Minnesota officially has 11,842 lakes over 10 acres in size! Flying in was a crazy quilt of lakes, created by glaciers during the last ice age. Or they could have been created by Paul Bunyan, the lumberjack and his pet, Babe the blue ox. Paul was so big that he ate 40 bowls of porridge a day and used wagon wheels for buttons on his plaid shirt. The footprints that he and Babe made filled with water and became the lakes of Minnesota.