Minnesota’s landscape was shaped by massive glaciers that moved south from Canada during the late Pleistocene. The people of Minnesota often have a distinctive character, in part due to their differing ethnic backgrounds. Many Minnesotans live in a vast northern wilderness. The land is dotted with thousands of beautiful lakes, ponds, and rivers, creating imagery which influences romantic feelings and emotions for those who live here and others who journey this way. A variety of animals, such as loons and beavers, thrive in the wild, and fish are abundant in the lakes. A vast swath of the south and southwest is a prairie landscape, with ecology and agriculture differing from the mixed land use and woodlands in other areas of the state. Abrupt and well-defined seasons add to the state’s bounty and color. The state has a rich cultural history. Native Americans were the first to inhabit Minnesota, over thousands of years, followed by French and British explorers and later settled by British, Scandinavian, German, and other European people. For more than 150 years, the state’s motto was “L’Etoile du Nord.” (translation: “The Star of the North”) The lyrics of the song “Notre Terre Minnesota” seek to capture all these elements and along the way embellish the grandeur of the North Star State.
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