All About 'The Lake' Filming Locations — And Why the Cast Loved Working There So Much

Season 2 of the Prime Video series The Lake premiered on June 9, 2023. Starring Jordan Gavaris and Julia Stiles, as well as Madison Shamoun and Declan Whaley and, since dreams do sometimes come true, Lauren Holly, as the show's title suggests, it takes place on — you guessed it — a lake.

But where exactly does the backstabbing and general family treachery play out? Read on for details of the filming locations for The Lake, which is admittedly a gorgeous setting even if how the characters on the show treat one another isn't always so pretty.

Since The Lake is a Prime Video Canada production, it won't surprise viewers that the series is filmed in and around the North Bay of Ontario.

Spots like the Gas and Go and we see in the opening scene of Season 1 are actual businesses. In this case, the Gas and Go is the Eagle Lake Narrows Country Store near Toronto.

Meanwhile, the cottage at the center of a lot of the drama — as siblings fight over who should inherit the picturesque property — was rented by crew for the production. And guess what? The lake on the series is called Trout Lake, as it is in reality.

According to Madison, who plays Billie in The Lake, shooting the show on location on Trout Lake is no small detail. “I hope people can see the lake is really a lake and not a green screen; everything you see is 100 percent real,” she said in a 2022 interview.

Jordan, who plays her dad, Justin, is a native of Toronto. He said about filming near where he grew up, “Showing up to work and knowing if you turn, you’re positioned way up on a bluff, looking out over the lake — it was quite spectacular."

For her part, Julia, who inhabits the awful stepsister Maisy-May, called working in cottage country Canada "different" and "beautiful." She also said that it felt like "summer vacation" since she got to stay on the lake during filming.

That said, when they were filming Season 1, Julia admitted COVID-19 was "spiking" and couldn't help but lament that getting across the border to film, then test and quarantine, was no picnic.

The view when she woke up in the morning made the hassle worth it, however, according to Julia.

Interestingly, Lauren lives in Toronto, and has since 2008, when she and her husband, Canadian Francis Greco, raise their family. The Dumb and Dumber alum has been a working actress in Canada for years, making her a natural fit for The Lake, playing Maisy-May's mom.

Season 2 of The Lake is available to stream on Prime Video starting June 9, 2023. And as Teza Lawrence and Michael Souther, co-founders and executive producers of production company AMAZE said about the show's return and its idyllic setting, "We can't wait for audiences to join us on this next chapter of the series and to yet again showcase the beauty of Northern Ontario as the perfect backdrop for our story."