Not long ago a Tribune reader came to the newsroom and asked me to check into something he’d heard years ago about Albert Lea Lake. He said a person had told him this particular Freeborn County lake was the seventh largest within the state.

The key word here is within. Thus, Rainy Lake and Lake of the Woods can’t be included because they are both a part of the border with Canada. Lake Superior is shared with Canada, plus the states of Wisconsin and Michigan. Lake Pepin is excluded because it’s a wide body of water on the Mississippi River and a part of the border with Wisconsin. Two other somewhat overlooked lakes, Big Stone and Traverse, are shared with South Dakota.

Eliminating these six lakes still leave a multitude of bodies of water to be considered as contenders with Albert Lea Lake for being the alleged seventh largest lake in the state.

To investigate this situation we’ll have to use the Tribune’s fact checker team to see if this specific statistic can be confirmed, is plausible or just plain false.

And just who is the Tribune’s fact checker team? That’s me, folks.

There are two ways to check out this assumed fact about Albert Lea Lake being the seventh largest within the state.

One way is to use the official Minnesota map to see if some of the lakes elsewhere in the state appear to be larger than our nearby lake.

Up north is the logical place to start this quest. It’s obvious that Red Lake (both Upper and Lower) is mighty large. Next on my list are Nett, Pelican and Vermilion lakes somewhat off to the east. Then there’s Burntside Lake just north of Ely. Another really large and famous lake up north is named Mille Lacs. Just west of the Twin Cities is Minnetonka Lake. Up in the northwest part of the state is Otter Tail Lake near Fergus Falls, plus a place named Mud Lake near Thief River Falls. And, yes, there’s another lake in the state with the rather messy name of Mud other than the small version just west of the city.

The above list of nine lakes indicates Albert Lea Lake may not be the seventh largest one in the state at all.

By using a Google search, I found out Albert Lea Lake is 2,654 littoral (actual ) acres in size. With this as the guideline, I used a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources listing of larger lakes to see where our nearby lake ranked.

This DNR list is by counties. Thus, I’m only listing those lakes larger than the one named for Albert Miller Lea.

Up in Aitkin County there’s Big Sandy. In Becker County there are Height of Land (near Detroit Lakes) and Shell. Beltrami County has Cass Lake. And in Cass County is more of Cass, plus Big Rice, Gull, Leech and Winnibigoshish.

At this point with eight larger lakes listed, I decided to cut off this part of the research project.

To really resolve this entire topic, I found another DNR listing of the 10 largest lakes entirely within the border of Minnesota. They are: one, Red Lake (both Upper and Lower); two, Mille Lacs Lake; three, Leech Lake; four, Lake Winnibigoshish; five, Lake Vermilion; six, Lake Kabetogama; seven Mud Lake; eight, Cass Lake; nine, Lake Minnetonka; and 10, Otter Tail Lake.

In reality, the other Mud Lake up in Marshall County is 23,700 acres in size and obviously replaces Albert Lea Lake in seventh place. All this clearly means this particular belief, local legend, myth or whatever is absolutely busted and really false..

Now, as a bonus, here are a few facts about the six Freeborn County lakes featured on this DNR report.

Albert Lea Lake is the largest one in the county with 2,654 acres. The maximum depth of this lake, by the way, is listed as 6 feet. In second place is Freeborn Lake with 2,222 acres, followed by Geneva Lake (2,214 acres), Bear Lake (1,536 acres), Pickerel Lake (620 acres), and Fountain Lake with its 534 acres of water, soon to be ice-covered.

Ed Shannon’s column has been appearing in the Tribune every Friday since December 1984.