Itasca State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, and contains the headwaters of the Mississippi River. The park spans 32,690 acres (132.3 km2) of northern Minnesota, and is located about 21 miles (34 km) north of Park Rapids, Minnesota and 25 miles (40 km) from Bagley, Minnesota. The park is part of Minnesota's Pine Moraines and Outwash Plains Ecological Subsection and is contained within Clearwater, Hubbard, and Becker counties.
County State-Aid Highway 12 (CSAH 12), also known as the Gunflint Trail, or County Road 12 (CR 12), is a 57-mile (92 km) paved roadway and National Scenic Byway in Cook County, Minnesota, that begins in Grand Marais and ends at Saganaga Lake in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW), near the U.S. border with Ontario. It provides access to many of the entry points in the BWCAW.
Banning State Park is a state park of Minnesota, USA, stretched along 10 miles (16 km) of the Kettle River near Sandstone in Pine County. The centerpiece of the park is 1.5 miles (2.4 km) of churning rapids, some up to Class IV. The daring kayakers and canoeists who shoot Blueberry Slide, Mother's Delight, Dragon's Tooth, Little Banning, and Hell's Gate each spring attract spectators to the park. Landbound visitors can hike along the state's first Wild and Scenic River amid dramatic sandstone rock formations, large potholes carved by the river, and the remains of an historic quarry. Other features are Wolf Creek Falls and Robinson Ice Cave. The park is located directly off Interstate 35. Banning State Park is open daily from 8am until 10pm. Each vehicle entering the park requires an up to date permit which can be purchased online or at the park office.
Cook Forest State Park is a 8,500-acre (3,440 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Farmington Township, Clarion County, Barnett Township, Forest County and Barnett Township, Jefferson County, Pennsylvania in the United States. Located just south of the Allegheny National Forest, the park is a heavily wooded area of rolling hills and mountains along the Clarion River in northwestern Pennsylvania. Cook Forest State Park is known for some of America's finest virgin white pine and hemlock timber stands and was once called the "Black Forest" due to the preponderance of evergreen tree coverage.
Fort Snelling State Park is a state park of the U.S. state of Minnesota, at the confluence of the Mississippi and Minnesota rivers. For many centuries, the area of the modern park has been of importance to the Mdewakanton Dakota people who consider it the center of the earth. The state park, which opened in 1962, is named for the historic Fort Snelling, which dates from 1820. The fort structure is maintained and operated by the Minnesota Historical Society. The bulk of the state park preserves the bottomland forest, rivers, and backwater lakes below the river bluffs. Both the state and historic fort structure are part of the Mississippi National River and Recreation Area, a National Park Service site.
Jay Cooke State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, protecting the lower reaches of the Saint Louis River. The park is located about 10 miles (16 km) southwest of Duluth and is one of the ten most visited state parks in Minnesota. The western half of the park contains part of a rocky, 13-mile (21 km) gorge. This was a major barrier to Native Americans and early Europeans traveling by canoe, which they bypassed with the challenging Grand Portage of the St. Louis River. The river was a vital link connecting the Mississippi waterways to the west with the Great Lakes to the east.
Judge C. R. Magney State Park is a state park in the U.S. state of Minnesota, on the North Shore of Lake Superior. It was named for Clarence R. Magney, a former mayor of Duluth and justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, who was instrumental in getting 11 state parks and scenic waysides established along the North Shore. The park is best known for the Devil's Kettle, an unusual waterfall and rock formation in which half of the Brule River disappears into a pothole.
Flandrau State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, on the Cottonwood River adjacent to the city of New Ulm. Initially called Cottonwood River State Park, it was renamed in 1945 to honor Charles Eugene Flandrau, a leading citizen of early Minnesota who commanded defenses during the Battles of New Ulm in the Dakota War of 1862. The park was originally developed in the 1930s as a job creation project to provide a recreational reservoir. However the dam was repeatedly damaged by floods and was removed in 1995.
