sibley Group fill and are limited to a rift basin known as the Nipigon Embayment that underlies Lake Nipigon. Outside of the rift basin and east and west of Lake Nipigon, the Sibley Group is absent and erosion resistant Archean rocks are either exposed at the surface or blanketed by Pleistocene glacial sediments. The Archean and Proterozoic strata are intruded by a number of mafic and ultramafic intrusions, which define the current outline of the Nipigon Embayment. They consist of relatively flat lying and undeformed diabase sills known as the Nipigon diabase sills. These sills range in thickness from a few meters to thick in cliff sections to more than thick in drill core. They are estimated to cover an area in excess of The Nipigon diabase sills give evidence of rift related continental basaltic magmatism during the Midcontinent Rift System event, estimated at 1,109 Ma ago. Thick sills up to thick are also related with the rifting event, forming cliffs that are up to high. The mafic and ultramafic intrusions in and around the Nipigon Embayment have widely been interpreted to represent a failed arm of the Midcontinent Rift System, although the lack of dike intrusions, compared to the relative abundance of flat, saucer shaped sills in the embayment, has led some researchers to question the dominant failed rift arm model. The Proterozoic rocks that underlie the Lake Nipigon region contain a variety of mineral resources. Although economic deposits have yet to be found, 1.53 billion year old anorogenic granites within the Lake Nipigon area potentially contain yttrium, zirconium, rare earth elements and tin mineralization. The clastic sedimentary rocks of the Sibley Group, are host to unconformity related uranium and redbed type copper ore deposits.

As the last ice age was ending, Lake Nipigon was, at times, part of the drainage path for Lake Agassiz.

The French Jesuit Claude Allouez celebrated the first Mass beside the Nipigon River May 29, 1667. He visited the village of the Nipissing Indians who had fled there during the Iroquois onslaught of 1649 50. In 1683, Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, established a fur trading post on Lake Nipigon named Fort la Tourette after his brother, Claude Greysolon, Sieur de la Tourette. The Alexis Hubert Jaillot map of 1685 (Partie de la Nouvelle France) suggests that this fort was somewhere in Ombabika Bay at the northeast end of the lake where the Ombabika River and Little Jackfish River (Kabasakkandagaming) empty. This post, like most of the western French posts, was closed in 1696 by order of the king, when, due to a surplus of beaver pelts, the system of trading permits established in 1681 was abolished. On 17 April 1744, the Count of Maurepas, Minister of the Marine, informed the Canadian officials that Jean de La Porte was to be given the "fur ferme" (i. e. the profits) of Lac Alemipigon from that year forward as a reward for his services in New France.

After the Treaty of Paris (1763), the area passed into the hands of the British, and the Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) expanded its trading area to include the Lake, to compete with the North West Company, who were already operating there. In 1784 and 1790, the HBC sent representatives to survey the lake, and set up their first trading post in 1792 on the north east side. Around 1821, the HBC replaced the original post with a second one in the northwest, called Wabinosh House. It was nearly abandoned due to strife and murders between local indigenous groups. Once the dispute was resolved however, the post remained open. Although it was considered to be within British North America, it was not until 1850 that the watershed draining into Lake Superior was ceded formally by the Ojibwe Indians to the Province of Canada in the Robinson Treaty of 1850, also known as the Robinson Superior Treaty. A four square mile reservation was set aside on Gull River near Lake Nipigon on both sides of the river for the Chief Mishe muckqua (from Mishi makwa, "Great Bear"). That same year, the HBC moved its trading post there from Wabinosh Bay. The post, known as Nipigon or Fort Nipigon, was headquarters of the Nipigon District from 1881 to 1892. In 1900, the post was renamed to Nipigon House, and renamed again in 1954 to Gull Bay. The diversion is governed by the International Lake Superior Board of Control which was established in 1914 by the International Joint Commission.

The aboriginal population (primarily Ojibwe) include the Animbiigoo Zaagi'igan Anishinaabek (Lake Nipigon Ojibway) First Nation, the Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging (Rocky Bay whose name changed in 1961 from McIntyre Bay Indian Band) Anishinaabek First Nation, the Bingwi Neyaashi (Sand Point) Anishinaabek First Nation, the Red Rock (Lake Helen) First Nation and the Gull Bay First Nation. Formerly, the Whitesand First Nation was also located along the northwestern shores of Lake Nipigon until they were relocated in 1942. The membership of these six First Nations total about 5,000. Additionally along Lake Nipigon, there are three Indian reserves : McIntyre Bay IR 54 (Rocky Bay First Nation), Jackfish Island IR 57 and Red Rock (Parmachene) IR 53 (Red Rock First Nation). The first nations CBC TV series Spirit Bay was filmed on the lake at the Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek First Nation Reserve in the mid 1980s.

The main line of the Canadian National Railway runs to the north of the lake. Another branch of the CNR touches the southeastern section of the lake at Orient Bay and Macdiarmid before heading inland to Beardmore. Ontario Highway 11 also skirts the southeastern section of the lake. Water travel between Lake Nipigon and Lake Superior is impossible because of the existence of three dams that effectively hinders navigation.