Nothing about Lake of the Isles is natural; it is a designed landscape from end to end. When the Minneapolis Park Board took control of this marshy, shallow lake in the 1880s, it was essentially a swamp, ringed by cattails and barely navigable by canoe. Park superintendent William Berry oversaw its transformation: the lake was dredged, the two small islands sculpted and planted, the shoreline stabilized and manicured, and the parkway around it completed in 1911.
The result is 169 acres of open water with a 2.7-mile path that is among the most beloved urban loops in the country. On a summer evening the path is crowded with joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers. In winter the lake freezes solid enough to skate on, and the city clears skating lanes.
The isles themselves are wildlife refuges — great blue herons nest there, visible from the shore in spring. Minneapolis has twenty-two lakes within city limits. The Chain of Lakes — Bde Maka Ska, Lake Harriet, Cedar Lake, and this one — is the jewel of that system, and Lake of the Isles may be its most beautiful member.