Basic Information
Location: Minnesota
Established: April 8, 1975 Size: 218,054 acres Voyageurs National Park is a U.S. national park located in northern Minnesota near the U.S.-Canada border. In fact, it shares its northern boundary with Canada. The park is located near International Falls, Minnesota, and lies just west of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. The coordinates for the park are 48°30′N 92°53′W. The park has more than 30 lakes, more than 900 islands, and over 655 miles of shoreline. 40 percent of the park is covered in nearly 84 thousand acres of water, and a third of the park's area is water in only four lakes--Rainy, Kabetogama, Namakan, and Sand Point--linked by narrow waterways. Voyageurs National Park is open year round, and there is no fee to enter the park. However, there are amenity fees for campsites, and operating hours for the parks three visitor centers--Rainy Lake, Kabetogama Lake, and Ash River visitor centers--change with the seasons. The park is busiest during the summer months of July and August, and it is least crowded from November to April. In 2014, 239,160 people visited the park, averaging 224,958 visitors since 2005. The park was first proposed in April 1891 by the Minnesota Legislature in a resolution requesting that the president create a national park in the state. However, it wasn't until nearly 80 years later that federal legislation authorizing the creation of the park was signed into law by President Richard Nixon on January 8, 1971. |
Namesake
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Voyageurs National Park got its name from the voyageurs--a French word meaning "travelers"--who journeyed these interconnected waters 250 years in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. They once plied these waters in birch-bark canoes, on their way to trade furs, food, and medicine with the resident Native American tribes along the "voyageurs highway" that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Pacific Northwest, known as the "Great Northwest". The waterways of Voyageurs National Park are among the most important segments of the fur trade route.
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