Shortjaw Cisco

Habitat Distribution

• Native to Canada; found in at least 22 Canadian lakes spanning from Ontario and Lake Nipigon west to the Northwest Territories, plus Lake Superior.
• Extirpated from Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Erie; the Lake Superior and Lake Nipigon populations are among the best-documented remaining ones.
• The only verified Alberta record comes from Barrow Lake in the Canadian Shield region of the province.
• Occupies deep, cold, well-oxygenated lakes — typically at depths of 20–180 m in the Great Lakes, shallower in smaller northern lakes.

Key Locations

• Lake Superior — the largest remaining Great Lakes population, though numbers have declined significantly from historical levels.
• Lake Nipigon, Ontario — one of the better-documented populations outside Lake Superior, in a large, cold, deep lake well-suited to the species.
• Canadian Shield lakes from Ontario to the Northwest Territories — at least 22 lakes hold populations, though the status of most is poorly known.
• Barrow Lake, Alberta — the only verified record in Alberta, in the Canadian Shield region of the province.

Specific Spots

• Intermediate depths are the core zone — shortjaw ciscoes sit between the surface and the bottom, often suspending in the water column over deep basins where temperatures stay cold.
• In large lakes like Superior and Nipigon, fish concentrate along depth transitions where cold, oxygenated water meets the thermocline.
• Bottom structure matters less than temperature and oxygen — look for open-water suspended fish rather than classic structure like timber or rock piles.