Tourism is limited to Sandy Lake. Border Lakes Lakes and rocky ridges typify this landscape area, which includes part of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area. The area takes its name from the many large lakes over 300 larger than 160 acres scattered along the Minnesota-Canada border. Many rest in stream valleys enlarged long ago by passing glacial ice masses. Thin soils and glacially eroded bedrock mold irregular slopes, craggy outcrops and Eagle Mountain, the highest point in Minnesota.
Soils are mostly coarse and loamy, though sandy, clayish soils are found on the western portion.
White pine-red pine forests clustered around lakeshores, with jack pine forests filling in drier areas. These forest communities persist today in roughly the same distributions, relatively undisturbed by logging. Conservation concerns focus on high recreational use, timber harvesting, and mercury levels in lakes. This slim but unique landscape area is dominated by the Giants Range, a granite ridge 200 to 400 feet high, thinly covered with glacial drift. Minnesota's three-way Continental Divide intersects the summit of this ridge.