The Northern Lakes Conference is a high school athletic conference with its membership base in northern Wisconsin. It was founded in 1927 and all members belong to the Wisconsin Interscholastic Athletic Association.
The Northern Lakes Conference was originally formed in 1927 as Land O'Lakes Conference by eleven schools in northern Wisconsin: Argonne, Crandon, Eagle River, Elcho, Goodman, Hiles, Laona, Suring, Three Lakes, Wabeno and White Lake. Football was sponsored from the conference's inception, with five schools (Argonne, Crandon, Elcho, Goodman and Wabeno) forming the initial roster. Phelps joined the conference after the first season, and in 1929, Mountain entered the league as its thirteenth member. Minocqua became a member of the Land O' Lakes Conference in 1932, but membership stayed at thirteen schools due to Crandon's departure. That number was decreased to eleven the next year, as Mountain and Suring left to join the Marinette & Oconto Conference. Crandon reinstated full membership in the Land O'Lakes in 1934 to put the roster at twelve schools, and the conference subdivided into Northern and Southern Divisions:
In 1937, the Land O'Lakes Conference changed its name to the Northern Lakes Conference in order to avoid confusion with another conference of the same name. Membership stayed at twelve schools until the start of World War II, when both Argonne and Hiles closed, with students for both schools being redistricted to Crandon. After World War II, the Northern Lakes began sponsorship of six-player football, and three of the conference's smaller schools (Elcho, Phelps and Three Lakes) participated along with associate members Woodruff-Arbor Vitae. Their entry into the conference as full members in 1950 brought the membership roster to eleven schools. The conference's six-player football division was also ended that year, as all four participants transitioned to eleven-player football. In 1951, Goodman accepted an invitation to join the Marinette & Oconto Conference, and Elcho shifted to the Southern Division to create two five-member divisions:
Divisional play was ended in 1954, and in 1957, the number of schools in the Northern Lakes Conference decreased to eight as White Lake left for membership in the Wolf River Valley Conference and Lakeland Union High School was created from the consolidation of Minocqua and Woodruff-Arbor Vitae. Lakeland Union's tenure in the Northern Lakes Conference turned out to be short-lived, as they only spent one season in the conference before joining with larger schools in the Lumberjack Conference in 1958. Goodman rejoined the conference in 1960 after spending the previous few seasons as members of the disbanded Granite Valley Conference. In 1964, the Northern Lakes Conference added Florence as a new member, who joined after exiting the Big Six Conference in Michigan's upper peninsula.
In 1972, Pembine entered the Northern Lakes from the Michigan-based Skyline Conference and White Lake rejoined after displacement from the defunct Wolf River Valley Conference two years prior. Eagle River High School changed its name to Northland Pines High School in 1974 when they built a new facility to relieve overcrowding, and they would leave the conference two years later for membership in the newly expanded Lumberjack Conference. The Northern Lakes Conference remained a stable ten-school circuit for the next three decades before welcoming the Conserve School in Land o' Lakes into the fold in 2005. Their stay would be relatively short, as they left the conference in 2009. The Northern Lakes Conference would see four programs consolidate into two at the beginning of the 2010s, first with Goodman and Pembine in 2011 and then with Laona and Wabeno the next year. Sponsorship of football was ended after the 2016 season, and Northern Lakes joined with the Marinette & Oconto Conference and Packerland Conference to create the MONLPC Football Conference. White Lake left the conference for a second time to join the Central Wisconsin Conference in 2021, bringing the membership roster to its current total of nine schools, four of which are part of cooperative programs due to size.
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