Grand Portage National Monument ⓘ

Gichi Onigaming (Great Carrying Place) is the name of the 8.5-mile portage trail that allowed Native Americans, explorers, and voyageurs to bypass high falls, cascades, and gorges, and has been a critical transportation route for thousands of years. Because of the area’s geology, topography, natural resources, and strategic location, this trail was part of an ancient transcontinental trade route connecting the Great Lakes to the interior of the continent.

The adoption of native technology and the cultural exchange that took place during the fur trade led to exploration and mapping the continent. The quest for furs caused European expansion into the northwest during the 18th and 19th centuries. The Grand Portage trail itself was a focal point in developing the international boundary between Canada and the United States, and today remains an international road. Under the terms of the Webster- Ashburton Treaty of 1842, use of the trail remains free and open to citizens of both the United States and Canada. Without the Grand Portage, Canadian and American political history and national boundaries might have been quite different.

Minnesota: Grand Portage National Monument The Grand Portage Story Fur Trade Collection Photos Ojibwe Collection Photos

The Grand Portage bypasses unnavigable portions of the Pigeon River and connects Fort Charlotte with Lake Superior, where thousands of tons of furs and materials were transported back and forth to Europe and beyond. The North West Company (NWC) depot served as the headquarters and central hub for the NWC as it competed in the global fur trade, and acted as the rendezvous point to exchange North American furs for trade goods from Montreal, Europe, Asia, and South America. Between 1731 and 1804, thousands of men shuttled tons of supplies and furs over the portage and in and out of warehouses at either end of the woodland trail. The Men of the Voyageurs Encampment The Porters, the Canoe Landing, and the Fountain Pose Canoes of Grand Portage

Grand Portage National Monument is within the homeland of the Grand Portage Anishinaabe. Approximately half of the land for the national monument was donated by the Grand Portage Band . This community is the homeplace and center of tribal government for the Grand Portage Band (the Band) of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe/Anishinaabe). Their intimate knowledge of and connection to the land, water, plants, and wildlife of the area allowed them to endure in the sometimes harsh environment before and after European exploration and nation-building. As other cultures explored this area, the tools and technologies of the Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) were adapted by newcomers to exploit the natural resources as global commodities. The Anishinaabe (Ojibwe) have persevered here for centuries, through the European incursion into this continent and division into two countries, the United States and (then British) Canada.

The significance of this historic portage corridor is the reason for Grand Portage National Monument. Bordered on the north and south by Grand Portage tribal land, on the east by Lake Superior, and on the west by the Pigeon River and Canada, the monument is 710 acres and consists of two districts, which are connected by the Grand Portage trail. The eastern, or lakeshore district, consists of the visitor service area with a reconstructed stockade and grounds containing historic buildings and gardens, and where most interpretation occurs.

The western, or Fort Charlotte district, is named for historic Fort Charlotte, which today is a camping area with primitive campsites, a point of debarkation for modern canoe travelers, and a destination for hikers from the lakeshore. A small monument made of river stones marks the location of the historic fort. From Fort Charlotte , canoers embark on the Grand Portage trail, which is the culmination of an incredible canoe voyage and portage experience beginning at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and the Quetico and La Verendrye provincial parks (together known as the Superior-Quetico complex). At the end of this trip, canoers portage their supplies the final 8.5 miles to reach Lake Superior. Stewardship at Grand Portage National Monument

For the Grand Portage Band, Minong (Isle Royale) is traditional cultural property , a place to connect and practice their traditional heritage that has included hunting and trapping, maple sugaring, fishing, plant gathering, and spiritual practice. Grand Portage National Monument is near Isle Royale National Park, which is visible from the Heritage Center. The Monument supports Isle Royale management by providing direction to an embarkation point for boat transportation, supporting operations logistics to the island, providing select administrative functions including participation in the Tribal Self-Governance Act agreement with the Grand Portage Band, and providing museum and archeological assistance. This has resulted in a close, cooperative relationship between the two parks. Heritage of Minong

In addition to being an important location in the fur trade, Gichi Onigaming, the Great Carrying Place, is within the southern boreal forest. This largely intact ecosystem provides important habitat for northern species such as moose, as well as migratory birds, and a variety of mammals, amphibians, and fish. The exposed rock you see as you make your way along the bay to the Heritage Center or up the Mount Rose trail gives clues to the geologic story embedded in this landscape.

