Canoeing the Chain, From Isles to Cedar and Beyond

The lakes are a connected system, and the narrow passages between them turn a single afternoon's outing into a tour of the whole network. A canoe put in on Lake of the Isles can pass under the lake's arched footbridges, through the Kenilworth Channel into Cedar Lake, and on toward Bde Maka Ska. Each lake has its own character: the Isles with its formal bays and lawns, Cedar wilder and more wooded.

Those links are infrastructure, and they fail without maintenance. In 2021 the Minneapolis Park and Recreation Board advanced a roughly $1 million rehabilitation of the Kenilworth Channel, funded through the state's Parks and Trails Legacy Fund, to replace failing retaining walls and restore the shoreline with natural plantings that hold back the soil. The work added depth and rebuilt the stone walls.

The channel's recent history shows how easily the chain can be broken. The Kenilworth Channel was closed to paddlers for nearly two years, first to stabilize its walls and then as three bridges went up over it for the Metropolitan Council's METRO Green Line Extension light rail project. It reopened in 2023, with only brief, low-impact closures expected afterward. For the better part of two years, paddlers hit a dead end between Cedar and Isles.

Paddling a channel is also the best way to understand why the links matter. The passages slow you down and frame the transition from one lake to the next, turning what could be separate ponds into a single water trail. For neighbors with a boat on a lakeside rack, that connectivity means a different trip is always available, from a short evening loop on the Isles to a full-chain push on a free Saturday, all from the same put-in.