In winter, Minnesota children who dream of playing pro hockey have thousands of frozen lakes to practice on. In fact, Minnesota may have more than 20,000 lakes, despite the nickname Land of 10,000 Lakes. Larger than all of Minnesota’s inland lakes combined is Lake Superior, which borders northeastern Minnesota.
Most of Minnesota’s lakes and ponds are found in the north, near the borders of Manitoba and Quebec, Canada. South of Lake Superior, the Mississippi River, which rises in Minnesota, forms much of the eastern border between Minnesota and Wisconsin. Drier borders separate Minnesota from Iowa on the south and the Dakotas on the west. Much of Minnesota’s border with North Dakota is marked by the fertile Red River Valley, the remains of Ice Age Lake Agassiz.
Among the lakes, streams, marshes, and low hills of the Superior Highlands of northern Minnesota are the sources of three of North America’s great river systems. The Red River flows northward along the North Dakota border to Canada’s Hudson Bay. Another system drains eastward through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River to the Atlantic Ocean. The third system drains southward by way of the Mississippi River—which begins at Minnesota’s Lake Itasca, in northcentral Minnesota—to the Gulf of Mexico.
In northeastern Minnesota is the Mesabi Range, a great source of iron ore. Between the Mesabi Range and Lake Superior, rocky ridges and deep lakes occupy an area shaped like the tip of an arrow. The highest and lowest points in Minnesota are found in this “Arrowhead Country.”
Before Minnesota was settled, herds of bison and elk grazed on lush grasslands in western and southern Minnesota. Much of this prairie country, along with areas cleared of forests, is now farm country.
Today, Minnesota remains one of America’s most peaceful and scenic states, a land of farms and northern forests on the edge of the Great Plains and Canada.
The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism - Paperback
