Red Lake (translated from the

Ojibwe language Ojibwe ( ), also known as Ojibwa ( ), Ojibway, Otchipwe,R. R. Bishop Baraga, 1878''A Theoretical and Practical Grammar of the Otchipwe Language''/ref> Ojibwemowin, or Anishinaabemowin, is an Indigenous languages of the Americas, indigenous la ...

''Miskwaagamiiwi-zaaga'igan'': Lake with its liquid aterbe colored red) is a

lake A lake is often a naturally occurring, relatively large and fixed body of water on or near the Earth's surface. It is localized in a basin or interconnected basins surrounded by dry land. Lakes lie completely on land and are separate from ...

in Beltrami County in northern

Minnesota Minnesota ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Upper Midwestern region of the United States. It is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Manitoba and Ontario to the north and east and by the U.S. states of Wisconsin to the east, Iowa to the so ...

. It is the largest natural freshwater lake located entirely within Minnesota, and the 16th largest lake in the United States. The lake is separated into two sections by a

peninsula A peninsula is a landform that extends from a mainland and is only connected to land on one side. Peninsulas exist on each continent. The largest peninsula in the world is the Arabian Peninsula. Etymology The word ''peninsula'' derives , . T ...

on the eastern side that almost bisects it in the middle. The community of Ponemah lies on the peninsula. The two parts of the lake are known as Upper Red Lake and Lower Red Lake. Lower Red Lake lies entirely within the Red Lake Indian Reservation. Total size is , with a maximum depth of in the lower portion of the lake. The elevation of the lake is maintained by a dam at the outflow that is the beginning of Red Lake River, this being at the middle, western edge of Lower Red Lake. The lake is a popular destination for ice fishing. In the early 2022 fishing season an incident occurred, involving around 200 people laying on the ice sheet on Upper Red Lake. The ice sheet ruptured isolating them over a floating ice bank which separated by over from the contiguous ice. They had to be rescued. A similar incident, requiring the rescue of 122 anglers, happened in late December 2023.

History

Red Lake is a proglacial lake which was once a part of the much larger Glacial Lake Agassiz.

Legendary origin

Ojibwe The Ojibwe (; Ojibwe writing systems#Ojibwe syllabics, syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the Great Plains, n ...

story tells of a conflict between Paul Bunyan and Nanabozho (or Wenabozho) "the Greatest Ojibwe who ever lived." Paul Bunyan came to the area to cut down all the trees. Nanabozho fought him for three days to protect the forest, finally slapping Bunyan with a huge walleye. The giant Bunyan was knocked onto his buttocks in the mud, the imprint of which formed Red Lake. This is what gave the lake its distinctive shape and preserved the forests in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Ecology

Species of fish present in Red Lake include bigmouth buffalo, black bullhead, black crappie,

bluegill The bluegill (''Lepomis macrochirus''), sometimes referred to as "bream", "brim", "sunny", or, in Texas, "copper nose", is a species of North American freshwater fish, native to and commonly found in streams, rivers, lakes, ponds and wetlands ea ...

, brown bullhead, burbot, freshwater drum, golden redhorse, goldeye, lake trout, lake whitefish, lake sturgeon, largemouth bass, muskie, northern pike, quillback,

rock bass The rock bass (''Ambloplites rupestris''), also known as the rock perch, goggle-eye, red eye, and black perch, is a freshwater fish native to east-central North America. This red-eyed fish is a species of freshwater fish in the sunfish family (bi ...

, shorthead redhorse, walleye, white sucker, and yellow perch.

References

Red Lake: Blocks 1984 and 1996 thru 1998, Census Tract 9505; Blocks 1998 and 2996 thru 2999, Census Tract 9508; Beltrami County, Minnesota
United States Census Bureau\ https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/lakefind/showreport.html?downum=04003501

History

Legendary origin

Ecology

References

See also