Lake Bemidji covers 11 square miles and was formed by glaciers at the end of the last ice age. It is the reason the town exists: the lake gave early settlers a reason to stop here rather than push further into the north woods. Today the lakeshore park runs along the southwest shore with a public beach, a fishing pier, and a walking path that connects to the Paul Bunyan statues. In summer the city beach is busy with swimmers, and canoes and paddleboards can be rented near the park. In winter, ice fishing shacks appear on the frozen surface, some of them elaborate plywood structures hauled out by pickup truck.
The lake sits in the upper Mississippi watershed. Lake Itasca, about 30 miles to the southwest, is officially the river's source — but the water that flows out of Itasca passes through Lake Bemidji before continuing south toward Minneapolis, St. Louis, and the Gulf of Mexico. It is a strange thing to stand at the Bemidji shoreline and consider that this water, moving almost imperceptibly, will eventually drain into the ocean more than 2,000 miles away.