page_title: Iliamna Lake
section_title: Name
hierarchical_section_title: Iliamna Lake / History / Name
caption_attribution_description: English: From John Cobb field notebook: Native with reindeer, Iliamna Lake, Alaska. Jul 26, 1917 Subjects (LCTGM): Eskimos--Subsistance activities Subjects (LCSH): Eskimos--Alaska--Iliamna Lake; Reindeer-Alaska--Iliamna Lake
context_page_description: Iliamna Lake or Lake Iliamna is a lake in southwest Alaska, at the north end of the Alaska Peninsula, between Kvichak Bay and Cook Inlet, about 100 miles west of Seldovia, Alaska.
  It is the largest lake in Alaska, third largest lake entirely in the United States, and twenty-fourth in North America. Covering about 2,600 km², Iliamna Lake is 77 miles long and up to 22 miles wide, with a maximum depth of 988 feet. Through the Kvichak River, its waters drain into Bristol Bay.
context_section_description: The lake is marked as 'Oz[ero] Bol[shoy] Ilyamna' (Big Ilyamna Lake) on the Russian Hydrographical Department's Chart 1455, published in 1852. On an earlier Russian map, from 1802, the lake was named 'Oz[ero] Shelekhovo' (Lake Shelekov) after Russian explorer Grigory Shelekhov. According to G.C. Martin, of the United States Geological Survey, Iliamna is said to be "the name of a mythical great blackfish supposed to inhabit this lake, which bites holes in the bidarkas of bad natives."
  The name Iliamna is derived from the Inland Dena'ina Athabascan name Nila Vena, which means island's lake.
caption: Men pose by the lake with their reindeer, 1917
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