August, 1921 
FOREST AND STREAM 
341 
A RRIVING in Minneapolis shortly 
after these Bush Lake days we 
found that the boat was ready 
and that we might have it at any time. 
Therefore, arranging our outfit, in- 
tending to cover the entire Minnetonka 
group of lakes, we loaded the boat on 
an auto truck and had it conveyed to 
a point on the lower lake opposite 
Wayzata, once a favorite meeting place 
of the Sioux Indians, and where many 
a council fire was built. Minne- 
tonka Lake is one of the most famous 
in the northwest and well deserves 
the reputation that it has, and al- 
though its glory is somewhat tarnished, 
owing to the influx of the civilized 
element of the populace, still there is 
always room for the man who wishes 
to cast a line and who wants to spend 
a few days with the finny ones. 
In the Sioux tongue Minnetonka 
means “big water,” (Mini, water; 
tonka, big) ; likewise Minnesota (Mini, 
water; sotah, sky-colored) ; likewise 
Minnehaha (Mini, water; haha, laugh- 
ing.) Minnetonka Lake is made 
up of many bodies of water which 
would be separate lakes were it not 
for the fact that there are natural 
channels between them, thus forming 
the whole. It is spread out over quite 
a bit of ground, having several hun- 
dred miles of shore line. 
There are also islands in it, one in 
special, Crane Island, which foi* cen- 
turies has been a heron rookery and 
which is one of the few rokeries left 
in the northern states. 
Lake Minne- 
tonka is one of 
the big lakes in 
the state of Min- 
nesota, the truly 
great lakes being 
Lake 1 1 a s k a , 
which is the 
source of the 
Mississippi; Cass 
Lake, Lake Win- 
nib i g o s h i s h, 
Leech Lake, the 
Mille Lacs, the 
Min netonkas — 
while the biggest 
lake of them all 
is Red Lake. 
Born and bred 
in Minnesota, it 
has always been 
a proud remem- 
brance with me 
that I have fished 
in a region with 
more lakes to its 
credit than any other like region in the 
world. There are some states I have 
been in that boast but one or two lakes, 
and these would be passed by unnamed 
in Minnesota as ponds. Other states 
have probably ten or fifteen. Minne- 
sota has ten thousand. 
Once upon a time there was a gentle- 
man who was extremely skeptical as 
to the accuracy of this estimate, and 
demanded a recount. And, not strange 
to relate, it was discovered that there 
were more than ten thousand! Just 
so are the agnostics made to believe. 
Minnesota in area contains 84,287 
square miles, containing approximately 
53,943,379 acres. Of this area 3,608,- 
012 acres are water, the bulk of dt be- 
ing fishing water of the very best that 
one can lay eyes on. And yet with 
some of the best fishing to its credit 
to be found in the states, it remains 
the least exploited, in print from the 
fisherman’s point of view, the reason 
being that where opportunities of the 
sort are so common one is dismayed 
to find himself pouring forth praise 
not to one lake alone, but to thou- 
sands ; not being able to concentrate 
attention on one body of water where 
there are so exceedingly many like it. 
Just as distance lends enchantment to 
the view, so does scarcity of water 
impel one to a high sounding descrip- 
tion, and a just admiration; as heaven- 
sent as an oasis in the desert. (For 
instance, Thoreau and the classic he 
wrote on the shore of his beloved 
Walden Pond.) 
I N consideration of the great number 
of lakes found in Minnesota it 
should also be remembered that the 
bulk of these are found in the north- 
ern half of the state, since about half 
of its surface south and west is made 
up of rolling prairie lands and there 
lakes of course are not common. That 
makes it all the more amazing for 
most of the ten thousand lakes are in 
the northern half. 
It was of Minnesota and its lakes 
that Charles Hallock (Lariat), founder 
of Forest and Stream, wrote: “I have 
looked the entire continent over and 
am free to say that, for a country de- 
void of mountain features and partak- 
ing purely of the pastoral I have found 
none to equal this in beauty and ever- 
changing variety. The very contour 
of the land makes this possible.” 
“Consider,” he wrote, “this is the 
centre of the great reservoir system 
which supplies some of the rivers of the 
North with their common sources. So 
close together, and so near akin by 
fluvial births that the deities of the 
woods have always marveled why they 
turned their backs to each other and 
took opposite directions, one (the Red 
River) to the freezing Arctic, and the 
other (the Mississippi) to the tepid, 
sun-kissed waters of the South At- 
lantic. In the very cradle of these 
variant temperaments and erratic 
moods, in this sylvan nursery of flip- 
pant streams we find a congregation of 
lakes and feeders so numerous that 
they are hardly named or numbered. 
The state geologist enumerates ten 
thousand. In aggregation and ar- 
rangement they seem the very counter- 
part of the galaxy of stars across the 
sky. 
There are lakes of every conceivable 
confirmation and outline: round 
lakes with pebbly shores, oblong 
lakes margined with wild rice and 
reeds, lakes spangled with pond 
lily pods in June, lakes with deeply 
indented bays and projecting points 
half submerged and bristling with 
rushes, lakes with shores wooded to 
the brink and filled with wooded is- 
lands, lakes with flat shores, bold 
shores, sloping shores, lakes with con- 
fronting bluffs and promotories. There 
are lakes detached and isolated, lone- 
some lakes, lakes in clusters and in 
pairs, spectacle lakes and lakes in con- 
necting chains stretching far across 
the country and forming uninterrupted 
thoroughfares for boats and, canoes 
for hundreds of miles or more.” 
And of the fish of Minnesota he 
wrote in the 90’s: “All the lakes are 
filled with fish in 
variety astonish- 
ing. There are 
pike, pickerel, 
pike-perch, mus- 
callonge, black 
bass, silver bass, 
rock bass, calico 
bass, striped bass, 
perch croppies, 
sheeps - heads, 
suckers, red horse, 
sunfish, stem- 
winders, b u 1 1- 
heads, whitefish, 
catfish, and that 
rare variety or 
coregonus termed 
t u 1 1 i b e e. And 
blessed be the 
factl the domain 
is free, not hedg- 
ed in like most of 
the rugged wild- 
erness regions of 
the west and east. 
Ah, my comrades with the blanching 
hair! where are the haunts of our 
youth? What pleasures of angling we 
have had in the preterit! and whither 
shall we look in the future unless it be 
to the Land o’ Lakes.” 
Hallock wrote enthusiastically of 
Lake Minnetonka, as did General H. 
H. Sibley, who contributed to Porter’s 
Spirit of the Times, under the signa- 
ture “Hal-a-Dakotah.” Hallock’s boy- 
hood playmate was Captain Brooks, a 
character indeed in the early days. 
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 376) 
Our camp on Hardscrabble Point 
