Voyageurs National Park

Voyageurs National Park, on the northern edge of Minnesota's border with Canada is a beautiful mosaic of land and water with interconnected waterways that flow west and eventually north and are part of the arctic watershed of Hudson's Bay. The south entry to the park is located a short 30 minute drive from Aspen Resort. This national treasure has a unique landscape that was formed by earthquakes, volcanic activity and carved by at least four periods of glaciations. These naturally occurring events have created a mixture of rugged terrain, rolling hills, bogs, beaver ponds and swamps. There are 26 smaller interior lakes and four large lakes with over 500 islands and 655 miles of shoreline. Voyageurs National Park encompasses over 218,000 acres, with over 84,000 of those being water.

Voyageurs is truly a water based park with some of the oldest exposed rock formations in the world. Very few places can you pull your boat up beside an 80 foot high granite rock cliff. These interconnected waterways provide boaters with an unparalleled opportunity to explore the variety of bays and channels that were once travelled by the Ojibwe Indians and the Voyageurs, French-Canadian canoe men that the park was named for.

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Voyageurs is truly a water based park with some of the oldest exposed rock formations in the world. Very few places can you pull your boat up beside an 80 foot high granite rock cliff. These interconnected waterways provide boaters with an unparalleled opportunity to explore the variety of bays and channels that were once travelled by the Ojibwe Indians and the Voyageurs, French-Canadian canoe men that the park was named for.

This boreal forest ecosystem is a spectacular host to a thriving flora of orchids, ferns, shrubs and an abundance of raspberries and blueberries with majestic pines and northern hardwoods towering above. Visitors travelling through Voyageurs National Park have the opportunity to see a wide range of wildlife from white tailed deer, bald eagles and loons to black bears and the more elusive timber wolves and moose.

Maybe one of the best and unchanging qualities the park has to offer is its beautiful night sky. Since there are no artificial lights to interfere, the stars are more brilliant and the constellations can be seen year round.

Visitors with or without a boat can take advantage of the park's three visitor centers with exhibits, interpretive programs, Junior Ranger program, scenic hiking trails and lakeside picnic areas. For visitors who arrive without a boat, the park provides canoe programs and tour boat programs aboard two 22- passenger pontoon boats from mid June through late August.

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