A view of the watery landscape at the Kettle Falls Overlook, Voyageurs National Park / NPS-Billy Flynn

Voyageurs National Park in Minnesota commemorates those French-Canadian fur traders (voyageurs), the first Europeans to travel through the area with their canoes 250 years ago. Indeed, while there are a few visitor centers and trails that can be reached by car, the best way to explore the 218,000 acres of lakes, rivers, and forests is by boat. That’s because water makes up 40 percent of this park.

This is a national park where you can stand upon the oldest rocks in North America, ranging between 1 and 3 billion years old, while casting your eyes up to the night sky and the dancing colors of the Aurora Borealis. Visit during the winter and you can literally drive an ice road over a lake to your snowshoe, snowmobile, or ice fishing destination. Travel there in the fall and join other “leaf peepers” seeking the brilliant orange, gold, and red colors of trees lining the trails.

If you feel like stretching your legs by taking a hike, you are in luck, regardless whether you are driving or paddling. While Voyageurs National Park is a water-based park, you can still drive to 10 different trailheads. With a boat, you can access several more trails ranging from 2.5 miles (1.6 km) to 8 miles (12.9 km) in length.

Feel like dropping a line in the park’s waters? You might reel in walleye, sauger, pike, bass, perch, crappie, or any other of 54 fish species from any of 30 named lakes (four large lakes and 26 smaller interior lakes).

Bring your binoculars and camera with you for spotting one or more of the 100 bird species living in or passing through the park, including songbirds, birds of prey, shorebirds, and waterfowl. You might also strike it rich with a bobcat, bear, wolf, or moose sighting. Occasionally keep your eyes on the ground and perhaps you’ll cross paths with a blue-spotted salamander or bright red central newt. If you are camping beneath the stars, listen for the nightly chorus of spring peepers. 

Speaking of wolves, a University of Minnesota research project called the Voyageurs Wolf Project  began in 2015 as a collaborative effort with Voyageurs National Park and Northern Michigan University to study where wolves are hunting and traveling in the Greater Voyageurs Ecosystem during the summer. You can learn about these wolves, their behavior, and the research project by listening to Traveler Podcast Episode 292: Voyageurs Wolf Project.

Mentioned earlier, this national park is fantastic for viewing the night sky studded with sparkling stars, swiped by the Milky Way, and periodically glowing with wavering green and yellow curtains of the Aurora Borealis. In 2020, Voyageurs National Park was awarded International Dark Sky Park certification, and with good reason. Due to its out-of-the-way location, there’s no real light pollution.

If you feel like pitching a tent beneath those bright stars, all campsites in Voyageurs are only accessible by watercraft, except for two hike-in primitive campsites along the Kab-Ash Trail. Most of the frontcountry campgrounds are in areas accessible from any visitor center boat launch. Backcountry camping in this national park is considerably more isolated and rugged, requiring travel by water to a remote trailhead and then hiking to the backcountry destination.

For those of you who would rather overnight somewhere with four solid walls, the only in-park lodging is at Kettle Falls Hotel, remotely located on the far eastern side of the Kabetogama Peninsula, approximately 15 miles (24 kilometers) from the nearest road and only accessible by water. If you stay there, you can rent a motorboat, canoe, or kayak with which to explore the peninsula’s terrain.

There’s one other way to experience solitude while exploring the park from a unique perspective while bringing along practically all the comforts of home: a houseboat. You can bring your own or rent one just outside the park’s boundaries.

If you like remote national parks, and water, and boating, then Voyageurs National Park should be on your bucket list. As a matter of fact, Voyageurs turns 50 this month, so why not go visit and wish them a Happy National Parkversary!

Traveler’s Choice For: Boating, camping, fishing, photography, night sky,