grand portage national monument

This is one of the National Park Service's gems! It is right on Lake Superior and has awesome views. On a clear day, you can see Isle Royale National Park in the middle of the lake and the drive here is absolutely beautiful. The park itself has several hiking options; knowledgeable and friendly staff; wonderful demonstrations and informative museum displays. I just wish the interactive trading display worked. If you're in the area, stop in the summer when the "fort" is open.

Be sure and go on the guided tour. We had the best guide, dressed in period clothing and many stories to tell. Very interesting park and a new museum and gift shop. Great for history buffs.

With our traveling companions, we drove Highway 60 from Grand Marais, through beautiful forests to this high and most scenic overlook that provided beautiful views of Lake Superior. The Ranger who guided our foursome was most knowledgeable about the history of the Park, as well as the living conditions and customs of the fur traders who inhabited the area in the 16th through 18th Centuries. The tours of the fort and adjoining outbuildings was extremely interesting and informative, and we all enjoyed learning about the hardships of the settlers there. With that in mind, however, we all agreed we would not care to live in birch-bark lean-tos!

If you like history, please visit this beautiful and engaging monument. It is a lovely drive - and you can see first hand a major piece of U.S. History.

For our trip at the end of October I realized we wouldn't be able to see the fort or any of the other associated historic buildings or see any of the programs, etc. like you would during the summer season, but the whole darn place closes up on weekends after mid-October. We were expecting to at least be able to go into the new and nice looking heritage center (basically the visitor center), but they are only open M-F. We voiced our displeasure to the staff at Grand Portage State Park up the road, and they agreed and mentioned that this is a topic of conversation every year. Ridiculous.

We had a very interesting tour guide. Very knowledgeable and presented the facts very professional. Gave us a good history lesson on the area.

After visiting several state parks, waterfalls, etc., on the North Shore, it was nice to throw in a bit of history. We found it so interesting, that this was such an important fur trading area. The visitor center is a very beautiful building wih a wonderful view of the lake, both thru the inside windows and outside. The movie Rendezvous is very well done, which you can see at the visitor center. There are also interesting displays of the era. We did not take an official tour of the buildings in the fort, but did enjoy our walk there and were able to look in the windows to get a view inside to see what we could see. We were glad we stopped here!!

We stopped here on our way up the coast of Lake Superior. The visitor center was very nice and clean. The rangers and staff were friendly and helpful. All our children (ages 4-10) in our family were able to earn a Junior Ranger Badge. We stayed here for about an hour. Because we were here during the winter, we were not able to tour the grounds. But we still had a nice visit.

The visitor center is beautiful and every light and airy. The view over Lake Superior from the second floor is quite magnificent.The staff wee keen to answer questions and direct us to the exhibits and video demonstrations.The national monument site is well kept and the guides informative. It is amazing to think of the amount of men who would have been on site at the same time.Definitely a great way to spend a couple of hours.

We were traveling near-by and saw the sign and had to investigate. This is a cool place and wish we could have been here when the special celebration was going on in the spring. We have this on the list to return.

I love that the stories here are told from the view of the Ojibway people. I learned so much that my history teachers never told us. I have a total new view of both the fur trade and the people involved. I just wish we had been able to see more of the acual demonstrations. Unfortunately, many tthings are not shown after Labor Day. The visitor center is open on weekdays all year round and is very worth stopping even if the fort is not open.

We were really happy that we stopped here. The quality of the experience was very high. The historical information about the area and the presentation...buildings, period costumes are a must if you are in the area. We only spent about 1 hour here, but would have liked to have had the day and then went to Isle Royale.

We had only a few hours to enjoy Grand Portage but it was one of the best historical sites I've seen. Very comprehensive presentation of the history of fur trading and Native American culture of the area. Imaginative. A very nice heritage site with recreated Northwest Company buildings from the 18th century with staff explaining all sorts of interesting facets of life. From cooking to processing a beaver pelt and most impressively the building of canoes from birch, cedar, and other trees.Friendly and informative staff also.

For the history minded a nice break from all the waterfalls. Great re-en-actors in all the sites. Free admission.

Historic trader and Indian village on the historic site. People in period dress give demonstrations and present facts from the days of the voyagers.