ABSTRACT
Prior to settlement and into the early 20th century, Minnesota’s landscape was dominated by forests and prairies, highly punctuated by wet areas. Glaciers that influenced all but the southeastern corner of the state over 12,000 years ago left it with a landscape full of potholes, including Minnesota’s more than 12,000 lakes and hundreds of thousands of wetlands. (Wet areas smaller than lakes have variously been referred as sloughs, potholes, swamps, bogs, wetlands, and other monikers. For consistency, we use the term “wetland” for these features throughout this chapter.)