Rugged hills and boggy lowlands, shear rock cliffs, shallow incised bays and Lake Superior, all come together in Grand Portage's highlands.

Northern Minnesota's extreme change in climate and landscape driven habitats create important niches for wildlife.

The historic Grand Portage footpath preserves an important component of the largest terrestrial ecosystem in the world, the boreal forest.

Traditionally, Anishinaabe followed a 13 month lunar calendar. Each giizis (moon) corresponds an event in the cycle of life and nature.

A series of maps show the locations and extent of landscape disturbances in and around Grand Portage National Monument (Minnesota) from the period 1995 through 2018. This video resource brief is a product of the Great Lakes Inventory and Monitoring Network's Landscape Dynamics monitoring program and accompanies a report found at https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/Reference/Profile/2293284.

Bineshiiyag (birds) are a constant presence along gichi onigaming from Lake Superior to the Pigeon River. They are the most seen or heard wildlife by visitors to the area. Songbirds give voice to nagamowin akiing , the singing land.

The mixed hardwood-conifer, southern boreal forest along the Grand Portage Trail provides increasingly rare nesting habitat for migratory birds, many of which require large patches of unbroken forest for nesting success. Monument staff began annual surveys of nesting songbirds in 1997 that continue to the present time. These surveys show the most prevalent species are the Northern Parula, Ovenbird, American Redstart, and Nashville Warbler.

The maintained landscape around the reconstructed stockade and the picnic areas provide habitat for sparrows, and thrushes. Look for Merlins and songbirds on Mount Rose and listen for wetland species at a beaver meadow on the western part of the Grand Portage trail.

Migrant species that may not nest within the Monument area include birds that frequent the lakeshore such as gulls and waterfowl, as well as raptors that require large hunting territories and specific nesting sites, like Peregrine Falcons that nest on nearby Mount Josephine. Listen for the hard to spot singing birds, like bineshiinh (Northern Parula), and find resident birds, like meme (Pileated Woodpecker), as you walk in this southern boreal forest. Sit quietly on one of the benches along the Mount Rose trail and observe the movement around you, or venture out along gichi onigamiing, the Grand Portage Trail for a variety of habitats including wetlands. Take a break at the historic depot and look for shorebirds and migiziwag (Bald Eagles) around the bay. Read the article Birding for Beginners for some good tips about how to get started if you are new to this activity you can take wherever you go! Download a bird checklist for the Grand Portage area. For printing purposes, legal (8.5" x 14") sized paper is best.

Look for vultures, eagles, hawks, falcons, and owls throughout Grand Portage National Monument.

Many forest and songbirds live in the trees shrubs on the Mount Rose Trail and around the Historic Depot.

Right image Birch trees are one of the useful plants in the boreal forest. Detail shows a trunk with a 20" diameter. Larger trees supply bark for canoes and wigwams. Credit: NPS Photo / G.M. Spoto

Northern forests provide an abundant supply of raw materials for the people who live within them. Essentials like snowshoes, toboggans, wigwams, and canoes originate in this vast ecosystem and are all made from boreal forest trees. The birchbark canoe is one example. The frame is cedar overlaid with sheets of waterproof birchbark, sewn together with spruce root, and sealed with a mixture of pine pitch, bear grease, and soot. Wiigwaas (birchbark) strips off easily at certain times of year, and thick enough so that a layer remains to serve the tree. This useful material bends easily into makuks (containers) to hold water and maple sugar, or to cook and prepare food as in vessels for winnowing manoomin (wild rice), and many other jobs.

Who needs to grow a garden if you know where the plants grow? Traditionally, Anishinaabe followed food sources. At the end of winter, to the sugarbush for boiling maple sap into sugar. This in-between season when nights freeze and daytime temperature rise enough for the sap to run brings all ages together for this task. At the end of summer to the inland lakes to harvest manoomin (wild rice).

Summer months are filled with a variety of edible fruit such as strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, juneberries, and thimbleberries, and edible plants like ramps and ferns, as well as edible fungi. * Reintroduced strategic burns keep blueberry patches free of other plants, a technique used for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.

* Harvesting a small amount for day use is allowed while hiking at Grand Portage National Monument. Make sure to bring someone who can make a definite identification as many forest plants can be toxic.

