This legendary body of water that’s an easy drive from the Minneapolis/St. Paul metropolitan area enjoys a reputation that spreads far beyond state borders. Known first as a “walleye factory,” the lake is a bucket-list destination for anglers who want to experience walleye fishing at its finest.

The immensity of Lake Winnipeg is impossible to comprehend if you’ve not seen it for yourself. Stretching 271 miles from north to south, and nearly 70 miles at its widest, this vast vestige of the Ice Age covers nearly 9,120 square miles—roughly 4% of Manitoba’s total surface area—making it the world’s 10th largest freshwater lake.Lake Winnipeg’s north basin is larger and somewhat deeper than its south basin, but it’s in the south basin—specificall…

Spanning the border between Ontario and Minnesota, Rainy Lake is a 220,000-plus-acre remnant of former glacial Lake Agassiz, which during the glacial period covered more surface area than all of the modern Great Lakes combined.Covering nearly 360 square miles, about 70% of which lies within Ontario’s borders, the lake forms an L-shape and is studded with more than 2,000 islands. The base of the “L,” known as the South Arm, runs roughly from Kettle Falls, MN, to International Fa…

Some would say that the beautiful and bountiful northern section of Lake of the Woods is the centerpiece of Sunset Country in northwest Ontario. Roughly bounded by Kenora, Ontario, to the north, Monument Bay to the west and across the Aulneau Peninsula to Whitefish Bay in the east, this section of the magnificent lake is peppered with islands, coves and channels, and is better defined in square miles than expressed in surface acres or shoreline measurements.“The best way to describe this p…