If you’re a cold-hardy adventurer, there’s no better way to experience the magnificence of snow-draped landscapes than with a winter visit to Voyageurs National Park. This stunning 218,000-acre park in northern Minnesota offers numerous ways to enjoy its natural splendor: from snowmobiling, cross-country skiing, and hiking to ice-fishing, sledding, and snowshoeing. And for less athletically inclined visitors, there’s always driving your car on the park’s ice roads!
Snowmobilers flock to Voyageurs every winter for the park’s 110 miles of groomed trails. However, since many of the snowmobile trails cross frozen lakes, it’s imperative to pay attention to the ice thickness on many bodies of water. A mid-December report showed there is not enough solid ice to open the frozen lakes to vehicle traffic. The park lists current conditions on its website.
Cross-country skiers can enjoy a number of beginner- and intermediate-level loop trails through pine and birch forests, some with a view of an active beaver pond.
The park offers ski and snowshoe rentals at the Rainy Lake Visitor Center and also accepts advanced reservations by phone (218-286-5258) and online. Kids’ sizes are available.
In case you’re wondering if kids enjoy these winter sports, check out this park video of a recent showshoe class.
Just as with snowmobiling, these activities are also reliant on adequate snowfall and ice formation. Park crews have been clearing and grooming trails through the woods and open land but are waiting for adequate ice thickness on the lakes before tackling those areas. Visitors can pick up this fold-out National Geographic map at JNPA’s park stores, which lists most of the park’s trails.
More “mild” activities at the park include sledding and driving the park’s ice roads. The two main ice roads begin at the visitor centers, but the routes vary from year to year. Cars and trucks weighing less than 7,000 lbs. are allowed, but the speed limit is 30 mph.
Naturally, safety is the prime consideration for every outdoor activity at Voyageurs. The park offers a comprehensive list of important safety tips for all winter sports, and urges visitors to consult rangers before setting out and to be on the lookout for posted signs throughout the park.
How do YOU celebrate the holidays? Your answer may depend upon your religious practices or your family traditions. But if you’d lived in the French colonial village of Ste. Geneviève in the 1700s, chances are you and your neighbors would have commemorated the winter holidays in very similar ways.
The Midnight Mass, Félix Hilaire Buhot
The townspeople of 18th-century Ste. Geneviève were predominantly Catholic, having brought their religious and cultural traditions from France. One of their most festive seasons of the year was December to mid-January. The four weeks prior to Christmas was Advent, a time of reflection, fasting, and merriment. The culmination of Advent was Christmas Eve, when most of the community attended midnight Mass.
After the church service ended, the townsfolk gathered with their extended families for a feast called La Réveillon. This special breakfast would start in the early hours of the morning and proceed well into the next day. La Réveillon featured traditional breakfast foods such as eggs, sausage, and breads along with non-traditional items like puddings, stews, and cakes. Christmas Day festivities would continue throughout the day with more feasting, church services, and in some households, balls or parties.
During this time of year the Frenchwomen of Ste. Geneviève were able to show off their cooking skills, using the new foods they found available in the New World, and incorporating African and Native American influences.
In 1811 Henry M. Brackenridge wrote that “The table was provided in a very different manner from that of the generality of Americans. With the poorest French peasant, cookery is an art well understood. They make great use of vegetables and prepared in a manner to be wholesome and palatable. Instead of roast and fried, they had soups and fricassees, and gumbos…”
The Kings Ball featured finely dressed participants like those seen in this sketch of the “Bal de la Courtille” from 1820. Library of Congress)
The next holiday celebration, La Guiannée, took place on New Year’s Eve. On the evening of December 31st, a troupe of male singers dressed in costume went door-to-door throughout the community. As they sang, they asked for donations from each household for the upcoming Epiphany feast. The group collected things like lard, poultry, eggs, wheat, and candles to feed the community and decorate for the Epiphany Celebration. (The 250-year-old tradition of La Guiannée is still celebrated in Ste. Geneviève to this day.)
Green Tree Tavern, courtesy NPS
As the years went on and the village changed, the holiday traditions for the French Catholic residents of Ste. Geneviève ebbed and flowed. With the arrival of new residents from American and German backgrounds, new traditions emerged, and old traditions adapted to suit the growing community. The changes have allowed for many of the French Catholic traditions to continue into the present-day community.
As we approach the end of Native American Heritage month, we wanted to honor the first people who occupied the lands we now call Voyageurs National Park. And to praise their artistry in the design of the remarkable birchbark canoe.
Ojibwe village 1910, Library of Congress
As glacial waters in northern Minnesota began to retreat nearly 10,000 years ago, small groups of people were able to move into the area, pursuing primarily a hunting and gathering lifestyle. The dense forests and the four major lakes within the 218,000 acres of today’s Voyageurs provided abundant natural resources for these Indigenous settlers. Fishing was their major source of food, as was the harvesting of native plants like wild rice.
Ojibwe women harvesting wild rice, Seth Eastman 1848, Library of Congress
The dominant tribe in the area was the Ojibwe (also known as the Chippewa). Over time they played a key role in the region’s commerce as suppliers of food, furs, and canoes. The Ojibwes’ intimate knowledge of the local geography and resources also made them excellent guides for the European fur traders who later arrived in the area.
Ojibwe birchbark canoe 1910
Since there were no roads or established trails in the early days of Minnesota, the Ojibwes’ primary mode of transportation was the birchbark canoe. They discovered that the outer rind of a birch tree can be stripped off without damaging the tree itself. When used for the outer skin of a canoe, birchbark is a naturally waterproof, resilient material, suitable for canoes that must navigate rivers, lakes, and even rapids. And its light weight made the canoes easy to carry over land.
Paper birch tree , credit Sue Sweeney, Wikimedia Commons
The Ojibwe canoe builders’ construction methods were impressive. They “make no use of nails and screws but everything is sewn and tied together,” reported a 19th-century observer. “The seams, stitches and knots are so regular, firm and artistic that nothing better could be asked for.”
The simple design integrates birch bark for the skin, cedar for the framework, split spruce-roots for sewing the bark to the frame, and a sealing compound made from cedar ashes and heated pine pitch for closing the seams. In the heyday of the fur trade, birchbark canoes were in high demand. The area that is now Voyageurs National Park became a canoe-building hub due to the abundance of birchbark and the artisanry of the Ojibwe.
To get the full experience of a birchbark canoe, you’ll want to travel to Voyageurs next summer. The staff will invite you to participate in one of their programs featuring a replica of a 26-foot birchbark canoe – you might even get to paddle it!
We can’t imagine that anyone is tired of hearing about U.S. presidential elections, right? (heh-heh). But wait – we’re not asking you to vote again anytime soon! We’re talking about a few fascinating presidential contests from more than 150 years ago, involving Ulysses S. Grant.
When the U.S. Civil War ended in 1865, Abraham Lincoln was serving his second term as President. General Grant, the military hero of the Union war effort, agreed with many of his policies and had little interest in seeking elected office. “Everybody who knows me knows that I have no political aspirations either now or for the future,” he wrote in a letter. “I hope to remain a soldier as long as I live.”
President Grant, photo by Matthew Brady (Library of Congress) President Johnson, photo by A. Gardner (Library of Congress)
However, Grant’s political aspirations changed after the assassination of President Lincoln. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, was a Unionist Southerner who became increasingly lenient toward former Confederates. Johnson vetoed all civil rights legislation passed by Congress, putting him at odds with numerous prominent leaders including Grant, a supporter of African American civil rights.
Campaign flyer from the 1868 presidential election
The Republican Party persuaded Grant to run for president in 1868 against New York governor Horatio Seymour. The party’s platform included ongoing support for Reconstruction, protecting the rights of loyal southerners including African Americans, and ultimately granting all male citizens the right to vote. Other issues included reducing taxes, working towards the elimination of the national debt, and promoting westward expansion and economic growth. Grant’s campaign slogan was “Let Us Have Peace.” He won the 1868 popular vote by 300,000, helped by the newly enfranchised Blacks in some Southern reconstructed states.
Thomas Nast – 1867 Harper’s Weekly
After his first term in office, Grant’s popularity was still high, though there was increasing opposition from those who favored replacing Reconstruction in the South with local self-government, i.e., white rule. The Democratic party nominated Horace Greeley as its candidate in 1872, but once again Grant prevailed, this time by a margin of 56 to 44 percent.
Grant’s two terms as the 18th U.S. president are marked by a number of accomplishments. He supported and signed the 15th Amendment to the Constitution, giving African American men the right to vote. He fought to protect Native Americans from people who wanted their land, although the eventual results of this “peace policy” were mixed. He sought free public education for all, regardless of race, gender, or religion. Grant signed legislation establishing Yellowstone as the nation’s first national park in 1872. And on the international front, he peacefully settled major disputes with England over its support for the Confederacy during the Civil War.
After eight years in office, Grant looked forward to retirement, and Rutherford B. Hayes was elected president in 1876. But as the 1880 elections loomed, supporters of Grant urged him to run for an unprecedented third term. They favored his strong advocacy for Black civil rights and his diplomatic efforts to strengthen the U.S. at home and abroad. Others, however, were concerned about corruption among some of Grant’s former White House aides, and they formed an “anybody but Grant” coalition.
Grant “surrenders” the party’s nomination to Garfield. Puck Magazine 1880, Library of Congress
Grant did not actively seek the Republican Party’s 1880 nomination, but he didn’t turn it down either. He stood for election during the party’s convention in Chicago, as did several other candidates. But after numerous votes, the delegates failed to select a presidential candidate. Congressman James A. Garfield made a persuasive speech calling for party unity, after which the party nominated him. Garfield went on to be elected president later that year.
If you’re interested in learning more about the 1880 election, the staff at Ulysses S. Grant National Historic Site has compiled a small temporary exhibit in the site’s visitor center that examines Grant’s “surrendering” the nomination to Garfield. It runs through mid-November.
Halloween is here! That time of year when young (and not so young) trick-or-treaters dress up as ghosts, superheroes, princesses, and cowboys. What will your kids (or you) be this year?
Left: 6-year-old Billy Blythe (Clinton) as Hopalong Cassidy. Courtesy of NPS.
One now-famous little boy had no problem picking his Halloween costume. Young Billy Blythe (later President William Jefferson Clinton) was obsessed with the cowboy star Hopalong Cassidy. He dressed up in western outfits whenever he could and was particularly proud of his childhood bedspread embroidered with his hero’s name. (Check out his bedroom when you visit President William Jefferson Clinton Birthplace Home National Historic Site.)
Was little Billy attracted to Hopalong Cassidy because he often rescued honest citizens from despicable outlaws? Or was it because the film and TV star shared the same last name as his maternal grandparents, Eldridge and Edith Cassidy? Whatever the reason, he remained fascinated with his idol for many years.
Courtesy of NPS
While we’re on the subject of Halloween, how about some clever ideas for how to carve your pumpkins? The National Park Service offers a fun selection of downloadable pumpkin carving templates, including a fat bear (shown above), a bat (did you know more than 45 species of bats live in national parks?), a bison butting a park visitor (!), and a coyote howling at the moon. What will YOUR jack-o-lantern look like?
Early Ojibwe Indians called it misi-ziibi (meaning Great River). French explorers called it La Rivière de Saint Louis. The Spanish named it Río del Espíritu Santo. Today, we refer to it as the Big Muddy, Ol’ Man River, Old Blue, or the Mighty Mississippi.
No matter how you look at it, the Mississippi is impressive. It measures 2,340 miles in length, stretching from its tiny source in northern Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. (In case you were wondering, it can take 90 days for a drop of water to travel that entire length!) Water from parts or all of 31 states and two Canadian provinces drains into the Mississippi, making it the third largest watershed in the world.
Images courtesy of NPS
The river is home to an estimated 260 species of fish (25% of all North American species), 326 species of birds, more than 145 species of amphibians, and more than 50 species of mammals. Sixty percent of all North American birds use the river basin as their migratory flyway.
Reconstruction of Cahokia Mounds site, courtesy Michael Hampshire for the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site
Humans, of course, have relied on the waters of the Mississippi for millennia. Native Americans have lived along its banks and tributaries for thousands of years. Most were hunter-gatherers, but some, such as the Mound Builders, formed prolific agricultural and urban civilizations. The ancient metropolis of Cahokia, Illinois, for instance, was more populous than London in the year A.D. 1250.
Settlers in early Ste. Geneviève, on the banks of the river. From Missouri State Capitol mural by Oscar E. Berninghaus.
The arrival of Europeans in the 16th century changed the native way of life as first explorers, then settlers, ventured into the river basin in increasing numbers. Early European explorers used the Mississippi to explore the interior and northern reaches of the continent. Fur traders plied their trade on the river, and at various times soldiers of several nations garrisoned troops at strategic points along the river when the area was still on the frontier.
Starting in the 1800s, white settlers from Europe and America (and often their enslaved people) travelled the Mississippi on steamboats, further dispossessing the Native Americans of their lands and converting the landscape into farms and cities. They brought with them new traditions and cultures, and it wasn’t long before original American musical genres sprang up throughout the river basin.
Image courtesy of NPS
Jazz, blues, gospel, bluegrass, Dixieland, country, folk—all find their musical origins along the Mississippi’s banks. Our partner park Mississippi National River and Recreation Area has collected some original Songs of the Mississippi River, reflecting eight educational themes focused on the river. Take a listen to each one and imagine yourself as one of the unique characters who called the Mississippi home.
Long before Europeans explored and ultimately colonized the vast expanse of the United States, the land was home to many cultures dating back millennia. Today, our national parks celebrate these Indigenous cultures by preserving and sharing their many stories, histories, traditions and perspectives.
In honor of the upcoming Indigenous Peoples’ Day on October 14, we thought it was fitting to highlight how some of our partner sites are collaborating with neighboring Native tribes to develop new programs and exhibits.
Staff members at this Northern Plains park along the mighty Missouri are working to establish partnerships with the three tribes that call the park’s stretches of river home: the Yankton Sioux Nation, the Santee Sioux Nation, and the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. They hope to develop programs for Native youth as well as opportunities for tribal elders to share their knowledge and teachings with their youth.
JNPA will support the park’s tribal partnership project with our new Blue Sky Grant funds.
Voyageurs National Park, Crane Lake Visitor Center
This northern Minnesota park is collaborating with Indigenous Ojibwe members of the Bois Forte Tribe on the creation of exhibits at the new Crane Lake Visitor & Education Center. New interpretive media will highlight themes of Indigenous knowledge, specifically incorporating traditional ecological knowledge of the Ojibwe/Anishinaabe people. There will be exhibits focusing on natural dark sky stories and the cultural history of the waterways that flow through Voyageurs National Park and the borderland region.
JNPA is supporting Voyageurs’ development of new Indigenous-focused exhibits with our new Blue Sky Grant funds.
When the new Museum at the Arch was under development, park staff at the Gateway Arch worked with many tribal nations, including members of the Osage Nation, to ensure the exhibits accurately reflected their perspectives. And since terminology tends to change and new Indigenous perspectives or research findings emerge, park leadership plans to host a gathering next year that would bring tribal consultants on site for an in-depth review of the museum exhibits.
The park staff also consults with Native Americans as it develops education and interpretive programs, to ensure the content incorporates tribal perspectives. And for special events, staff training and teacher workshops, the park tries to provide honorariums to Indigenous representatives so they can present programs in person—rather than having staff speak on their behalf.
In addition, the park is working to identify any objects in the collections or on display that might fall under the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). With the advice of tribal representatives, the park would need to identify any sacred or burial items that should be removed from display and/or returned to the respective tribes.
JNPA regularly underwrites fees for Indigenous speakers who deliver park programs.
When you picture someone who works for a national park, you probably think of a ranger in a flat hat, but did you know that park rangers are not the only ones who keep these treasured sites running? In fact, it takes a wide range of talented people to protect and maintain these historic sites and natural spaces. Today we’re starting a blog series to shine a light on the employees at our partner sites who spend day in and day out taking care of these amazing public lands and their visitors – ranging from specialists in law enforcement and groundskeeping to administrative staff and so many others.
First up, we spoke to Candy Braton, Recreation Fee Specialist at Voyageurs National Park. Candy started her career as a seasonal maintenance worker at Voyageurs in 2001. Seasonal work was perfect for Candy while she completed her master’s degree in environmental studies and raised her two small sons. She also worked at Rocky Mountain National Park before moving into her fulltime current position at Voyageurs in 2018.
Candy on her first hike to Cruiser Lake.
What made you want to pursue a career in public lands?
My desire for a career with the NPS grew very organically. I slowly realized as I attended college that what I was doing for my summer job, and where I was spending my summers, were what I was becoming most passionate about. I wanted to be involved with caring for special places such as Voyageurs and doing what I could to help others understand the need to care for them as well. After two years of college, I switched my major to Environmental Studies and finally felt certain that my educational and future career goals were aligned with what simply made me happy.
What is your favorite part of the job?
I am admittedly a nerd when it comes to helping people plan trips in the park or looking into camping statistics at VOYA, so if I’m in the office I genuinely enjoy doing those things, but I love when I get the chance to get back in the field doing just about anything. One part of managing the Rec Fee program at VOYA is completing collections of park donations, which guarantees me at least a few chances to take a boat to Ellsworth Rock Gardens each season, and managing certain aspects of our backcountry camping opportunities gives me reason to get in a few hiking trips for work in as well.
What is particularly special about Voyageurs National Park?
What I love about Voyageurs is you can always escape crowds. No matter where you are on the lakes you can find somewhere to feel completely secluded. I love that there is so little development that when you look at the long stretches of rugged shoreline, it feels timeless – you’re seeing it the same way people did in the past and how people will continue to see it generations from now because of the existence of the park.
What is a funny/favorite memory from your job?
When I was cleaning campsites one season, I had a student seasonal working with me, and as we were driving our boat in a channel we saw something small swimming in the water. We came to a stop to try and figure out what it was, at which time it turned and started swimming right toward us. As it got close to the boat, we realized it was a racoon, and it started scratching at the boat like it was trying to get in. My coworker started yelling and ran to the other side of the boat, ready to jump out if the racoon got in, because it just so happened that she had an intense fear of racoons of all things! Some other favorite memories are when I got to camp for a week in the backcountry for work, or when I’d sit quietly on random shorelines to have lunch and would see deer come out of the woods for a drink from the lake, families of otters frolicking on the shoreline, loons feeding their babies, and all sort of other things I’d try to remind myself most people don’t get as a job perk!
Candy leading the 2023 Seasonal Rangers to a backcountry lake.
What advice do you have for someone who wants to start a career with public lands?
My advice would be to explore the public lands near you; become familiar with them both from the resource perspective and the visitor perspective. Volunteer your time or apply for a variety of seasonal positions to get tangible experience in the different areas that interest you and help narrow down the type of job you find most fulfilling. Our charitable partner, the Voyageurs Conservancy, leads a Teen Ambassador program that gets groups of youth out into the park for an immersive experience camping, connecting with the land, learning about the park, and getting exposure to the wide array of work and research that happens in the park. There are also a variety of conservation organizations that give groups of high-school-aged students opportunities to camp in parks while completing valuable projects. Here at VOYA, the Conservation Corps of MN (CCM), the Student Conservation Association (SCA), and Youth Conservation Corps (YCC) are common youth organizations that do this.
Why do you think national parks and public lands are important?
National parks and public lands are important because they preserve the most beautiful and unique landscapes throughout the country. They are places of great historical and cultural significance, while also being home to some of the most biologically diverse environments. They are places that offer inspiration with their breathtaking views, the ability to slow down and feel connected to nature in a busy, fast-paced world, and an endless array of recreational opportunities so everyone can experience them in the ways that they enjoy most.
Shh, wanna know a secret that most visitors to Gateway Arch National Park don’t know? There’s another way to get to the top of the Arch, beyond riding in a tram car. There’s a hidden staircase inside each leg of the Arch, with 1,076 steps on each side.
Architectural drawing of the staircase inside the Gateway Arch. Credit: Library of Congress
But if the idea of climbing that many stairs makes your head spin, don’t worry. The staircases aren’t for public use.
When the Arch was built in the 1960s, the designers had already made plans for a tram system to carry visitors up to the observation deck (and down again). But they knew that park staff would also need access to the tram system for routine maintenance. So they installed the stairways. The stairs are an engineering feat, using 105 landings to snake through the curved structure.
Visitors can sometimes glimpse the hidden staircase through the small windows as they ride up and down in their tram car. So the next time you take a tram ride at the Arch, you can share the “secret” with your fellow riders!
What’s your favorite fruit? Apples or bananas? Blueberries? Maybe peaches or strawberries? Could you imagine a day without coffee? Or a world without chocolate? (Aaaghh!!!)
Well, if any of these foods are on your must-have list, you can thank a pollinator – specifically one of the thousands of birds, bats, bees, butterflies, beetles, and other insects that move pollen from plant to plant. We rely on these little critters for one out of every three bites of food we eat. Three-fourths of the world’s flowering plants and more than a third of the world’s food crops depend on animal pollinators for successful seed and fruit production, making pollinators a vital link to our food security, economy, and overall environmental health.
So what does this have to do with national parks and public lands?
The National Park Service is committed to preserving our natural pollinator populations, especially those species that are in decline. In many parks, species inventories are helping site managers know which pollinators are present so they can better understand the state of park ecosystems and make decisions about how to manage them.
Seventeen national parks are currently being surveyed for bees and butterflies in a project that started this spring and will continue through 2026. In collaboration with university and NGO partners, these projects will address ecological priorities for pollinator conservation identified by park staff. These include invasive plant removal, grazing management, controlled burning, and habitat restoration.
Mississippi National River & Recreation Area – one of JNPA’s partner sites – is included in this long-range pollinator study. At the same time, park staff are also taking steps to protect the Monarch butterfly. In order to ensure adequate supplies of Monarch-friendly nectar, they have planted numerous “pollinator gardens” throughout the park, each of which feature milkweed plants, the only plants that monarch caterpillars can eat. In this way, the park hopes to reverse the years-long decline of its Monarch populations.
Gardeners at Gateway Arch National Park are also serious about helping pollinators. The plants you’ll see in the luscious Explorer Garden at the park’s northern tip were selected with the intention of creating a friendly stopover for native pollinators. For an in-depth look at seven of these native plant species on the Arch grounds, check out this short video.
Finally, there are many things you can do to help keep our pollinator populations healthy, even if it’s just in your own backyard. The NPS website also contains valuable information about how to attract local or migrating pollinators, including planting and landscaping tips, and opportunities to record your own sightings of pollinators on your next trip to a national park.
So the next time you see a tiny bee, butterfly, or hummingbird flitting from flower to flower, take a minute to appreciate its beauty AND its critical role in nature.
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