Ojibwe (Anishinaabe) names for plants, animals, and parts of the earth are very descriptive and often vary across communities. In some instances, there is a base name that is common and depending on the circumstance a speaker will add a bit more about the color, size, or actions that are observed.

The boreal forest is an ideal habitat for North America’s two largest rodents, amik (beaver) and gaag (porcupine). No mammal, other than humans, has had a greater impact on the economy and geography of North America than the beaver. Fueling a historically global trade with pelts and surviving to continue in its role as a keystone species, the beaver has many stories to tell. Only now are people starting to appreciate their contributions to wetlands and the aquifers they recharge. Beaver ponds not only have a net positive effect on aquifers, they also: create habitat for countless other species, increase conifer tree thermal cover of watersheds that slows runoff and snow melt, increase diversity and abundance of invertebrates that feed fish, increase fish habitat, and increase flow of cold ground water into streams that is vital to fish like coaster brook trout. Despite all these contributions to the boreal forest, beaver still have time enough to host the likes of voles, zhaangweshi (mink) and nigig (otters) in their lodges.

Mammals are vertebrates whose bodies are covered by fur. All are live-born but development to maturity varies by species. To learn which species live in the forest around Grand Portage National Monument, see below:

Approximately 1.8 to 1.9 billion years ago, in a relatively quiet and deep ocean, volcanic islands deposited layers of gravel, sand, silt, and clay. Over an incomprehensibly long period of time, these deposits hardened into the layered rock you see exposed along the Mount Rose trail. This formation of rocks pre-dates the proliferation of life in the Earth’s oceans. This means there are no fossils so far found in these layers. Much later in time, an immense set of complicated cracks broke apart the Earth’s crust. This crack system, called a Midcontinent Rift , extended from the present-day Lake Superior Basin all the way down to Kansas. Extremely hot molten magma welled up from deep inside the Earth and pushed through the rift, creating the long, undulating ridges you see around you.

These rugged hills and boggy lowlands, shear rock cliffs, shallow incised bays and Lake Superior, all come together in the highlands of Grand Portage. This extraordinary and impressive landscape was created by the different weathering rates of two types of rocks produced during Precambrian time. For nearly one billion years, stream erosion, and glacial scour have removed much more of the soft than the hard rock leaving a modern relief of more than 600 feet.

When you arrive at Grand Portage National Monument and get out of your vehicle, your eyes will likely be drawn up to piles of broken rocks with a gray-green cast. Above the piles are cliffs in which you may be able to see horizontal layering; at your feet you may notice the layers slightly tilt towards the lake. Nearly two billion years old, these rocks are known as the Rove Formation. As you walk into the Heritage Center, you will see the tallest fireplace in the county. The trim in the Heritage Center and the fireplaces and foundations of reconstructed buildings in the historic depot are all built from this stone. The North West Company also used it in the original depot completed in 1789. On each side of the parking lot are dark, nearly vertical stacked rocks which stick out as walls because they are much harder than the Rove rocks between and are much harder for water and ice to break apart.

Fort Charlotte is two remote backcountry campsites on the Pigeon River. It is the destination for paddlers coming from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness or points beyond to the west or north. These campsites also offer a welcome place to spend the night for hikers wanting to split the 17 mile Grand Portage hike into two days – the only place within Grand Portage National Monument where camping is allowed.

Please call 218-475-0123 or email us . Please allow 10 days for processing. No same-day permits issued.

Make sure to include your name, email address, and preferred dates you plan to camp or we cannot process your application.

For the purposes of improving your visit, the National Park Service may seek to understand more about your visitor experience on this Wilderness/Backcountry trip. Are you willing to allow your contact information be used to follow up on social science information needs by the NPS in the future?

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Authority: 54 U.S.C. §100101, NPS Organic Act; 16 U.S.C. 1131-1136, Wilderness Act; 43 U.S.C. §1701 et seq., the Federal Land Policy and Management Act; 54 U.S.C. §200301-200310, Land and Water Conservation Fund Act, as amended; 16 U.S.C. §6801-6814, the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act; 36 CFR Part 71, Recreation Fees; and, 36 CFR 1.6, Permits.

