Lake of the Woods

Lake of the Woods is a lake occupying parts of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Manitoba and the U.S. state of Minnesota. It separates a small land area of Minnesota from the rest of the United States. The Northwest Angle and the town of Angle Township can be reached from the rest of Minnesota only by crossing the lake or by traveling through Canada. The Northwest Angle is the northernmost part of the contiguous United States. Its northwesternmost point served as a problematic landmark in treaties defining the international border. Lake of the Woods is fed by the Rainy River, Shoal Lake, Kakagi Lake and other smaller rivers. The lake drains into the Winnipeg River and then into Lake Winnipeg. Ultimately, its outflow goes north through the Nelson River to Hudson Bay. Lake of the Woods is over 70 miles long and wide, and contains more than 14,552 islands and 65,000 miles of shoreline. Lake of the Woods is also the sixth largest freshwater lake located in the United States, after the five Great Lakes. The lake's islands provide nesting habitats for the piping plover and large numbers of American white pelicans and as recently as the early 20th century also provided calving habitat to boreal woodland caribou. There are also several hundred nesting pairs of bald eagles in this area. Lake of the Woods, a translation of the original French name lac des Bois, was so named from its wooded setting. However, it may have been a mistranslation of the Indian name. The earliest name we find the lake known by is that given by Verendrye in his journey in 1731. He says it was called Lake Minitie or Des Bois. The former of these names, Minitie, seems to be Ojibway, and to mean Lake of the Islands, probably referring to a large number of islands found in the northern half of the lake. The other name Lac des Bois, or Lake of the Woods, seems to have been a mistranslation of the Indian name by which the Lake was known.
Continue reading...
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.