VOYAGEURS NATIONAL PARK

June, 2021

Quick….Name as many National Parks as you can! Yeah, yeah…there’s Yellowstone, Yosemite, The Grand Canyon, The Great Smoky Mountains, Rocky Mountain, and Zion National Parks, right? Some might even mention Bryce Canyon, Arches, Olympic, Glacier, The Grand Tetons or Acadia. These Parks are not just the most well-known, but year after year these, as well as perhaps a select few others are the most visited National Parks. However, if other Parks, like Denali and the eight (!) other National Parks in Alaska or the two National Parks in Hawaii along with the Pearl Harbor Memorial and 4 other national historical sites or Isle Royale or American Samoa National Park weren’t quite so far out of the way for the average family (or retirees like us) to reach the list might just be a little different. Voyageurs National Park is like that.

The ride north northwest from Duluth to International Falls is easy – no twists or turns, no confusion about which road to take (’cause in a motorhome there’s only 1 road from here to there!), and no major elevation to pull. Along the way it is a fair distance from small town to small town, but the spring scenery of tall pine trees, small lakes, and rolling hills captivated our attention.

International Falls, Minnesota is a blue collar community of 5,900 right on the Canadian border. The economy is primarily supported, as it has been for over 100 years, by the Boise Papermill, and secondarily by the tourism industry. It’s an area of the Country known for its hunting and fishing, tour services and guiding, boating adventures and summers spent out on the lakes and in the forests, and exploring Voyageurs National Park.

We pulled into our campground just a few miles east of International Falls, and were delighted to find ourselves on a spit of land extending out onto the shores of Rainy Lake – boats docked at the Campground’s pier were owned by campers who were taking advantage of all the Lake had to offer.

Beautiful setting…and sunset the first night was breathtaking.

It’s interesting being quite so far north for a couple of reasons. First, what season is it? The locals told us they were never sure when the spring thaw or first snowfall would happen, when the first below zero night would occur and signify that winter was really upon the region, when the lakes would freeze, when the first ice fishing cabins would appear and snowmobiles would become the primary mode of transportation, how many days of winter weather would shut-down the city, and when their 6-12 weeks of summer might truly begin. Doesn’t sound much different from many places we’ve lived; however, while Barbara and I no longer appreciate winter; the local residents of International Falls look forward to seasonal uncertainty, adapt and thrive.

Secondly, day and night is screwy. We hadn’t given the cycle of day and night a second thought – guess we figured it would be the same whether we were in Arizona or Ohio or here in the northern most part of Minnesota. Wrong! We were encamped June 7-14 and just before the summer solstice. The time of first light was around 4:40am, sunrise around 5:30, sunset at approximately 9:15pm, last light occurring around 10pm, and total darkness close to midnight. Almost 18 hours of light! No wonder our circadian rhythms were off.

Now onto Voyageurs National Park…

As far back as 1891 the Minnesota Legislature lobbied for this area to become a National Park. There’s a 10,000 year history of inhabitation, geological significance abounds, and without fur trading the Northwest Territories might still be, well, territories…

Over 220 pre-contact (official phrase for “before Europeans came to the region”) archeological sites have been documented within the Park, some dating back 10,000 years, and many of the sites are now listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The oldest peoples were hunters and gatherers, who followed the great herds from place to place, and the last indigenous peoples to settle the region, who remain in the region to this day are the Ojibwe. In between the peoples who lived here planted and harvested crops, harvested wild rice, and became adept at fishing.

Voyageurs National Park is one of the few places in North America where you can see and touch rocks half the age of the Earth; rocks that are more than 2 billion years old. Exposed rock is the southern edge of the volcanic bedrock that forms the core of the continent and dates from the birth of North America. It is the exposed roots of ancient mountains – granite, migmatite, and biotite schist. Receding glaciers created torrents of melted water, which filled low-lying areas, creating the lakes and bogs of today’s landscape.

In the 1890s prospectors examining metamorphosed basic igneous rock (basalt) found gold embedded in quartz veins which resulted in a brief gold rush – veins were quickly emptied and mines vacated. French-Canadian fur traders were the first European settlers to use the waterways as a primary means of travel. Their historic route from Grand Portage, Minnesota to Lake Athabasca, Saskatchewan, Canada passed through what is now Voyageurs National Park. Once the lakes thawed fur traders carried trade goods as they headed west from Grand Portage. The fur traders used long, wide and heavy “north” canoes built by the indigenous Ojibwe using birch bark, cedar, spruce resin, and watap or spruce roots. These 3-man canoes weighed around 300 pounds, were about 25-feet long and four-feet wide. Some of the trade goods carried were used in trade with the Ojibwe to resupply for the arduous journey; however trading goods for beaver pelts, various other hides and pelts of muskrat, deer, moose, and bear was the main purpose of their voyage. A typical “north” canoe crew consisted of three men and two alternates, who not only paddled their canoes, but had to portage their cargo – the tasks demanded a particularly hardy breed of man. In French a traveler is known as a voyageur. It’s in tribute to these French-Canadian Voyageurs that the Park has been named.

And, oh yeah, the US/Canadian border between Minnesota and the far western boundary of Ontario Province/eastern boundary of Manitoba Province was established by the route the Voyageurs followed on their journey from Grand Portage to Lake Athabasca.

