Let me give you a little information about Voyageurs National Parks. It is the newest national park. It was signed into law in 1971 by Nixon. It was opened in 1975. It is 219,000 acres, one third is water, most is in the four lakes, Kabetogama, Namakon, Sand Point and the largest Rainy Lake. The center of the park is the Kabetogama peninsula. The park was names after the voyageurs that canoed this route from about 1660 to 1850. They were mostly French Canadians from Montreal. They traded with the Indians for beaver belts. I'll tell you more about them when I tell you about our stop at Grand Portage, Minnesota.
Note: It is the only sign at a national park that I have seen where the name of the park is not in big letters.
Since the park can only be seen by water they offer boat rides from two of the three visitor centers. This dock is at Rainy Lake visitor center.
This is from our first boat ride at Little America Island. There was a gold mine on it. It's not the type gold mining I have seen in California or Alaska. Here they looked for quartz veins and when they found them they would ship the ore to a stamping plant at the city of Rainy. There they would crush the ore and with a flotation process extract the gold. It didn't last long because it was not very economical.
This is one of the cabins the park has left.
The building in the middle is an ice house. In the winter they would cut ice from the lake, the ice on the lake gets 40 inches thick, store it in this ice house covered with saw dust. The guide said it would last up to two years. The manager at the RV park says it gets to 40 below in the winter here.
One of the many islands on Rainy Lake.
Young bald eagle in it's nest.
I know you really can't tell from the photo but these are loons. If you ever heard their call you would know where the expression "crazy as a loon" comes from.
This is one of the gold mines on an island in Rainy Lake.
This is from our sunset cruise. Unfortunately it wasn't one of the better sunsets. It would have been better if there were some clouds to reflect the suns rays, but the only thing there was to reflect the light was the haze. There are more pictures in the Minnesota album.