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We are collecting this information subject to the Paperwork Reduction Act (44 U.S.C. 3501) and 36 CFR 1-7, 12 and 13 which authorize the National Park Service to require applicants to fill out this form to monitor resources and to protect visitors. This information is being collected to allow the park management to make value judgements necessary to enhance the safety and enjoyment of both the visitors and wildlife. All applicable parts of the form must be completed in order for your request to be considered. You are not required to respond to this or any other Federal agency-sponsored information collection unless it displays a currently valid OMB control number.

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Visitors at the Ojibwe Village NPS Photo Grand Portage National Monument is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as nationally significant for its, "…association with the fur trade and exploration and colonization of the northwest, its historic/geographic link between the United States and Canada, and its excellent state of preservation in a semi-wilderness setting." The monument preserves 710 acres which includes: the historic depot (71 acres) located on Lake Superior, the site of Fort Charlotte (98 acres) on the Pigeon River with the Grand Portage (541 acres) connecting the two depots. The 8.5 mile portage corridor and Fort Charlotte (639 acres) contain the majority of the Monument's semi-wilderness setting.

The monument preserves 710 acres which includes: the historic depot (71 acres) located on Lake Superior, the site of Fort Charlotte (98 acres) on the Pigeon River with the Grand Portage (541 acres) connecting the two depots. The 8.5 mile portage corridor and Fort Charlotte (639 acres) contain the majority of the Monument's semi-wilderness setting. All activities begin within walking distance of the Heritage Center parking lot.

The Heritage Center holds displays about the fur trade and Anishinaabe culture. Check to see if there is an exhibit on the second floor.

You will find a cancellation stamp with the date of your visit at the Heritage Center front desk.

Junior Rangers have fun discovering history, while learning about why we need to protect the special treasures found in our National Parks.

Take time to walk through the historical fur trade and learn about the people who made it possible.

Hike to the top of Mount Rose, walk part of Gichi Onigaming, or head to the High Falls at Grand Portage State Park to round out your day.

Complete your canoe experience by portaging to Lake Superior along Gichi Onigaming, the trail trod for 1000s of years.

The High Falls is the tallest waterfall in Minnesota and blocks water traffic out of Lake Superior on the Pigeon River.

Ask at the front desk to check out a pair of historic snowshoes for the day. Explore the snowy Depot area.

Be prepared to break trail as you ski uphill on the historic Grand Portage Trail. 1.5 miles one way from the Depot to new Highway 61.

Welcome to winter! Wear sturdy footwear and warm clothing to walk the snowy grounds along the lake or hike to the top of Mount Rose.

Mount Rose Trail and Grand Portage National Monument area. Click on the image to download a copy of the map. NPS graphic Canoe Loading across from the Historic Site From Thursday August 7 to Sunday August 10, please load/unload canoes off road near the Grand Portage trailhead sign at the corner of Store and Mile Creek Roads. Please do not cross the intersection with packs or canoes during this time. Campfires Fires are prohibited on all trails except in desigated fire rings at Fort Charlotte. Trails can be accessed across Mile Creek Road across from the depot. Mount Rose has an additional trailhead from the Heritage Center parking lot, near the picnic area. Download a copy of the map.

The Mount Rose Trail offers stunning views of Grand Portage Bay. Several staircases protect the trail from erosion. NPS photo / G.M. Spoto Pets and Wildlife Pets must be restrained on a leash no longer than 6 feet (1.8 m). Pets are not allowed inside buildings or the stockade of the historic depot. There are trails around the perimeter of the stockade allowing a bypass. Please do not feed or disturb wildlife Wear protective clothing for ticks and biting insects, consider bug spray

Take a walk back in time to a historic fur trade depot and meet the people who made it possible.

Camping is not available at the historic site and is limited to two remote backcountry campsites at Fort Charlotte for hikers or canoeists.

Hike the eight-and-a-half-mile path made famous by the voyageurs or climb Mount Rose for a view of Grand Portage Bay and the Depot.

Map of a section of Grand Portage National Monument adjacent to Lake Superior, depicting facilities and trailheads. No scale provided. An arrow pointing toward the top of the map indicates north. Grand Portage Bay of Lake Superior is on the right: a gray shape bordered by a wavy diagonal line near the middle of the map. The following descriptions begin in the lower left corner and move clockwise around the map.