Regional Context: Lakes

Minnesota's lakes are legacies of the glaciers that scoured the landscape over 10,000 years ago.

As the glaciers receded, they left behind a wide variety of depressions in the land: some shallow, some deep, some carved out of bedrock, others surrounded by sand. Many of these depressions were filled by rain and snow, and water that ran off the land.

This glacial legacy can be seen today in the lakes around the state. As one travels from the forest lakes of the northeast to the prairie ponds of the southwest, lakes are as varied as the three biomes where they occur.