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