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Fishing is the primary recreation activity at Lake Sakakawea. There are several boat ramps located around the lake, and most are in recreation or wildlife management areas. Shoreline Access Areas around the lake offer an additional access to the water’s edge. For information USACE-operated recreation at Lake Sakakawea visit Recreation.gov.

The Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery and Visitor Center is located downstream of the dam. The Center’s  five 400-gallon aquariums provide  viewing of the fish of North Dakota in their environment.

The 14,739-acre Audubon National Wildlife Refuge  provides several exhibits featuring wetlands, native prairie, and the abundant wildlife that can be observed across the refuge.

During normal operations, when the region is not threatened by significant storms, USACE releases stored water through five penstock tunnels to generate power and balance reservoir levels for other uses. When reservoir levels are high and operations shift to reducing flood risks to downstream communities, most often during extreme storms when rain or snowmelt fill the reservoir, dam operators can release additional water through the three regulatory outlet tunnels and through the 28 gates that run across a concrete spillway on the dam’s southeast end.

In all, the spillway was designed to release 827,000 cubic feet of water per second if needed to preserve the integrity of the dam. This flow is the equivalent of filling over nine Olympic size swimming pools each second. In addition, the eight tunnels can collectively pass 136,000 cubic feet of water per second. These controlled, intentional flows are called “non-breach” releases and may be required in the future as a result of a rare but extreme flood.

For perspective, the largest release of water was 150,000 cubic feet of water per second through the tunnels and spillway in June 2011. It is important to understand that the dam is designed to release far more water.

Garrison Dam was built in a region which served as a major transportation route. When the first fur traders arrived in the region in the 1700s, they found three Tribes of Indians settled there. The Hidatsa, Mandan, and the Arikara were farmers whose earth lodge villages served as major trading centers with the more nomadic tribes of the plains as well as travelers coming up the river.

In 1804, the Hidatsa villages on the Knife River hosted the expedition led by Captain Meriwether Lewis and Lieutenant William Clark, who had been commissioned by President Thomas Jefferson to explore the Louisiana Purchase from St. Louis to the Pacific. While at the villages, the enlisted a Canadian trapper named Toussaint Charboneau to serve as an interpreter and guide. Charboneau's wife, Sacajawea (Sakakawea - a Hidatsa word meaning Bird Woman) was a Shoshoni whose knowledge of the unknown land and people proved invaluable to Lewis and Clark and an important addition to the expedition. In honor of her courage, Lake Sakakawea was named for her.

The Lewis and Clark expedition opened the doorway to the West. Traders continued up the Missouri in increasing numbers setting up a number of small fur trading posts along the river. Federal soldiers became the next occupants of the territory as Fort Clark, Fort Abraham Lincoln, Fort Stevenson and Fort Buford were erected along the Missouri to protect steamboat traffic and settlers.

By the 1880s, the region opened to settlers. Many were farmers immigrating from northern Europe and Russia. In the Little Missouri River area, raising cattle became the primary industry. Future President Theodore Roosevelt tried his hand in the cattle business at his Elkhorn Ranch. Agriculture remained the mainstay of the economy in the 20th Century until the completion of Garrison Dam brought the recreation industry to Sakakawea County.