Lake of the Woods (French: lac des Bois) 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 only be reached from the rest of Minnesota by crossing the lake or by traveling through Canada. The Northwest Angle is the northernmost part of the contiguous United States.
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 seventy miles long and wide, and contains more than 14,552 islands and 65,000 miles (105,000 km) of shoreline. It would amount to the longest coastline of any Canadian lake, except that the lake is not entirely within Canada. Lake of the Woods is also the 6th largest freshwater lake located (at least partially) in the United States- after the five Great Lakes.
The lake's islands provide nesting habitat for the piping plover and large numbers of American white pelicans. There are also several hundred nesting pairs of bald eagles in this area.
For exploration and fur trade days see Winnipeg River.
Read more about Lake Of The Woods: Governance, Recreation On Lake of The Woods
Famous quotes containing the words lake of, lake and/or woods:
“His education lay like a film of white oil on the black lake of his barbarian consciousness. For this reason, the things he said were hardly interesting at all. Only what he was.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“Wordsworth went to the Lakes, but he was never a lake poet. He found in stones the sermons he had already hidden there.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)
“Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dales and fields,
Or woods or steepy mountain yields.
And we will sit upon the rocks,
And see the shepherds feed their flocks
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.”
—Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593)