GRAND PORTAGE STATE PARK TRAILS Hiking/Snowshoe 593 Accessible Trail (summer) FACILITIES AND Snowshoe / ungroomed ski trail in winter FEATURES CANADA M id FACILITIES •Day use activities only dle U.S.A. •Picnic area on the Pigeon Information/Office

River 0.7 m F ile Parking alls •5 miles of hiking trails 0.3 mile

Loop • Nature Store PIGEON Picnic Area •Interpretive programs Historic Site RIVER VISITOR FAVORITES Scenic Overlook PROVINCIAL •Two waterfalls including Waterfall High Falls, the highest falls PARK Toilet in Minnesota GRAND • Native American culture 61

1.3 mile NEARBY THUNDER BAY, 40 miles • Hiking trails to Lake Superior and nearby peaks. • Camping at Grand Portage NORTH Marina. Scenic views of PORTAGE GRAND PORTAGE 0.1 mile Lake Superior. 29 RV sites Port of w/full hookups (water, Entry INDIAN RESERVATION Fall sewer, electricity). M id s dle Restrooms & showers. Trail STATE

Falls 0 Tent camping available. .5

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Trail ile 0.2 m 0.1.2.3.4 0.5 Miles Port of Entry LOOKING FOR MORE INFORMATION? 0.1.2.3.40.5 The DNR has mapped the state showing federal, Kilometers 61 Park Entrance ONTARIO state and county lands with their recreational GRAND PORTAGE, 6 miles facilities. Public Recreation Information Maps (PRIM) are PARK available for purchase from the DNR gift shop, DNR regional offices, Minnesota state parks and major MINNESOTA sporting and map stores. Check it out - you'll be glad you did.

