City: Minneapolis, MN

Category: Parks & Recreation

Description: About 2,500 acres of parkland surround Minneapolis’s Chain of Lakes, which includes Lake Harriet, Lake Calhoun, Lake of the Isles, Cedar Lake, and Lake Nokomis. The lakes are connected by Rice and Minnehaha Creeks, which makes canoeing through much of the parkland a fun trip that involves little or no docking to get from lake to lake. Both boat and shore fishing are popular in the Chain of Lakes, and many fishing piers and easily accessed shore fishing sites can be found throughout the parks.Thomas Sadler Roberts Bird Sanctuary, located on the north shore of Lake Harriet, consists of 13 acres of unapologetically wild land that attracts more than 200 bird species each year. The sanctuary is named for Thomas Roberts, the late Minneapolis physician and University of Minnesota ornithology professor who in 1932 wrote what remains the definitive work on local avian culture, Birds of Minnesota. Created by the Minneapolis Park Board in 1936 as Lyndale Park Bird Sanctuary, its name was changed after Roberts’s death to honor the man who led so many field trips here.