It’s The Only National Park in Minnesota And It’s Not Very Popular

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Minnesota only has one National Park, and it was apparently not very popular with visitors in 2021.

That's according to the latest visitor numbers released by the National Park Service (NPS) earlier this week. While some National Parks set attendance records again in 2021, that wasn't the case for the only National Park here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

While several states out west have several National Parks within their borders (like, say, Montana, which is home to seven National Parks including Yellowstone, Glacier and Bighorn Canyon) here in the North Star State we only have one: Voyageurs National Park. It's located waay up north, near Minnesota's northern border with Canada. (It's about 350 miles-- about 5-and-a-half hours-- north of Rochester.)

The NPS website describes Voyageurs National Park like this:

With 218,055 acres, Voyageurs National Park is an adventure wonderland all year long full of exposed rock ridges, cliffs, wetlands, forests, streams and lakes. This is a place of transition between land and aquatic ecosystems, between southern boreal and northern hardwood forests, and between wild and developed areas.

But here's the thing: Voyageurs National Park isn't very popular-- at least when you look at the number of visitors the park hosted in 2021. According to an NPS report issued this week, Voyageurs was ranked 50th out of 63 National Parks here in the U.S.

The report said Voyageurs hosted 243,042 visitors in 2021, which amounts to .26% of the total visitors to all National Parks. That's down from 2020, when Voyageurs hosted 263,091 visitors and ranked 43rd overall.

Now, we should point out that the area in northern Minnesota around Voyageurs last year was besieged with dangerous several wildfires that closed roads and damaged property in that remote area during August and September. The park even banned campfires at one point last summer, due to dangerous conditions brought on by that big drought that hit the state.

So that might explain why attendance dropped in 2021. By comparison, the number-one ranked park, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, hosted 14,161,548 visitors, good for 15.35% of all National Park visitors last year! Zion, Yellowstone, Grand Canyon and Rocky Mountain National Parks rounded out the top five most-visited National Parks last year.

While Minnesota may only have one National Park, our state DOES have some incredible state parks. Keep scrolling to check them out!

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