The waterfront in Lake Shetek State Park was humming on a sunny evening last summer. Boaters crisscrossed the expanse of the 3,600-acre lake, the largest in southwestern Minnesota. Bikers coasted along the park's paved roads, meandering through the campground loops. Canoeists paddled along the shore of the 1,109-acre park. Bathers basked in the warm sun on the park's beach.
Loon Island, though, was devoid of human sound. That doesn't mean it was quiet. The 45-acre island, connected to the park by a 1,000-foot causeway, is a bird sanctuary full of life. The rat-tat-tat of a redheaded woodpecker, the scolding of a squirrel and the slap of a beaver's tail hitting the water along the shore punctuated my solitary stroll on the island's guided nature trail.
Pioneers named the island for the large diving birds that they took for loons but were really double-crested cormorants.
The park and lake are also named after birds. "Shetek" is derived from the Ojibwe word for pelican. White pelicans still frequent the park.
WPA projects, fish, trails
The park boasts a handful of handsome projects of the Works Progress Administration. The beach house, for example, features finely executed stonework on a series of stairways, terraces and retaining walls.
Lake Shetek is the headwaters of the Des Moines River and a popular fishing spot for walleyes, northerns, bullheads and crappies. Located in northeastern Murray County, the park is about 13 miles equidistant from Tracy to the north and Slayton to the southwest.
The park features four camping cabins, 8 miles of hiking trails and 6 miles of paved bicycle trails. Visitors can rent rowboats, canoes or kayaks. Navigate two short portage trails and you can row or paddle on Smith and Park lakes, within park boundaries. Both lakes offer a quieter, more intimate outdoor experience than the hubbub of the big lake.
Lake Shetek lies on the Coteau des Prairies, a plateau 200 miles long and 100 miles wide at the juncture of Minnesota, South Dakota and Iowa. Buffalo Ridge, a 60-mile-long expanse of windy, rolling hills in the southeastern section of the Coteau des Prairies near the park, separates the watersheds of the Missouri and Mississippi Rivers.
