Keuka Lake is called the "Lady of the Lakes" because of its natural beauty. The Indian name Keuka means "canoe landing" but it was called Crooked Lake by the early white settlers. It is unique among the Finger Lakes in two ways: it is Y-shaped with a scenic bluff over seven hundred feet above lake level between the two branches of the Y, and it is the only Finger Lake that outlets into another Finger Lake, into Seneca Lake at Dresden.

    The inlet is at Hammondsport at the southern end of the twenty-mile-long lake, and the outlet is at Penn Yan at the northern end of the east branch of the Y. Branchport is at the northern end of the west branch, the branch with the deepest point in the lake, 187 feet. Its average width is three-quarters of a mile, and it is two miles wide at its widest point — the widewaters area just south of the bluff. The shore line of the lake is just under sixty miles long. Keuka Lake is one of the cleanest of the finger lakes and is rated an excellent sport fishing lake

Excerpt from Persons, Places and Things IN the Finger Lakes Region
by Emerson Klees