Monday, September 4, 2017

Grand Tour - Voyageurs National Park


Since 38% of the surface area of Voyageurs National Park is water, we wanted to spend at least some of our time in the park on the water. We chose to take a guided tour from the Rainy Lake visitor center aboard the Voyageur tour boat. The Grand Tour is a 20 mile, 2½ hour cruise on Rainy Lake that includes a short stop at Little American Island to explore the 1890's gold rush, viewing an historic commercial fishing camp, and searching for wildlife including bald eagles. Since Little American Island can be visited by anyone with access to a boat on Rainy Lake, I've written about it in a separate post here.

The tour costs $30 per adult (17 and older), $15 per child (3-16), and $3 for children (2 and under). A three person crew of park service employees includes the captain, a deckhand, and a naturalist (or interpreter). The tour has a minimum of 4 passengers and a maximum of 40. The Voyageur has an enclosed lower cabin and an open upper deck. In case of inclement weather, seating for all passengers is available in the enclosed cabin. Bottled water is sold on the boat and a marine toilet is also available.

We found the Grand Tour to be an excellent use of our time as we saw much more of the park than we would have on our own and we had a guide to point out some of the more interesting features of the Rainy Lake portion of the park. We visited in early August 2017.

Topographic map with GPS tour route

Dock entrance to the visitor center

Voyageur at the Rainy Lake visitor center dock

Black Bay Narrows

Small unnamed island that straddles the park boundary

Black Bay Lookout Tower

Dock at Little American Island

East end of Little American Island

West end of Little American Island

Day marker on Big American Island

Unnamed islands on Rainy Lake

Bald eagle on a very small islet

Another bald eagle

Bushyhead Island

Gold mining adit on Bushyhead Island

Fledgling bald eagle in the nest

Leaving the nest

Soaring over the lake

Rain on the horizon

A pair of eagles soaring on the thermals

An islet

Another unnamed island

Harry Oveson's Fish Camp

Oveson house

Ice house and fish processing building

Picnic tables in the shade

Small cove on the north side of Harry's island

A foot bridge connects two parts of another unnamed island at the mouth of Cranberry Bay

Bald eagle perched on a snag

Wild rice near Arden Island

Another islet

A pair of bald eagles

Beaver lodge

A former landowner's cabin

Rain on the horizon

A bald eagle in flight

Returning to the dock as the storm arrives

Entry to Voyageurs National Park is free.

The park website is https://www.nps.gov/voya.

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