Kathio to Vineland: The History of Mille Lacs Lake's West Shore
If you drive north on Highway 169 past Onamia, the road bends along the southwest corner of Mille Lacs Lake and climbs through the hills around Vineland. It is a short stretch, but it covers thousands of years of history. Dakota villages, French explorers, pine loggers, a railroad town and a roadside trading post all left their mark here. Many of the parcels we sell sit on this side of the lake, so we wanted to share the story of the place our buyers are getting to know.
A Lake With Three Names
Mille Lacs Lake covers 132,516 acres, about 207 square miles, according to the Minnesota DNR. That makes it the second-largest lake that sits entirely inside Minnesota, behind only Red Lake.
The lake has gone by several names. The Dakota called it Bdé Wakháŋ, often translated as "Spirit Lake" or "Mystic Lake." The Ojibwe name is Misi-zaaga'igan, the "grand lake." The name most people use today came from French traders, who called the surrounding country the region of a thousand lakes. Mille Lacs simply means "thousand lakes" in French. From the hills around Vineland, where several of our parcels sit, you can see the lake stretch all the way to the horizon.
Kathio: Thousands of Years on the Southwest Shore
Some of the oldest history in Minnesota sits right next to the lake's outlet. Mille Lacs Kathio State Park protects habitation sites and burial mounds believed to date from about 3000 BC to 1750 AD. One of its earliest sites shows people making tools from copper. By around AD 1000, permanent villages stood on the shores of Ogechie and Shakopee lakes, two small lakes along the Rum River just below Mille Lacs.
Europeans arrived late in that long story. In 1679 the French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, visited the Dakota villages here and wrote the name "Izatys." Later copyists misread his handwriting, and "Izatys" became "Kathio," the name the area still carries. The next year, in 1680, a Dakota war party brought the missionary Louis Hennepin and two French companions north to a village near Mille Lacs. They stayed there that summer until Du Lhut arrived and helped arrange their return east.
In the 1700s the Dakota moved south toward the prairies of southern Minnesota as the Ojibwe moved in from the east. Ojibwe oral tradition, written down in the 1800s by historian William Whipple Warren, tells of a battle at Kathio that ended Dakota control of the area. The land became a state park in 1957, and the Kathio sites were named a National Historic Landmark in 1964.
The Rum River and the Pine Era
The Rum River starts at the southwest corner of Mille Lacs and runs 151 miles to the Mississippi at Anoka. Its name is a mistranslation. The Dakota name referred to a spirit or mystic river, and English speakers took "spirit" to mean liquor.
The Rum was also the road that pine took to market. In 1847, lumberman Daniel Stanchfield paddled a birchbark canoe up the Mississippi and Rum from St. Anthony Falls to scout the pine around Mille Lacs. What followed was decades of winter cutting and spring log drives down the river toward the sawmills. According to a historical marker at Kathio, large lumbering operations cleared most of the area's pine between 1890 and the first decade of the 1900s.
Most of the big pine is long gone, but the river is still here. Today the Rum is one of six Minnesota rivers protected as Wild and Scenic, and visitors to Kathio can rent a canoe to paddle it.
Onamia: The Town on the River
A few miles downstream, the Rum River flows into and out of Lake Onamia, and the town of Onamia grew up on the lake's south shore. The name comes from the Ojibwe word onaman, meaning red ochre, or vermilion.
Onamia started as two villages. Ericksonville was incorporated in 1898, and Onamia was incorporated in 1908. The city traces its start to 1908, when logging was still a big industry around Mille Lacs and the first trains reached town. The old Soo Line depot still stands, and today it houses the public library. The Soo Line South Trail, open to bikes and ATVs, also runs through town.
Onamia had 784 residents at the 2020 census. It is a small, friendly town and a handy stop for many of our buyers. One of our current listings, Non Conforming Riverfront Land, sits along the Rum River right in town.
Vineland: Trading Post, Museum and the Mille Lacs Band
North of the outlet, Highway 169 reaches Vineland, the administrative center of the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. Its Ojibwe name, Neyaashiing, means "on the point of land," after Indian Point on the lakeshore. Vineland had a post office from 1891 to 1921, and the community was named after Vinland, the Norse colony in North America.
In 1918, Harry and Jeannette Ayer moved to Mille Lacs, opened a roadside trading post and started a fishing resort. They collected Ojibwe-made objects for decades, first in the back room of the store and later in their own building next door. When they retired in 1959, they gave the collection, the buildings and the land to the Minnesota Historical Society. The state opened an exhibit there in 1960. A new Mille Lacs Indian Museum and the restored trading post opened in 1996, and the museum's large windows look out over the lake.
The Band opened Grand Casino Mille Lacs in 1991, built around its existing bingo hall. Casino revenue has helped the Band build and improve schools, health care facilities and community centers. Vineland counted 869 residents in 2020.
Owning a Piece of the West Shore
What we like about this side of the lake is how much of it stays open. Mille Lacs Kathio State Park covers thousands of acres of woods, trails and water. The lake draws anglers in every season, and ice fishing houses number in the thousands each winter. Onamia and Garrison are a short drive for supplies.
Several of our current parcels sit in the hills around Vineland, within a few minutes of the lake and the park. Here are a few that fit this story:
Flat Land with Lake View For Campers & Building: $18,995, about 0.21 acre, with a view toward Mille Lacs.
Land Near Lake Mille Lacs With High Valley View: $24,995, about 0.52 acre, in the wooded hills above the lake.
Non Conforming Riverfront Land: $4,995, a small 0.08-acre lot on the Rum River in Onamia.
Owning land here means your weekend spot sits next to some of the deepest history in the state. You can climb the hills at Kathio in the morning, fish the big lake in the afternoon and be back at your own campfire by dark.
If this corner of Minnesota sounds like your kind of place, browse our current parcels and reach out with any questions. We're always happy to talk about the area.
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