The Minnesota national park sites are teaming up this year to bring a virtual National Park Week experience to you. Explore all six sites through live online activities, downloadable workbooks, solo adventuring in a local park, trip planning live chats, and connecting on social media.
Want to support your national park during National Park Week? Learn how today!
Discover Your Minnesota National Parks
In honor of National Park Week, NPS sites in Minnesota will host short virtual talks about trip planning and recreation so you can discover new parks from home!
Tune into Facebook Live on April 25th to learn about exciting opportunities that await you at Minnesota’s national park sites.
Mississippi National River and Recreation Area
Virtual Fireside Chat with Superintendent John Anfinson and MPC’s Executive Director Katie Nyberg
Voyageurs National Park
Learn about the park with Park Ranger Hailey Burley
St. Croix National Scenic Riverway
St. Croix National Scenic Riverway
The St. Croix National Scenic Riverway commemorated it’s 50th anniversary with this interactive scrolling story map that flows through 255 miles of the most scenic and least developed country in the Upper Midwest.
Explore the different sections of the river, then plan your next adventure using one of the parks recommended trip itineraries.
The Namekagon River
The St. Croix Marshland
The Lower St. Croix
North Country Scenic Trail
The North Country National Scenic Trail is the longest in the National Trails System, stretching 4,600 miles across eight states from North Dakota to Vermont.
From the leisurely lake walk of downtown Duluth to the rugged Sawtooth Mountains to the prairies of the Red River Valley to the gentle rolling Laurentian Divide, the North Country Trail offers a cache of contrasting hiking experiences across its roughly 850 miles in Minnesota. Historic marks include the remnants of iron mining along the Mesabi and Vermilion ranges, Native American historic sites, and remnants of Paul Bunyan’s white pine logging era.
What better activity for sheltering in place than to plan your next big adventure.
Grand Portage National Monument
With a spectacular setting next to Lake Superior, Grand Portage National Monument, entirely within Grand Portage Indian Reservation, is rich in natural and cultural history. The Park protects two depots of the North West Company, the main depot on Lake Superior and the site of Fort Charlotte on the Pigeon River. The 8.5 mile Grand Portage trail connects the depots and contains most of the acreage of the Monument.
Grand Portage National Monument is temporarily closed, but you can still see artifacts from the museum collection by checking out the #GrandPortageDailyMuseumTour hashtag on Facebook.
Pipestone National Monument
American Indians have come to this site for over 3,000 years in order to quarry a soft stone that they use to make pipes (hence the name 'pipestone'). The pipe is sacred to many American Indians who use it for prayer, important rites, and to conduct both civil and religious ceremonies. The site is still actively quarried today by American Indians enrolled in federally recognized tribes.
Pipestone National Monument, by virtue of its protected status, has some of the only native tallgrass prairie habitat left in America. Many plants can be seen close up along the Circle Trail and viewed as a stunning mosaic from the road. Over 500 species of plants occur at the Monument, including one federally threatened species (the Western prairie-fringed orchid) and nearly a dozen state-listed rare species. Explore the park’s list of unique and rare flora and fauna.