Voyageurs National Park in August 2024: A Director’s Visit, a Star Party and a Bold Bear

Voyageurs National Park in northern Minnesota publishes a monthly Community Check-In on news, projects and events in and around the park. This is its record of August 2024.

National Park Service Director Chuck Sams speaks with Voyageurs staff. Credit: National Park Service.

The director's visit

On August 22–23 the park hosted Park Service Director Chuck Sams, Chief of Staff Susan Farinelli and Native American Liaison Dorothy Firecloud, to review projects funded by the Great American Outdoors Act. At Voyageurs there are two:

• replacing 11 miles of underwater electric cable that powers Kettle Falls;
• resurfacing the park's main roads and trailhead parking areas.

Both were in planning, with fieldwork possibly starting in late 2025. The director also met Historic Preservation Training Center and Midwest Regional Maintenance Action Team staff working at the park, and attended a reception with representatives of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, the Seine River First Nation and Pwi-Di-Goo-Zing Ne-Yaa-Zhing Advisory Services. The park said the visit showed the logistical challenges of running a mostly water-based park and laid groundwork for stronger partnerships with the 18 federally recognized affiliated Tribal Nations and seven closely associated Canadian First Nations tied to its lands and waters.

What visitors are worth

The Park Service's 2023 visitor spending report found Voyageurs' 221,000 visitors spent about $20.4 million in nearby communities, supporting 279 jobs, $8 million in labor income, $13.8 million in value added and $25.6 million in economic output.

Staff spotlight: Grant Haley

Utilities intern Grant Haley with a sturgeon. Credit: National Park Service.

Grant Haley is the park's water and wastewater utility shop intern, through the Historic Preservation Training Center program. He had worked three seasons as a maintenance worker for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources at Scenic State Park near Bigfork, earned a diploma in electrical maintenance and construction at Hibbing Community College (2019–2021), and spent two years working for a carpenter.

With Ben Line, the park's electrician, he maintains drinking water for visitor centers, shops, campgrounds, park housing and Kettle Falls, and the sewage systems at campsites on Kabetogama, Namakan, Sand Point and Crane lakes and at the Kettle Falls hotel and villas. He has also worked with historic carpenters Beau Readman and Chris Heibel at Hoist Bay and Whispering Pines. His favorite fact: of the park's 218,000 acres, 84,000 are water, with more than 500 islands.

Natural resources

• Fish. Technicians and field fellows sampled fish and water in interior lakes, and worked with the Natural Resources Condition Assessment program on a brief about the Little Shoepack Lake muskie population and its genetics, to be published in the NPS Science Report Series.
• Wetlands. A restoration crew and contractor cut cattails in eastern Black Bay and surveyed vegetation on Kabetogama Lake.
• Zebra mussels. Crews kept decontaminating boats at Kettle Falls so that zebra mussels from Rainy Lake don't reach Namakan Lake across the portage. The Wisconsin Conservation Corps staffed the station through the summer.
• Across the border. Lead natural resource staff Steve Windel and Ryan Maki updated the International Joint Commission, and Maki briefed the Rainy–Lake of the Woods Watershed Board's adaptive management committee on five projects.

Events

Astro Bob's telescope trained on the Moon at the Star Party. Credit: National Park Service.

• Star Party, August 9–10. The park and the Voyageurs Conservancy's annual free astronomy festival celebrated northern Minnesota's dark skies with campfire stories, talks by Astro Bob, evening paddles with Wilderness Inquiry, and space-themed music, timed with the Perseid meteor shower.
• New visitor center, August 6. The park and the town of Crane Lake showed off the new visitor center on a hard-hat tour during National Night Out. The town owns the building and campground; the Park Service will lease up to 70% of the building for offices, exhibits, the welcome desk and a shared meeting room.
• Junior Ranger Anglers. Every Thursday at the Rainy Lake Visitor Center, Ranger Alicia Schweiterman helped young anglers earn badges.

The Conservancy, the park's philanthropic partner, hosted educators from STEAM in the Park and Expeditions in Education for a week of field learning, and hired Kate Fenske as public engagement coordinator and Larissa Juip as interim project manager for tribal co-stewardship workshops.

Safety

• A habituated bear raided a family's campsite on Cutover Island and took a cooler of food. Staff got the cooler back, but the bear did not react when approached, so the campsite was closed for the season. Front-country campers should store food and other scented items in the provided bear-proof lockers.
• Rangers helped a boat disabled after hitting a rock, and a small lightning fire on Sphunge Island was quickly contained.
• Warnings went out for no-wake violations, extra fishing lines, camping without a permit, parking and an off-leash dog, and rangers kept checking commercial operators' permits.

Maintenance

Crews barged construction materials to Kettle Falls for new camper cabins, to be run by the hotel concessioner, with most construction expected done by year's end and occupancy possibly by summer 2025. On Rainy Lake, the flood-damaged Little Cedar Day Use Area reopened after crews rebuilt its dock and picnic area.

Sources

Based on "August 2024 Community Check-In," Voyageurs National Park, National Park Service; a work of the United States government in the public domain.