The accumulation and emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) from high-latitude lakes has been recognized as an important contributor to the global carbon cycle and global carbon budgets. Published studies focus on the open-water season, often excluding the ice-covered period and rarely include lakes from the Canadian high Arctic. The ice-covered period is a critical component of lake carbon budgets, as the gases that accumulate over the winter and emit during the spring thaw represent a substantial fraction of total lake emissions. In this study, we collected under-ice chemistry measurements, including dissolved gases, during the early spring from 50 lakes near Cambridge Bay (Ikaluktutiak), Nunavut. The variability in concentration was substantial for CO2 (8.32-132.68 mg L-1 ) and CH4 (0.0005-3.16 mg L-1). We found strong logarithmic relationships between dissolved oxygen (O2) and CH4 as well as dissolved organic carbon (DOC) and CO2. We theorized that depth of water is the primary control on both dissolved CO2 and CH4, through a fractional freezing process that occurs during ice growth, and the development of anoxic conditions in shallow lakes. Accordingly, the variability in emission potential was considerable for CO2 (200.87 – 4080.36 mmol m-2) and CH4 (0.10 – 132 mmol m-2). We found that both CH4 and CO2 emission potential did not have a normal distribution. For CH4, 62% of lakes in the dataset were responsible for only 6.9% of CH4 emissions (low emitters), while 4% of lakes represented 18.7% of CH4 emissions (high emitters). When the emission potential data was modelled, results showed 95% of accumulated CO2 was emitted to the atmosphere within 15 days of ice breakup, and within 10 days of breakup for CH4. This data shows the substantial accumulation that can occur over the ice-covered season as well as how rapidly emissions may occur at ice-breakup. The Arctic is currently experiencing the effects of climate change four times faster than the rest of the globe through a phenomenon known as Arctic Amplification. The ubiquitous nature of lakes across the Arctic furthers the need to study seasonally ice-covered lakes as their spatiotemporal variability is an important component of the global carbon cycle and global carbon budgets. As the Arctic continues to see changes in air temperature, precipitation, runoff, and permafrost distribution the contributions and subsequent changes to these lakes must also be considered.