Lac Qui Parle

Lac qui Parle is a reservoir on the Minnesota River in western Minnesota. It lies in Chippewa, Lac qui Parle and Swift counties, and the Minnesota River is both its main inflow and its outflow. The lake's northern tip is about 3 miles southeast of Appleton. From there it runs 10 miles southeast to Lac qui Parle Dam, about 4 miles west of Watson. Workers hired through the Works Progress Administration built the dam as part of the Lac qui Parle Flood Control Project, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the State of Minnesota as partners. Minnesota DNR dates the dam's completion to 1941; Wikipedia gives 1939 and says the dam was rebuilt in 1996. The dam raised the river about 8 feet to form the lake. Marsh Lake Dam is 17 miles upstream. The Chippewa Control Works and the Watson Sag Weir send high water from the Chippewa River into the lake to keep floods away from Montevideo and other towns downstream. State Highway 40 crosses the lake at Milan on a causeway lined with riprap. The name is a French translation of the Dakota name Mde Iyedan, meaning "lake which speaks."

Public water access sites around the lake include Milan Bridge, Watson Sag, Boyd Landing, Hantho Landing, Englebretzen and Voldin's Pit. Lac qui Parle State Park sits on the southern part of the lake. The 24,300-acre Lac qui Parle Wildlife Management Area includes a state game refuge and waterfowl sanctuaries, and thousands of migrating Canada geese stop at the lake.

The Lac qui Parle Lake Association, a nonprofit formed in 1982, works with the DNR. It has helped pay for walleye stocking, fishing piers, boat ramps and riprap on eroding shorelines, and it holds a yearly walleye tournament.