If you could travel back
a few eons in time you would find out that the freezing cold
temperatures that plague our area today are nothing compared to the
temperatures of those days. Back then a huge glacier covered the land from
Minnesota to Montana. This mammoth glacier inched across the land at
the snails pace of a little over an inch a year, carving out the geography
of the land that we see today.
 This ancient glacier
shaped the land that we see today. As the glacier creeped across the
landscape, it slowly formed the land underneath it. Hills and valleys
took shape as the dirt rocks and sediment was ground underneath
the tons of snow and ice.
Over the eons there
were several glaciers, but the one that was the creator is by far the
largest example of an inland glacier. |
 The Lake Agassiz glacier also
caused several offshoot, or baby glaciers, as chunks of ice and snow
broke off from the main ice pack.
Minnesota is the land of two
thousand lakes in part because of the glaciers. Over the
centuries it dug mammoth ditches in the ground. These long, deep
"ditches" became todays lake beds. Over the years runoff,
rain, and water from the galcier filled these so that they
became today's lakes.
As the temperatures slowly began
to warm, the glacier began to melt. As the
glacier melted, the rivers and streams that
normally would have carried the water away to the
oceans became blocked by the sheer magnitude of the water that was
trying to push it's way along. Since the water couldn't make its way to
the ocean, it had to make a place for itself inland. Thus Lake
Agassiz was born. A huge expanse stretching from western Minnesota
to Montana and up into Canada, this lake must have been quite a site
to behold. Water stretched as far as the eye could see.The lake was named in honor of its
"discoverer", Dr. Louis Agassiz. |
Dr. Agassiz was born in Motiers-en-Vuly, Switzerland, in July 1807.
Dr. Agassiz had a successful medical practice in Switzerland prior to
moving to the US in 1846 to lecture at Harvard.He eventually became a professor there. He
studied zoology and geology. Dr. Agassiz was a
superb naturalist, educator and author. His was one of the
first theories of inland glaciers and seas covering North America. He
is considered the father of modern study of possible inland galciers.
 We have much to
thank Ancient Lake Agassiz for. The rich soil that graces the area was
once silt on the bottom of the lake. The flatness of the land in the plains
is due to the centuries that Lake Agassiz was all that one could
see on the horizon. But today the waves of water have been
replaced by the amber waves of grain. |
