Our water, our stories
Guide on the lake
Gregg Schroeder runs Schroeder's Guide Service on Lake Minnetonka and Waconia Lake. He's been a fishing guide for 32 years. Schroeder grew up fishing the lakes, and also spent several years on the national professional walleye and muskie circuits.
by Peter Cox
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
Captain on the Mississippi
Captain Bob Deck, of the Paddleford Packet Boat Company, has been working on the river since 1975.
by Solveig Wastvedt
Lake Phalen, a place of community and healing
On the border of Maplewood and St. Paul, Lake Phalen serves as a center of community, the outdoors and healing. Kao Vue has been visiting the lake since moving to Minnesota from Laos 15 years ago.
by Doualy Xaykaothao
A home on the lake
Lake resident Kenzie Phelps has owned lake property since 1989 and have lived here since 1994, but traditions on the lake can go back generations. "We still feel like we're some of the newcomers around the lake because there are a lot of people who have lived here and handed down their places for years and years family after family after family."
by Kirstin Marohn
Fond du Lac Band restores wild rice to keep harvest tradition alive
For the past 20 years the Fond du Lac Ojibwe band has worked to bring wild rice back to the reservation after irrigation ditches dug a century ago nearly wiped it out. Now Deadfish Lake, Zhaaganaashiins Odabiwining in the Ojibwe language, is blanketed so thick with wild rice this time of year it doesn't even look like a lake.
by Dan Kraker
The St. Croix Superintendant
Julie Galonska is the first woman to serve as superintendent of the St. Croix National Scenic Riverway. Galonska talks about the role of the Park Service, its mission and her personal connection to the St. Croix.
by Evan Frost
We take care of the lake, and the lake provides for us
Red Lake is a nearly 300,000-acre body of water at the center of the Red Lake Reservation in northern Minnesota. Enrolled band members are the only people allowed on the lake, so it's largely untouched. Russ Brenny manages the fishery there. He says the lake is at the core of his tribe's culture.
by John Enger
Maintaining Rice Creek
The Rice Creek watershed district stretches across four counties in the north metro before the creek reaches the Mississippi River. For Shoreview residents Cyndi Kieman and Tim Sorbo, Rice Creek is something to be tended and enjoyed.
by Mike Moen