I am trying to write an urban fantasy story set in Minnesota. The story centers around a pack of werewolves that head into the woods for the full moon but I cannot think of any place that is isolated enough year round. I also want the place they go to be near a lake. I have lived here my whole life but I am coming up blank. Is there any area that fits or should I just make up a lake?
Make up a lake. Nobody will care. Don't y'all have like twelve thousand of them up there? Another one won't hurt. You'll have bigger writing problems eventually.
I lived in Minnesota for about a year and while I only lived around the Twin Cities area, I read that up in northern Minnesota there's hundreds of remote lakes and crap in the rough wilderness where the aurora borealis can be seen at night. If you just make up a lake in some deep wilderness area in the hills, no one is going to know or care if it's real. There's probably hundreds of lakes that don't even have specific names, so go crazy.
Yeah, agreed. I don't think there's any issue with making up locations in a real world setting so long as they could plausibly exist.
What @Homer Potvin said. Take this map of the lakes and rivers of Minnesota: and overlay it mentally with this map of the population density: Then stuff a small lake somewhere in, um, Koochiching county and call it good.
I agree with everyone else. Just make up a lake. That way you can include whatever you want but still have it in the general area you want. If you chose a real area around a real lake, then you'd probably have to take a trip there and take photos or something to make sure you get it 100% accurate, because people might know that real area and call you out on inaccuracy.
Boundary Waters, Warroad, Baudette, there are also some closed mines that might work west of Duluth they are ghost towns now. Google "closed MN mines" and you will find a list of the towns.