St. Croix State Park is a state park in Pine County, Minnesota, USA. The park follows the shore of the St. Croix River for 21 miles (34 km) and contains the last 7 miles (11 km) of the Kettle River. At 33,895 acres (13,717 ha) it is the largest Minnesota state park. It was developed as a Recreational Demonstration Area in the 1930s, and is one of the finest surviving properties of this type in the nation. 164 structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and the Works Progress Administration survive, the largest collection of New Deal projects in Minnesota. As a historic district they were listed on the National Register of Historic Places and proclaimed a National Historic Landmark in 1997.
Sakatah Lake State Park is an 842-acre (341 ha) state park of Minnesota, USA, on a natural widening of the Cannon River near the town of Waterville. The Dakota native to the area called it "Sakatah" which means "singing hills". To honor this native heritage, some of the trails in the park have been given Dakota names. The Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail, which connects Faribault and Mankato, runs through this park.
Hartwick Pines State Park is a public recreation area covering 9,762 acres (3,951 ha) in Crawford County near Grayling and Interstate 75 on the Lower Peninsula of the U.S. state of Michigan. The state park contains an old-growth forest of white pines and red pines, known as the Hartwick Pines. It is claimed by the Michigan Department of Natural resources that this old growth area, along with the Red Pine Natural Area Preserve in Roscommon County resembles the appearance of all Northern Michigan prior to the logging era. These areas do, however, lack the reoccurring low intensity fires which once occurred throughout northern Michigan, impacting regeneration of red pine and eastern hemlock, as well as leading to an increased content of hardwood species such as sugar maple and beech.
Lake Bemidji State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, on the north shore of 6,765-acre (27.38 km2) Lake Bemidji. The northern half of the park preserves a spruce-tamarack bog. A district of National Park Service rustic structures built by the Civilian Conservation Corps and National Youth Administration in the 1930s is on the National Register of Historic Places. The park is located 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the city of Bemidji.
The Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge is a 14,000-acre (5,666 ha) National Wildlife Refuge in eastern and central Minnesota. Located just south of the city of Minneapolis, it is one of fourteen Regional Priority Urban Wildlife Refuges in the nation. Many parts of the Refuge are near large establishments of the Twin Cities; the Bloomington Education and Visitor Center and two trailheads are located just blocks from the Mall of America, the Wilkie Unit is just east of Valleyfair and the Louisville Swamp Unit is just south of Minnesota Renaissance Festival.
The Hunter Mountain Fire Tower is located on the summit of the eponymous mountain, second highest of the Catskill Mountains in the U.S. state of New York. It was the first of 23 fire lookout towers built by the state in the region, and the next-to-last of the five still standing to be abandoned.
The Red Hill Fire Observation Station consists of a fire lookout tower, cabin and pit privy located on the summit of Red Hill, a 2,990-foot (910 m) Catskill Mountain peak in Denning, New York, United States. It is the southernmost fire tower in the Catskill Park.
Okefenokee Swamp Park is located 12 miles south of Waycross, Georgia, United States. The park is accessed by taking the Vereen Bell Memorial Highway to the southern side of the Cowhouse Island. This is the northernmost entry point to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. The Okefenokee Swamp is the most extensive blackwater swamp in North America and covers over 438,000 acres.
The Grand Portage State Forest is a state forest located near the community of Hovland in Cook County, in extreme northeastern Minnesota. The forest encloses Judge C. R. Magney State Park, Swamp River Wildlife Management Area, Hovland Woods Scientific and Natural Area, and Spring Beauty Hardwoods Scientific and Natural Area. It borders the Grand Portage Indian Reservation to the east, the Superior National Forest to the west, and Ontario to the north. The forest is named after the Grand Portage, a historic trade route between the Great Lakes and the Northwest.
The Michigan Heritage Park was an open-air museum that spanned 10,000 years of Michigan history. It consisted of a half-mile trail loop that started with a pre-historic mastodon exhibit and ended at a Civilian Conservation Corps camp exhibit. The historical exhibits are recreations. The park was operated by Muskegon's Lakeshore Museum Center.
The Cross River Heritage Center is a museum in Schroeder, Minnesota, United States. Operated by the Schroeder Area Historical Society, it collects and interprets the history of the local area and the greater North Shore of Lake Superior. The center opened in 2002 in a Tudor Revival building constructed in 1929 as the Stickney Inn and Store. The building is located on the south side of Minnesota State Highway 61 near the west bank of the Cross River.
