Voyageurs National Park is located about a two-hour drive almost due north of Bemidji, Minnesota. It is one of the few national parks where you need a boat to reach the bulk of the area, as most of it is not drivable. The land area of the park is contained within the islands of the five lakes that make up Voyageurs.
I stayed at a campground along the Ash River called the Ash Riviera. It was not anything approaching the opulence of the Riviera and was probably the worst campground I had stayed in so far. I couldn’t wait to escape this place.
I had scheduled tours of the park through recreation.gov. For readers who are seniors and do not have a National Park Pass, I encourage you to get one. The cost is nominal, and one of the pass perks is discounted tour costs. For example, my three-hour boat tour, which left and arrived back at its same location, was only $25. The guides are knowledgeable and given the shoals that are in the lakes, it’s much safer to take the tour than to rent a boat and explore yourself. Private tours are available, but are much more expensive and maybe not nearly as knowledgeable. If you want to go fishing, you need a private boat. There are plenty of fishing charters to be had in these waters, basically in search of walleye and pike.
My first tour was of the Ellsworth Rock Gardens. From sometime in the 1940s until the late 1960s, the National Park Service (NPS) says that, “Ellsworth, a carpenter from Chicago, used art and engineering to create a complex, terraced garden on a prominent rock outcrop. Ellsworth constructed 62 terraced flower beds, which he filled with more than 13,000 lilies and other flower varieties. He then accented his garden landscape with over 200 abstract rock sculptures that have been compared to the work of modern sculptors like Noguchi and Brancusi.” It was a hard climb up to see all of the gardens. I was grateful to a husband who continually helped his wife and then returned for another lady and myself who needed some steadying and encouragement to make it to the top. Going down was easy until it wasn’t. Then I sat on my backside and slid down. It worked perfectly — it meant the pants had to go in the wash pile — but it was worth it.
The Loon is a Minnesota state bird and getting a picture of them is considered to be a challenge. I was pleased with this effort although it was further away than I would have liked.
The word “voyageurs” is the English pronunciation of the French word “voyeur,” which is what the locals called the French trappers commonly looking for beaver fur in the late 1700s. The native populations of the Ojibwe, Cree, and
Assiniboine tribes were the original inhabitants of this area. They figured out how to create birchbark canoes, as there was plenty of birch. They needed canoes to get around because of the vastness of water in the area. The amount of water had everything to do with rainfalls, so it could vary. Today you might be able to walk across an area, but by tomorrow, you could need a canoe to make your way over the same land area.
One of the stories I found fascinating was how wild rice was a staple in the diet of the native tribes. They would paddle their canoes into some of the wild rice areas, take an oar, pull it over the rice stalks, and with another oar, beat on the stalks to force rice kernels to fall into the canoe. When the canoe was full, they would return to shore; then harvest more rice the next day. They survived winters on preserved salted and/or smoked fish and rice.
There was a small gold rush in the area in the 1890s, with different kinds of gold mines. Some went into the hillside horizontally, while others were in vertical lines. However, the mines were not very lucrative because the gold that miners found was trapped inside quartz. So, instead of just panning for gold, they had to pan, then crush the quartz to extract the gold. Crushing quartz is not an easy task, and it cost almost as much to extract the gold as the gold was worth. So it was a relatively short-lived industry, and the area is not well known for its gold rush.
The “big city” near the park is International Falls, which is known for being the northernmost city in the lower 48 states and the coldest city in the nation many days a year. I had always thought International Falls was a fairly good-sized city, but I discovered that the population is actually just over 5,000.
International Falls’ claim to fame is a statue of Smoky the Bear. The famous bear cub was injured in the western U. S., but the story spread nationwide. Leaders in International Falls, mindful of the importance of the forest industry to their economy, erected it in 1954 as a roadside attraction, and to encourage fire safety in the community. Of course, I had to take a picture of Smokey to add to my collection of large municipal statues.
When I drove into town, I saw giant smokestacks and recognized them as part of the Package Corporation of America. In my childhood, I remember seeing International Falls, Minnesota, on the side of many cardboard boxes in which my parents received food deliveries. This company produces a great deal of cardboard and is one of the leading producers of corrugated cardboard in the country.
I took the opportunity to drive over the Canadian border to the town of Fort Francis. It was neater and featured more signage and art than International Falls, although International Falls had done their best. The location of the factory near the border made the border challenging to navigate, but the Canadian side was simpler to drive. I didn’t spend long in Fort Francis, as it’s not very large and didn’t have any attractions that directly appealed to me. There was no temptation to stop and wander around.
The skies were mostly overcast, either by rain, snow, or by smoke. During my time in the area, smoke from wildfires in Manitoba were blowing right into northern Minnesota, and the haze hung low in the sky. It greatly dulled the beauty one might otherwise associate with the lakes on most days. I did manage to get a couple of good pictures, but I certainly took more than I was able to salvage. It rained a few days, and I spent one of those days in International Falls.
As I was leaving the area and heading to Michigan, I found one last large Minnesota Statue. This is the Voyageur. A statue that is not that old, but it stands near one of the Voyageur Visitor’s Center near Rainer, MN on the eastern side of the park. It was originally a protest piece but now serves to give visibility to the reasoning for the name of the National Park.
