The Grand Portage National Monument is an entertaining and informative journey back into the history of the earliest trading economy of Minnesota. Costume clad docents will lead your through the reconstructed trading outpost and enlighten you on the earliest encounters between the Ojibwe, the French Canadian Voyageurs, and the English North West Trading Company.
A short walk gets you to the High Falls on the Pigeon River, at the U.S.-Canada border. It’s the highest waterfall in Minnesota.
The deep gorge of the Temperance River, carved over millennia in the hard basalt, is a dramatic backdrop for several waterfalls, and a great hike.
One of the most popular stopping spots as you make your way up the North Shore of Lake Superior, Gooseberry Falls makes for an easy walk and a rewarding view.
It’s a bit of a hike, and a lot of steps, to see one of the real geological oddities of Minnesota, the Devil’s Kettle at Magney State Park.
If you want a view of the highest waterfall in Minnesota at Tettegouche State Park, be prepared for an uphill hike of 1.5 miles, one way. If you want to see the park’s other falls, the hike follows about five miles of trails.
The historic Split Rock Lighthouse was built in response to the disastrous shipwrecks of 1905. It served its purpose until 1969 until modern marine navigational technology made lighthouses obsolete.
The oldest – and most iconic – Minnesota State Park is Itasca State Park, the headwaters of the Mississippi River. You can’t say you’ve been there if you haven’t walked across the river.
Lake Shetek is the largest lake in southwestern Minnesota and the Lake Shetek State Park that borders its east side makes for ample recreation opportunities.
The Blue Mounds State Park in the far southwest corner of the state can be at once one of the less difficult yet most rewarding of the Minnesota State Parks trails.
Blue Mounds and Minneopa State Park, near Mankato, are the two parks where bison have been reintroduced, so there’s an obvious added attraction–if you’re lucky enough to get close enough to get a good look.