Voyageurs National Park Grand Tour boat trip

The Voyageurs National Park Rainy Lake Visitor Center has a display of area history.  The National Park Visitor's Guide information - "On April 8, 1975 Congress enacted Voyageurs National Park as the 36th National Park in the National Park System.  The waterways of Voyageurs include an important segment of a 3,000 mile fur trade route of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.  The driving force behind the fur trade was a demand for hats - beaver hats desired by fashionable Europeans.  As the fur trade expanded, it relied on the voyageurs, or French-Canadian canoemen, to muscle trade goods and furs between Montreal and the Canadian northwest."

Next we went on this boat for the Grand Tour, a 2 1/2 hour exploration of Rainy Lake including a view of an old commercial fishing camp, eagles, loons and a stop at Little American Island, a 1890's gold mine.

This mine was dug horizonally into the island.  They weren't able to get the water out so they worked in calf high water all the time.



There was also a vertical shaft mine.

The gold didn't come out in nuggets either, it was all flakes so they had to mine a lot of ore to get a little gold.  Not very profitable.

We went by another island with a mine shaft.  It goes back 80'.

Rainy Lake is huge.  Only 1/3 of it is in the US.

Baby eagle in a nest.

Adult eagle perched on top of a tree.

Old commercial fishing camp.