It's widely known that lakes in and around Calgary provide both recreational opportunities and some highly desirable residential and vacation real estate.

However, here are five things you might not know about Calgary-and-area lakes:

For many Calgarians, the idea of living beside a lake is extremely appealing. Thankfully, Calgary is home to several lake communities, and each has its own unique character and mix of amenities.

For those thinking about buying their own lakefront oasis, here's a look at each of Calgary's established lake communities to help you find the one that's right for you:

When custom-home designer Kathy Yuen purchased her first home 13 years ago, she quickly realized it wasn't the perfect fit.

"I think your first home really teaches you what you like and what you don't like," she said.

Calgary's lake communities are great for more than just summer fun

While lakes are thought of as a source of summer-time recreation, they also offer plenty of recreational opportunities during the winter months. Just ask Auburn Bay resident Sonja Hayes-Powers. She, along with her husband and two children, moved to Auburn Bay two years ago.

"We moved here specifically to be in a lake community, because it gives you lots of things to do with your kids, both in winter and summer," said Hayes-Powers. "For example, we'll be going to the lake tonight with some friends to go sledding."

Mix of young and old call Calgary's established lake communities home

When D'Arcy Duquette and his family moved to Calgary from Montreal, a lake in their new community was a must-have for his son and daughter.

"I moved them from a home where we had a big in-ground pool in the backyard and were surrounded by lakes," said the 60-year-old transportation industry retiree. "They were spoiled."

After moving into McKenzie Lake, with its 17.5-hectare man-made lake, Duquette's children happily spent summers "in their bathing suits."

McKenzie Lake is one of the older lake communities in Calgary, established in the late 1980s. Like the other more mature lake communities in Calgary, including Lake Bonavista (the first man-made lake in Canada, completed in 1968), Midnapore, Chaparral, Sundance, McKenzie Lake, Arbour Lake and Coral Springs, the majority of homes in McKenzie Lake are single-family and the resale market is the only option for prospective buyers.

Snapshots of Calgary's lake communities

Life at the water's edge may not be the defining Calgary experience. But for thousands of Calgary homeowners, life by the lakeside was a key reason they chose to buy in one of the city's many man-made lake communities. Here's a look at each of the Calgary neighbourhoods with a blue jewel of H2O at its heart, making them among the most desirable communities in
the city.

Lake communities merge city and cottage life for an experience you can't get anywhere else in Calgary

Greg Macdonald is a self-described "fishing fool."

"I'm either fishing, or thinking about fishing," he said, laughing.

This love of fishing is one of the reasons Macdonald and his wife are buying back in to the community of McKenzie Lake.

"We first bought a house in McKenzie Lake in 1999," said Macdonald.

"We sold it a couple of years ago when the market started to turn, but we just bought back in the area, because we loved lake living so much."

Small-town experiment pays off for McKenzie Towne residents

Clifford Koss and Janice Conley have called the southeast community of McKenzie Towne home for 15 years. They moved there in 2000, after renting in McKenzie Lake across Deerfoot Trail.

"We like the area so much we named our business after it," says Koss, referring to the couple's home-based distribution company, Prestwick Resources. (Prestwick is one of four areas that make up McKenzie Towne, the other three being Inverness, Elgin and High Street, a 120,000 square-foot commercial strip.)

In fact, these days Conley and Koss say they rarely have occasion to venture outside of the community.

Located in Calgary's southeast and a quick 20-minute drive from downtown, the communities of McKenzie Towne and McKenzie Lake have a little something for everyone.

McKenzie Towne

The younger of the two communities and located east of Deerfoot Trail, development on McKenzie Lake began in 1995. Divided into four sub-communities: