Tag: wildlife

Voyageurs National Park is a wonderland of lakes, streams, forests, and wildlife.  It is also one of the few places in North America where you can see and touch rocks half the age of the Earth. The exposed rock is the southern edge of the Canadian Shield, the gigantic dome of volcanic bedrock that forms the core of the continent. 

As this special site gets ready to celebrate its 52^nd year as a national park on January 8, it’s worth looking back on its controversial beginnings.  Voyageurs is a park that took 80 years to create! 

All the way back in 1891, the Minnesota Legislature passed a resolution requesting that the federal government create a national park in Minnesota by “setting apart a tract of land along the northern boundary of the state.”  Congress never acted upon the request but that didn’t stop nature lovers from continuing to press for some form of federal protection for the forest and water resources of northeastern Minnesota, especially the border lakes region. History lovers, too, wanted the area preserved to commemorate the intrepid French-Canadian voyageurs who once criss-crossed its lakes and streams to transport furs and other goods. 

However, opposition to the national park proposal was fierce, especially from business interests who wanted to take advantage of the area’s abundant natural resources, primarily forests, minerals, and water.  The battle also pitted locals against what they called “outsiders,” i.e., lawmakers in Minneapolis and St. Paul, and “land grabbing” federal lawmakers. 

The stalemate continued through the mid-20^th century until the 1950s and 1960s, when park proponents managed to interest the National Park Service in developing a plan for a national park.  In October of 1962, the NPS Advisory Board submitted a formal recommendation to the Secretary of Interior, noting that the area was “superbly qualified to be designated the second national park in the Midwest.” (Isle Royale was the first national park in the region.) 

It took years for the park’s enabling legislation to pass Congress, part of which required the State of Minnesota to donate 36,000 acres of state-owned land to the effort.  Many local residents were still opposed, seeing the move as encroachment by the federal government that would limit logging and hunting in the area and decrease taxable property. 

But finally in 1971 President Nixon signed the Voyageurs bill into law, though the site wouldn’t be officially established as the nation’s 36^th national park until 1975.   

After the creation of the park, NPS began planning and constructing trails, boating sites, and other visitor amenities; it also established the area as a site for scientific research and conservation. In 1992, a wildlife protection zone was established for the gray wolf.  More than 220 Indigenous pre-contact sites have been identified within the park, some of which are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.  

The path to national park status isn’t always smooth.  But JNPA, for one, is gratified that Voyageurs will continue to protect this invaluable wilderness experience for all Americans. 

Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota is a rugged wilderness of clear blue lakes, pine forests, and bountiful wildlife.  After glaciers scoured the landscape and carved deep valleys and waterways hundreds of thousands of years ago, they exposed rock formations averaging one to three billion years old – some of the oldest rocks on the continent!  Human inhabitants eventually made use of the abundant resources the area offered, from early indigenous peoples to the waves of European settlers who followed them.  Among these were the intrepid explorers who traveled by canoe in search of animal pelts and other goods to trade and transport. These were the voyageurs, for whom the park is named. 

But just who were they?

At the height of the North American fur trade in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, Europeans were clamoring for pelts of beaver, otter, mink, fox, and other fur-bearing animals.  After the New England states were mostly hunted out, businesses started looking to the deep unexplored wilderness in middle of the continent for new sources of pelts. 

Several large trading corporations – mostly based in Montreal – recruited hearty French Canadian men to transport their precious cargo over the region’s many rivers and lakes.  These canoe-bound adventurers came to be known as voyageurs (French for travelers).  A typical voyageur was a short man (better to fit in a canoe) from an impoverished background who was eager to find a calling that would pay well.  He would take to the wilderness with a group of other company recruits for months or years at a time, subsisting on rations of pork, corn, rice, and fish.

The life of these cargo haulers was a physically grueling one.  It was expected that each voyageur would work at least 14 hours a day, paddle 50 strokes a minute, and carry two bales of 90 pounds each across each portage.  To keep a rhythm for their paddling, the voyageurs sang a variety of songs. Singing also helped pass the time and made the work seem lighter.

Many voyageurs maintained good relations with local tribal nations.  In Minnesota, that was primarily the Ojibwe and the Dakota.  They learned from indigenous people how to survive in the regions they travelled, and they adopted many of the Natives’ traditional methods and technologies.  In fact, the canoe itself was a Native American invention.  

It is this historic interplay of both indigenous and European cultures that created a lasting impact on the peoples and area now known today as Voyageurs National Park.

Header image credit: “Canoe Manned by Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall” by Frances Anne Hopkins, 1869