Minnesota has long been known as the land (state) of 10,000 lakes. In fact, the nickname appears at the bottom of the state's license plates acting almost as a dare to come and count the lakes.
In a state that consists of 87,014 square miles can there really be 10,000 lakes? Did they mean to say Land of 10,000 Puddles?
"We may have overexaggerated just a bit," said Leonard Samuelson, president of Minnesota's Travel and Tourism Office. "We count the lakes every five years and we tend to ... round up."
Satellite images reveal that Minnesota contains 2,349 lakes that are at least 50 feet long by 65 feet wide.
"That's actually one more than I thought we had," said Samuelson, referring to the satellite count. "We knew people would discover the true number of lakes one day. We [Tourism Office] just didn't think it would be this soon."
Rumors have surfaced that to prolong the discovery of the true number of lakes the Minnesota government contacted Google to restrict satellite images of the state. However, the search engine would not comply with the request and called it "a very weird thing to ask us."
Reports also surfaced that several artificial lakes were created to "fool" satellite images by covering small areas with aluminum foil to give the appearance of a small body of water. This tactic was soon abandoned as the price of aluminum began to rise.
Why has the state gone to such lengths to portray this image of Land of 10,000 lakes?
"It's really just a case of 10,000 sounding much better than 2,349. Yes, we did round up, but it's a good rounding up." said Carol Molnau, Minnesota's lieutenant governor.
1 comment:
Those jerks! You know, I have portaged across Minnesota, and I've got to tell you: if there were really 10,000 lakes, then why the frick did I have to carry my canoe across so much LAND?!
By the way, I am going to link to you on my photoblog. If you like Phillyskyline, you might like my site. Think of it as "Chicagoskyline"
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