Mesabi

Mesabi is a long ridge in the forested lake country west of Lake Superior. The Ojibwe name Misaabe Wajiw means Big Man Mountain; in Ojibwe tradition the ridge is associated with a sleeping giant. Its ancient rocks hold great deposits of iron, though the hills stood amid forests and waters long before those deposits became the object of large-scale mining. The ridge rises above a landscape threaded by rivers and lakes that connect the interior with Lake Superior.