The Bucket List of Minnesota Wonders

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness

Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness: It should be a state law that every Minnesota kid, before they leave middle school, should take a state-funded trip to our great BWCA. It is a treasure you can’t truly know until you step foot into crystal waters, haul a canoe over rocky paths from lake to lake, delight in the absolute lack of cell phone service, and camp with loons and moose. Striking out into this 1.1-million-acre expanse of lakes and trees redefines your relationship to the state—just ask the nearly 250,000 annual visitors who go to commune with the largest contiguous area of uncut forest remaining in the eastern United States.

Grand Portage State Park—High Falls

Grand Portage State Park—High Falls: Ever wonder why the Pigeon River is the official border between the United States and Canada on Lake Superior? Trundle down the well-paved path to the High Falls for the obvious answer: a 120-foot waterfall that looks like it could be the setting of a climactic battle scene in a James Bond movie, with plunging water, deadly rocks, and sheer cliff walls on both sides! To attempt to cross it would surely bring instant death! It’s completely magnificent, breathtaking, and slightly comical. Comical when you contemplate surveyors looking at these falls in the 1800s and concluding, Yeah, no, no one could possibly cross that. Let’s call it the border. And so it was for the rest of eternity!

Sherburn National Wildlife Refuge

It’s one thing to hear the rattling, out-of-this-world call of a lone sandhill crane; it’s mind-blowing to hear an entire flock settling in for a refueling stage during fall migration at the Sherburn National Wildlife Refuge about an hour north of the Cities.

Lake of the Woods—Northwest Angle

3 More to Explore:

Red River of the North State Water Trail: While parts of the Mississippi and St. Louis rivers meander north for a bit, the Red River, on the North Dakota border, is the only one that heads north and doesn’t stop—because it really wants to join the polar bears and the Arctic Ocean.

Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge: This 14,000-acre natural corridor quietly weaving through the south metro from Bloomington to Henderson along the Minnesota River—with 45 miles of trails for hiking, biking, cross-country skiing, and snowshoeing—is a gem right on our doorstep that’s filled with wildlife both familiar and rare.

Lake of the Woods—Northwest Angle: At our northernmost point, where the border mingles with land and water, they use the word contiguous more than anywhere else in the United States. But the blues and greens of what locals call The Angle certainly feel remote, if not technically disconnected.

Pipestone

Pipestone National Monument features a type of sedimentary rock that has metamorphosed into a finely grained, buttery brick-red stone, a stone that yields to almost anything a little bit harder and sharper. For centuries, Indigenous people have been coming to this part of the world to quarry and carve catlinite, a unique variety of pipestone that has little or no quartz, into tobacco pipe bowls used in their sacred ceremonies. The quarries—and the descendants of some of those Indigenous people, for that matter, who consider this area to be as sacred as the stone they take from it—are still here.

Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge—Touch the Sky Prairie

Northern Tallgrass Prairie National Wildlife Refuge—Touch the Sky Prairie: Trimmed, hedged, sprinkled, and pecked into impotent little suburban patches of green, grass has been humiliated if not degraded. But here in the southwest corner of the state, waves of golden-tipped Indian grass ripple across 1,000 protected acres that once served as part of a vast continental blanket, stretching from the Rocky Mountains to the Mississippi River, the Saskatchewan River to the San Antonio. This grassy ecosystem may now be endangered, but visiting Touch the Sky Prairie on a summer day, watching the bluestem and switchgrass breathe over exciting pops of wildflowers with insects and birds buzzing and singing above, it will seem like it could go on forever.

Minneopa State Park

Want to check a few boxes? Visit Minneopa State Park just west of Mankato. Take in the double waterfall and limestone staircase, then go for a drive through an approximately 325-acre bison range, where nearly 40 beasts roam.

Niagara Cave

3 More to Explore:

Whitewater State Park: Explore these 2,700 acres of pristinely preserved southeastern Minnesota Driftless limestone bluff country, and find all the epic hiking, fly-fishing, and bird-watching that comes with it. Inspiration Point is a definite highlight.

Pine Island State Forest: Up near the Canadian border, the former bottom of glacial Lake Agassiz is now the largest (maybe flattest) state forest in Minnesota, with nearly a million total acres of old-growth pine and cedar.

Niagara Cave: Sure, stalactites and stalagmites are cool, but in this cave in Harmony, an hour south of Rochester, you’re heading 200 feet down into the earth to see something cooler: a 60-foot waterfall.

