Round Lake in Emmet County is one of seventeen inland lakes and, though not exactly round, is more triangular or heart-shaped; its name comes from Native American words meaning “round lake,” Lake Wa-Ga-Mug. It covers 337 acres, or about 1/2 square mile, has a maximum depth of 14 feet, an average depth of 5.6 feet, a shoreline of three miles, about 100 million gallons of water, and a watershed of six square miles. Water flows in from an unnamed stream from Mud Lake and out through Round Lake Creek, and regular monitoring has found good water quality. Like many small, shallow lakes in northern Michigan, it is eutrophic or highly productive, with submerged plants such as pondweed, water milfoil, and chara and occasional summer algae blooms, conditions that support a diverse warm-water fishery including smallmouth and largemouth bass, northern pike, yellow perch, bluegill, pumpkinseed sunfish, brown bullhead, and many non-game fish. Round Lake was once part of larger post-glacial stages of what are now the Great Lakes, but about 3,500 years ago a sandbar formed the head of what is now Little Traverse Bay, water levels dropped, and dunes formed on the sandbar, isolating Round Lake from Lake Michigan and Little Traverse Bay. Despite lying only about a quarter mile from Lake Michigan beyond the forested dunes, Round Lake is part of the Cheboygan River Watershed, and its waters eventually reach Lake Huron at Cheboygan. Native Americans and early European explorers portaged canoes from Lake Michigan over the dunes to Round Lake, then traveled down Round Lake Creek through interconnecting lakes and rivers to Lake Huron, avoiding hazardous Great Lakes coastal travel; much of this route is now Michigan’s Inland Waterway, a forty-five-mile scenic corridor for boating, swimming, and fishing. Near the lake, Barney’s Pond was the site of the Hiawatha Pageant from 1905–1917, a rare entertainment venue in which indigenous communities, mainly Ojibway and Odawa, portrayed themselves in a play based on Henry Longfellow’s 1855 poem “Song of Hiawatha,” whose roots lay in Great Lakes stories of Nanaboozhoo told to Longfellow by Buk-wuj-ji-nini of Garden River, Ontario; later, the Odawa of Emmet County acted out these ancient tales. For many decades, a marshy cove on the far side of Round Lake has also been home to a nesting pair of Common loons, an ancient fish-eating species known for powerful diving, mating dances, and eerie calls; because loons are sensitive to human activity and their numbers in Michigan are far below historical levels, they have been listed as threatened in the state since 1987, and the pair at Round Lake is monitored by volunteers coordinated by Michigan Loonwatch.