A small East Kootenay stillwater a few kilometres north of Moyie Lake, stocked with rainbow trout and westslope cutthroat trout from 1931 to 2007. No plants since, so it now fishes on whatever residual population that long program left behind.

Confirm the current BC freshwater fishing regulations (Region 4, Kootenay) for Hiawatha Lake before you fish, including bait, motor and any ice-fishing restrictions. Consult the official synopsis; it is not paraphrased here.

Hiawatha Lake is a small stillwater in the East Kootenay, a few kilometres north of Moyie Lake. It covers somewhere around 4 to 5 ha depending on the source, and a 1961 provincial survey put it at a maximum depth of 5.2 m, averaging 2.6 m across the basin, a shallow lake through and through, with no water out of easy casting range of a shoal or drop-off.

For an angler weighing whether Hiawatha is worth a stop, the release record is the honest answer: it was a long-running put-grow fishery, but the taps have been off since 2007. Provincial hatchery records log 43 releases between 1931 and 2007, totalling roughly 138,000 fish. Rainbow trout carried most of the program (38 releases, about 84,000 fish across a long list of strains including Fraser Valley, Pennask, Tunkwa, Premier and Gerrard Creek stock), while westslope cutthroat trout and cutthroat/rainbow crosses made up the rest, around 54,000 fish across 5 releases. The earliest record on file is a 1931 planting of cutthroat fry sourced from the Cranbrook water reservoir.

The last plant, on October 31, 2007, put 350 Fraser Valley-strain fall catchable rainbow trout into the lake. Nothing has followed it. Any fish holding in Hiawatha today are residual survivors of that program or their offspring, not a fresh annual cohort, so treat the lake as a small wild-leaning fishery rather than a put-and-take stop.

With no fresh stocking to chase, Hiawatha fishes on classic small-stillwater lines: chironomid patterns fished under an indicator over the shoals, and leech or attractor retrieves worked along whatever drop-off structure the basin holds. Because the lake is both small and shallow, the small lake stillwater approach applies directly, cast to visible structure, keep your profile low, and expect the whole lake to fish like the margin water of a bigger stillwater.

No boat launch, parking area or trail has been confirmed for Hiawatha Lake. Treat it as a walk-in or small-water proposition until that is checked locally, and confirm the launch and any shoreline access before you commit a day to it; the map shows where the lake sits relative to Moyie Lake and the highway corridor.