Voyageurs National Park was dedicated in 1975, and covers approximately 218,055 acres, 40% of which is water, and encompasses 4 major lakes – Rainy, Kabetogama, Namakan, and Sand Point. The Kabetogama Peninsula, which lies entirely within the park and makes up most of its land area, is accessible only by boat.  Voyageurs National Park includes over 500 islands and has 655 miles of shoreline.  This is a place of transition between land and aquatic ecosystems, between southern boreal (full of deciduous trees and conifers, and is also an important carbon sink), and northern deciduous forests.

Let’s see…the largest land mass in Voyageurs National Park is accessible only by boat, the Park is 40% water, it’s named after French-Canadian fur traders who used the lakes as their trade route, and there is enough shoreline and islands to keep even the most ardent explorer happy for a lifetime. While we could have taken in the beauty of the Park by following the coastline for miles and miles, it would have only given a us long-distance view, and we didn’t come all this way to not be up close and personal. And, while we learned an amazing amount of information about the Park from the Rainy Lake and/or the Kabetogama Lake and/or Ash River Visitors Center(s) it would have only given us somebody else’s recorded view of the Park. We had to see for ourselves, and get out onto the water!

During season the National Park Service offers boat tours of the Park, but unfortunately season started June 22; a week after we’d be gone. However, the Park Service publishes a list of available guides and services offered, and there were 2 possible tour guides for the up-close-and-personal boat tour of the Park we desired. Luck of the draw, we choose Border Guide Services with the owner and 60-year spring/summertime resident of the Park, Captain Bill, as our guide. More good luck would have it that we received a call a couple of hours after booking our rain-or-shine tour of Voyageurs National Park informing us that we had been upgraded to an all-day boat tour of the 5 Lakes within the Park, along with a stop at the Park’s 3 “on dry land” attractions; Ellsworth Rock Garden, I.W. Stevens Island and Kettle Falls Lodge!

Barbara is constantly telling Brian to stop with the jibber-jabber and to get on with it…soooooo…

We met Captain Bill at the Kabetogama Lake Visitors Center…

The Park Rangers told us that yesterday they had seen otter and beaver in the small channel next to the Visitors Center; however and a day later all we found was a beaver dam with a few turtles catching some rays.

…And were soon out on the waters in Voyageurs National Park!

Ellsworth Rock Garden is one of the 3 “on dry land” attractions in the Park, and has been called the “Showplace of Lake Kabetogama” since its completion in the early 1940s. Jack Ellsworth, the garden’s creator and a self-taught artist used natural elements of the native northern Minnesota landscape as his artistic medium, creating a unique exhibition on the north shore of Kabetogama Lake. The garden must have been spectacular and a true labor of love; however the elements have worn away the face and identity of many of the sculptures.

In 1931, Ingvald Walter Stevens purchased an island from the Virginia & Rainy Lake Logging Company and began building cabins by hand. Within a few years he was hosting guests at his “Pine Cove” on Namakan Lake, and would operate his one-man resort until it closed in 1959. He continued to live alone on the island until his death at age 94 – another 20 years. In his honor Voyageurs National Park has preserved his home, and the Island will, in perpetuity, be known as I.W. Stevens Island.

Captain Bill Claimed There Were Petroglyphs Carved Into The Rocks?

The Kettle Falls Hotel opened in 1913, and is at the confluence of Namakan and Rainy Lakes. Today it is the only (full service) lodging operating inside the Park, and is only accessible by water. When visiting the Hotel and standing at the water’s edge looking SOUTH we were actually looking at Canada! Possibly the farthest northern point in the US?

A truly wonderful day on the waters of Voyageurs National Park thanks to Captain Bill and First Mate Irish!

We did a fair amount of exploring from the mainland-side as well. From either the Rainy Lake or Ash River Visitors Centers there were trails to follow that wound in through forest and along the shores of the Park.

Approximately 3.5 miles from the Ash River Visitors Center we found a Beaver Pond…several beaver dams were on display, but on a very warm day we didn’t expect any animal sightings.

The owners of the campground suggested we take a short walk along the boardwalk of Tilson Creek Bog. In the winter time the bog becomes a “trailhead” for cross country ski trails, but after the spring thaw the biosphere of Tamarack and Larch Trees, soggy soil and insect eating plants is an interesting contrast to the waterways of Voyageurs National Park.

Although total darkness doesn’t occur until well after midnight, we asked Park Rangers at the Rainy Lake and Ash River Visitor Centers where the best unobstructed sunsets and night sky might, weather permitting, be seen. For sunset the recommendation was the point right behind the Ash River Visitors Center, and it was recommended that we stop just up the road at the Voyageurs Forest parking lot for viewing the night sky.

It never did get dark enough to fully appreciate the night sky, but nevertheless Brian had to try to capture the stars we could see…

Voyageurs National Park is not as popular as many of the “bucket list to visit” Parks. It is perhaps not as beautiful as other “more popular” Parks, does not have miles and miles of hiking trails or magnificent overlooks or glaciers or volcanos or wildlife. What it does have is a history as old as the North American Continent, the opportunity for visitors to imagine a life dependent on using these lakes and waterways for survival, and an unending peaceful beauty.

We’d love to come back to Voyageurs National Park, and rent a houseboat for week or so, float about, and do some serious exploring on our own throughout the Park.

Barbara and Brian

“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.“ – Henry David Thoreau