History and Geography
The forest covers 666,623 acres (2,697.73 km2). Water is abundant, with over 1,300 lakes (including Leech Lake), 923 miles (1,485 km) of rivers and streams, and 400,000 acres (1,600 km2) of wetlands.
The forest was established as the Minnesota Forest Reserve on June 27, 1902, with passage of the Morris Act. While this act mainly addressed the disposition of unallotted lands on Ojibwe Indian reservations in Minnesota, 200,000 acres (810 km2) of the Chippewas of the Mississippi, Cass Lake, Leech Lake, and Winnibigoshish Indian reservations were designated as a Forest Reserve.
The Reserve was re-established as the Minnesota National Forest on May 23, 1908. In 1928 the forest was renamed in honor of the Chippewa Indians from whose land the forest was created. Subsequent boundary expansions and land purchases increased the area of the forest to its present size. Today, approximately 75 percent of the forest's land is within the Leech Lake Indian Reservation.
Read more about this topic: Chippewa National Forest
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