Northwest Angle of Minnesota

You can see the border dividing the United States from Canada as a broken line.

Click on the map to enlarge it for a much better view of the map area.

As you can see, the only way to reach The Angle is either by boat which would take several hours or by driving across the border just north of Warroad, Minnesota and traveling about 60 miles where you will again cross the border into the United States.

"Upon entering the Northwest Angle by road, the traveler must enter the booth at Jim's corner and report to U.S. Customs via videophone. Before leaving the Northwest Angle by road, one must report to Canadian customs from the same booth." Source: Wikipedia

The Northwest Angle of Minnesota was formed where the border between the United States and Canada juts to the north and then turns back through the Lake of the Woods. It cuts off the piece of land on about 150 square miles on the west shore of the lake. This was the result of an error that was made in 1783 when border was determined.

Most of the Northwest Angle is Ojibwa Indian Reservation and National Forest. Many of the inhabitants live on islands in the lake, but the village of Angle Inlet has a population of 100.

The Lake of the Woods boasts 65,000 miles of shoreline, 14,582 islands, 90 miles long, 55 miles wide.

The Lake of the Woods is known as The Walleye Capital of the World. Other fish you'll catch are Northern Pike, Sauger,Smallmouth Bass, Crappies and Jumbo Perch. . . That's just for starters!

In the winter, snowmobiling and ice fishing are popular.

If you are visiting The Angle and you want to fish on the Canadian side of the lake, you must register your boat by telephone at this tiny booth. Quite amazing!

Prothero's Post is an old resort with five log cabins and the lodge all of which were hand made by the owner, Bill Prothero. He and his wife (Grace) are in their 70's and built the resort in 1963 after moving from Wichita, Kansas (of all places).

The cabins are gorgeous with window boxes overflowing with flowers - it's as neat as a pin. The furniture was all handmade, too, by Bill and a good friend of his who was an old Trapper, I guess. There's a beautiful painting of The Trapper over the fireplace in the lodge.

Good friends and neighbors of ours recently built a wonderful cabin at The Angle right on the creek that flows into Lake of the Woods. They took us up for visit.

So there we were at the Angle...had a blast! I caught my very first fish ever which is kind of ironic since we live on a lake. It was a beauty...a walleye that fought for it's life but I triumphed and reeled that big boy in! Okay, slight exaggeration. Not hard at all. I will admit that at first I thought I had caught my hook on a rock and I also have to admit that catching fish on the Lake of the Woods is so easy even I can do it!

There are millions of rocks throughout the lake because it's not a very deep lake in many places. In fact, most boaters have a GPS gadget that shows the depth of the water and where the reefs and rocks are. Very cool.

After we fished for awhile we pulled up to an island for lunch. They call it "shore lunch"...supposedly because you eat it on the shore?? Lots of the islands have these spots where you can clean your fish and then cook it over an open fire.

Here's a slide show of our experience. That 20-1/2" beauty is mine.

Remember I mentioned that I caught my first fish at the Northwest Angle on the Lake of the Woods. Well, it was 20-1/2" long which is dandy size. I found a chart on The Walleye Kid website that calculates the age of the fish by the size.

Here's that chart: (you can see that my fish was almost 5 years old)

Walleye Age Chart
1 year old is 10"
2 year old is 14"
3 year old is 17"
4 year old is 19"
5 year old is 21"
6 year old is 22"
7 year old is 23"
8 year old is 25"
9 year old is 26"
10 year old is 28"
11 year old is 29"
12 years old is 30"+

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