Location
Enchanted Island on Lake Minnetonka is in Hennepin County "Picturesque Lake Minnetonka," published in yearly editions by S. E. Ellis (1906, 102 pp.), referred the name of Enchanted Island to its being long ago a favorite place of Dakota medicine dances; and related that Wawatasso was a young Dakota man who rescued the daughter of a white pioneer trapper from drowning. Other Dakota legends about Minnetonka have been written in prose by Thomas M. Newson in 1881 and in poetry by Hanford L. Gordon (Indian Legends and Other Poems, 1910, 406 pp.). Like Hiawatha and Minnehaha and like the geographic names in this county that are partly of Dakota derivation, these writings present more white than Indian ways of thought and imagery. From: Upham, Warren. Minnesota Place Names: A Geographical Encyclopedia. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press, First edition 1920. Third Edition 2001. Print.
