diff --git a/Project.toml b/Project.toml
index e4fd1c4d..03b95974 100644
--- a/Project.toml
+++ b/Project.toml
@@ -9,7 +9,6 @@ Dates = "ade2ca70-3891-5945-98fb-dc099432e06a"
 Libdl = "8f399da3-3557-5675-b5ff-fb832c97cbdb"
 MacroTools = "1914dd2f-81c6-5fcd-8719-6d5c9610ff09"
 Markdown = "d6f4376e-aef5-505a-96c1-9c027394607a"
-Pkg = "44cfe95a-1eb2-52ea-b672-e2afdf69b78f"
 Serialization = "9e88b42a-f829-5b0c-bbe9-9e923198166b"
 Tables = "bd369af6-aec1-5ad0-b16a-f7cc5008161c"
 UnsafePointers = "e17b2a0c-0bdf-430a-bd0c-3a23cae4ff39"
@@ -21,7 +20,6 @@ Dates = "1"
 Libdl = "1"
 MacroTools = "0.5"
 Markdown = "1"
-Pkg = "1"
 PyCall = "1"
 Serialization = "1"
 Tables = "1"
diff --git a/src/C/C.jl b/src/C/C.jl
index a8e7d5f8..c6573604 100644
--- a/src/C/C.jl
+++ b/src/C/C.jl
@@ -7,8 +7,6 @@ module C
 
 using Base: @kwdef
 using UnsafePointers: UnsafePtr
-using CondaPkg: CondaPkg
-using Pkg: Pkg
 using Libdl:
     dlpath, dlopen, dlopen_e, dlclose, dlsym, dlsym_e, RTLD_LAZY, RTLD_DEEPBIND, RTLD_GLOBAL
 
diff --git a/src/C/context.jl b/src/C/context.jl
index 4d83cf2a..d2fda14f 100644
--- a/src/C/context.jl
+++ b/src/C/context.jl
@@ -102,6 +102,16 @@ Execute `f()` on the main thread.
 """
 on_main_thread
 
+# CondaPkg is a rather heavy dependency so we go to some effort to load it lazily
+const CondaPkg_pkgid = Base.PkgId(Base.UUID("992eb4ea-22a4-4c89-a5bb-47a3300528ab"), "CondaPkg")
+
+function load_CondaPkg(f::Function)
+    if !haskey(Base.loaded_modules, CondaPkg_pkgid)
+        Base.require(@__MODULE__, :CondaPkg)
+    end
+
+    @invokelatest f(Base.loaded_modules[CondaPkg_pkgid])
+end
 
 function init_context()
 
@@ -125,22 +135,24 @@ function init_context()
         # Find Python executable
         exe_path = get(ENV, "JULIA_PYTHONCALL_EXE", "")
         if exe_path == "" || exe_path == "@CondaPkg"
-            if CondaPkg.backend() == :Null
-                exe_path = Sys.which("python")
-                if exe_path === nothing
-                    error("CondaPkg is using the Null backend but Python is not installed")
+            load_CondaPkg() do CondaPkg
+                if CondaPkg.backend() == :Null
+                    exe_path = Sys.which("python")
+                    if exe_path === nothing
+                        error("CondaPkg is using the Null backend but Python is not installed")
+                    end
+                    exe_path::String
+                else
+                    # By default, we use Python installed by CondaPkg.
+                    exe_path =
+                        Sys.iswindows() ? joinpath(CondaPkg.envdir(), "python.exe") :
+                        joinpath(CondaPkg.envdir(), "bin", "python")
+                    # It's not sufficient to only activate the env while Python is initialising,
+                    # it must also be active when loading extension modules (e.g. numpy). So we
+                    # activate the environment globally.
+                    # TODO: is this really necessary?
+                    CondaPkg.activate!(ENV)
                 end
-                exe_path::String
-            else
-                # By default, we use Python installed by CondaPkg.
-                exe_path =
-                    Sys.iswindows() ? joinpath(CondaPkg.envdir(), "python.exe") :
-                    joinpath(CondaPkg.envdir(), "bin", "python")
-                # It's not sufficient to only activate the env while Python is initialising,
-                # it must also be active when loading extension modules (e.g. numpy). So we
-                # activate the environment globally.
-                # TODO: is this really necessary?
-                CondaPkg.activate!(ENV)
             end
             CTX.which = :CondaPkg
         elseif exe_path == "@PyCall"
diff --git a/src/JlWrap/JlWrap.jl b/src/JlWrap/JlWrap.jl
index 79b9c6b6..802ce465 100644
--- a/src/JlWrap/JlWrap.jl
+++ b/src/JlWrap/JlWrap.jl
@@ -30,7 +30,6 @@ import ..PythonCall:
     PyObjectMatrix,
     PyObjectArray
 
-using Pkg: Pkg
 using Base: @propagate_inbounds, allocatedinline
 
 import ..Core: Py
@@ -70,7 +69,6 @@ function __init__()
     jl.Core = Base.Core
     jl.Base = Base
     jl.Main = Main
-    jl.Pkg = Pkg
     jl.PythonCall = PythonCall
 end
 
diff --git a/test/Aqua.jl b/test/Aqua.jl
index f3f26542..ae680d0a 100644
--- a/test/Aqua.jl
+++ b/test/Aqua.jl
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
 @testitem "Aqua" begin
     import Aqua
-    Aqua.test_all(PythonCall)
+    Aqua.test_all(PythonCall; stale_deps=(; ignore=[:CondaPkg]))
 end