© 10/2008 by State of Minnesota, Department of Natural Resources Grand Portage Chippewa Indians, not the State of Loop Trail is an extension of the main trail and time for the sugar bush–the annual tapping of Minnesota. The Grand Portage Chippewa lease follows the river bank to Middle Falls. It is the maple trees to make maple sugar. Anishinabe- by white spruce, black spruce, balsam fir, white the land to the state for use as a state park. about one mile in length and winds through ziinzibaakwad (maple sugar) could be formed pine and white cedar. Birch and aspen also exist aspen, birch and spruce stands. into molds and stored in birch bark makuks. It in this boreal forest community. The moist alluvial was used as an all-around seasoning and as a bottomlands along the Pigeon River contain GRAND THE GREAT CARRYING PLACE: Git-che O-ni- confection. Summer was the time when the green and black ash as well as white cedar, white PORTAGE ga-ming and Grand Portage. Ojibway and people would gather together into larger groups spruce, and yellow birch. Duluth STATE PARK • French words for “a great carrying place.” For for fishing, gathering berries, ceremonies and Many species of wildlife are found within the many hundreds of years known only to the celebrations. In the fall, families moved to their park. In the spring, the river teems with fish Indian people inhabiting the region. This nine- favorite ricing lake or river to gather and process and waterfowl. Walleye and northern pike The development and operation of the park mile overland route connected Lake Superior manomin–“the food that floats on the water.” come into the river to spawn as well as rainbow rests primarily with the Department of Natural to the Pigeon River and ultimately the inland Winter was the time for hunting, ice fishing, smelt. Watch for herring gulls and osprey feed- • Resources and is implemented through the system of lakes and rivers of the continent’s mending clothes and nets, and storytelling. ing on the smelt. Blue herons, geese, ducks, Minneapolis/ Division of Parks and Recreation. St. Paul interior. Birchbark canoes were the primary hawks, and eagles may be seen on any given mode of water travel and because they were a When the European explorers and traders first day. Other wildlife around the park includes The Pigeon River forms the northern boundary fragile craft, a route churning with rapids and arrived in the mid 1600s, the Anishinabe adapt- the common loon, pileated woodpecker, ruffed of this 300-acre park. The river is the interna- cascades was to be avoided at all costs. Even ed many of their trade goods to traditional grouse, otter, beaver, snowshoe hare, and red tional boundary between Canada and the if it meant carrying a canoe and supplies over uses. Firearms, iron kettles, steel knives and squirrel. White-tailed deer are found in the United States, and is the largest stream along a nine-mile trail. Such was the scene annually axes, and other goods were the basis for a new northern portion of the park. Less commonly GRAND Minnesota’s North Shore. The river drains a for centuries as Indian people journeyed to and market economy driven by European fashion observed are moose, black bear, red fox, porcu- total of 610-square miles flowing eastward from Lake Superior. The reason? Twenty miles for beaver felt hats. The fur trade continued pine, pine marten and skunk. Occasionally a PORTAGE some thirty miles from its source at South Fowl of rapids, cascades, gorges and waterfalls on until the early 1800s. coyote or timber wolf are seen. When hiking, Lake on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe STATE PARK the lower portion of the Pigeon River. Totally watch and listen for these animals. Area Wilderness. Park frontage on the Pigeon unnavigable even in today’s aluminum and GEOLOGY: The semi-mountainous landforms FOR MORE INFORMATION River totals about 13,000 feet. fiberglass canoes. By the time the French and found in the Grand Portage area tell a story of NEARBY POINTS OF INTEREST: There are many Grand Portage State Park English fur traders reached this area the trail dramatic geological processes. Processes that things to see and do while in the Grand Portage The lower twenty miles of the river is a series 9393 Highway 61 East was already a well-known and well-worn high- have occurred sporadically over a period of 1.9- area. The scenic views between the village of of cascades and waterfalls. This section of the billion years. This rugged relief owes its exist- Grand Portage, MN 55605 way to the interior. The early voyageurs Grand Portage and the Pigeon River are among river is completely unnavigable and portaging transported on their backs 90-pound bundles, ence to the mountain-building era and the the most spectacular in Minnesota. (218) 475-2360 is impossible. For this reason, the “Grand volcanic activity of the Precambrian time period. ♦ sometimes two bundles at a time, trade goods Portage” was necessary to reach the calmer one way and fur bundles the other way, doing Wauswaugoning Bay, the Susie Islands and Isle Department of Natural Resources upper waters of the Pigeon. Twenty miles of the 18-mile round trip in six hours! The Grand Movements in the earth’s crust resulted in a Royale provide a panoramic setting for photog- Information Center torrential rapids and falls finally ends in High Portage of Gitche Onigaming was “the great rifting of plates that caused fractures to develop raphers. Take an interpreter-led tour at the 500 Lafayette Road Falls, a thundering drop of nearly 120 feet. The carrying place.” in layers of rock strata. These cracks and fissures reconstructed 1700s fur-trade fort at the Grand river rapidly descends through steep-walled St. Paul, MN 55155-4040 allowed great volumes of basaltic magma to Portage National Monument. Daily passenger gorges and between boulder-strewn river HISTORY: Grand Portage State Park and the rise up and pour out upon the surface, forming ferry service for Isle Royale National Park is 651-296-6157 (Metro Area) banks transforming once again into a slow- surrounding area is rich in human history. what is called a dike. One of these erosion available at the National Monument dock. 1-888-646-6367 (MN Toll Free) moving, tranquil river only one-half mile below Thousands of years before European fur traders resistant dikes formed High Falls. the falls. One mile further the river empties arrived, there was a flourishing culture that TDD (Telecommunications into Lake Superior. mined and traded copper from Isle Royale and About 12,000 years ago, glacial ice sheets cov- Device for Deaf) Upper Michigan. Copper was made into many ered the region. These ice sheets, sometimes a The Falls Trail, one-half mile long, begins at useful tools including spear points, axe heads, 651-296-5484 (Metro Area) mile thick, scoured their way southward leaving This information is available in the park office and goes north along the Pigeon fishhooks, knives, awls, and decorative items. 1-800-657-3929 (MN Toll Free) bedrock that was more resistant to erosional alternative format upon request. River. A 700-foot boardwalk provides easy Many of these copper tools have been found in forces. Such bedrock was left as the uplands DNR Web Site: www.dnr.state.mn.us access on the last part of the trail. Three over- the area. Copper from the region was also traded we see today. The Pigeon River eroded its way looks, one handicapped accessible, give all over North America and even into Mexico. down through the bedrock and has been able “Equal opportunity to participate in and benefit from awesome views of the waterfall. Visitors follow Many of the stone hammers found on Isle programs of the Minnesota Department of Natural GRAND PORTAGE STATE PARK is located to cut through the softer rock (shale and slate) Resources is available to all individuals regardless of the same trail back to the parking lot. Royale are made of diabase (the hard, black at the easternmost tip of Minnesota in Cook to form the gorges found in the park. These race, color, creed or religion, national origin, sex, marital volcanic rock that forms many of the high ridges status, status with regard to public assistance, sexual County on the Grand Portage Indian erosional forces are still at work today. The Middle Falls Trail, three and one-half miles in the Grand Portage region) that was brought orientation, age or disability. Discrimination inquires Reservation. The park is located seven miles round trip, begins at the High Falls boardwalk to the island from the North Shore. VEGETATION AND WILDLIFE: Most of Grand should be sent to the Minnesota Department of Natural northeast of the village of Grand Portage on Resources, 500 Lafayette Road, St. Paul, MN 55155-4031; and is a winding scenic trail that takes visitors Portage State Park is covered by a mixed hard- Minnesota Highway 61. or the Equal Opportunity Office, over ridge tops, through heavily-wooded for- The Anishinabe (Ojibwe or Chippewa) people wood forest community dominated by white Department of the Interior, Washington, Minnesota ests and along the river bank. Visitors will arrived here several hundred years ago after a birch and quaking aspen with occasional white D.C. 20240.” The park was established in 1989 through the appreciate the rugged, semi-mountainous ter- multi-generational migration from the area of spruce, balsam fir, white cedar, balsam poplar cooperative efforts of the State of Minnesota rain with its breathtaking views of the river the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The Anisinabe lived and black ash. The ridges and slopes are occupied DEPARTMENT OF and the Grand Portage Band of Chippewa. The NATURAL RESOURCES gorge and Lake Superior. The Middle Falls with the cycle of the seasons. Spring was the by the boreal forest community. It is dominated © 10/2008 by State of Minnesota, park is unique because the land is owned by the Department of Natural Resources DNR Maps