Blue Mounds State Park

Blue Mounds State Park: Rising from an inland sea of grass in the very southwest corner of the state, a 100-foot-tall quartzite cliff appears as if from a sun-parched hallucination. As you near it, the color of the rock varies—according to both its own geology and the light of the sun—from rose to champagne to violet. But these are the blue mounds of Blue Mounds State Park, so called because the settlers who came upon them must’ve had a more limited palette to describe these nearly two-billion-year-old rocks. And don’t let your eyes fool you: Some of the rocks may appear to be moving—look closer, and you’ll see those are the park’s herd of buffalo!

Hawk Ridge

Hawk Ridge: Get a bird’s-eye view of Lake Superior at Hawk Ridge Nature Reserve—the 365-acre bird observatory high above Duluth, where scientists and bird lovers go to get a glimpse of the hundreds of species that migrate via the Mississippi River Flyway. Bring binoculars and a hat—it’s windy and sunny up there—and keep in mind that  the best hours for hawk-watching are 10 am–2 pm, when the bird-carrying updrafts are draftiest. (The season and wind direction can impact how many birds you see.) A field guide to birds can help you sort out who your lofty neighbors are.

Voyageurs National Park

On a quest for northern lights? Voyageurs National Park was recently recognized as an International Dark Sky Park. This far-northern destination joins others in this tier of the state as a place that seriously works to mitigate any light distraction and preserve a darkness that provides optimal nighttime celestial viewing.

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park Tower

3 More to Explore:

Mille Lacs Kathio State Park Tower: This epic forest in east-central Minnesota is replete with a 100-foot-tall fire tower (perfect for observing fall colors), Rum River access, 30-plus miles of trails, and 19 archaeological sites showcasing 9,000 years of humanity. 

Oldenburg Point—Jay Cooke State Park: Just south of Duluth, the St. Louis River shows off the only whitewater rapids in the state. Catch a glimpse from the crowded 200-foot-long suspension bridge near park headquarters, or enjoy it in solitude farther downriver at Oldenburg Overlook. 

Interstate State Park: The billion-year-old basalt cliffs and glacial potholes overlooking the St. Croix River near Taylors Falls feel otherworldly—but the hour drive northeast from the Twin Cites makes it an ideal day trip for hiking, kayaking, and rock-scrambling.

Red Lake Peatland

Red Lake Peatland: The largest, most diversely patterned peatland in the United States—and the southernmost of the boreal peatlands—rests an hour north of Bemidji. The nearly 87,580-acre Red Lake Peatland was designated as a National Natural Landmark in 1975 and looks like another planet, thanks to its singular ecosystem serving as a habitat for rare plants such as montane yellow-eyed grass, linear-leaved sundew, and coastal sedge, as well as critters such as short-eared owls, northern bog lemmings, and Wilson’s phalaropes. While walking the peatland itself is both frowned upon and incredibly difficult (it’s like walking on a waterbed), there’s a vast boardwalk that runs along a portion of its eastern flank.

Superior National Forest—Magnetic Rock

Superior National Forest—Magnetic Rock: Grab a compass (or a refrigerator magnet) before you head out to this wonder in Superior National Forest. Drive into the Boundary Waters via the Gunflint Trail, find the parking lot for the Magnetic Rock Trail, head down the pine-bordered trail for 1.5 miles, and there it is! A monolith of iron-rich magnetite with iron molecules lined up just right, rendering it a 60-foot natural magnet. Watch it play with your compass, or toss your fridge magnet at it and see it stick! The phenomenon is as miraculous as sunlight.

Lake Superior

Lake Superior: Edged by rocky cliffs, lush forests, waterfalls, natural wonders, wildlife, and year-round adventure along its 150 miles of Minnesota shoreline—can easily fill a bucket list of adventures all by itself.

International Wolf Center

3 More to Explore:

Iona’s Beach Scientific and Natural Area: No need to travel to Greece or the Bahamas for pink beaches—a 300-yard stretch of pink rhyolite and felsite bedrock sits just south of Split Rock on Highway 61.

Jeffers Petroglyphs: Best observed in the low light of early morning or late evening—there’s a moose!—the 7,000-year-old rock carvings, located in the southwest part of the state just outside of Comfrey, will bend your mind toward the furthest reaches of human history.

International Wolf Center: Over several millennia, humans have been more obsessed with the wolf than any other animal. But as the scientists at Ely’s IWC have long understood, actually observing one (or more) changes you forever.