Itasca State Park Adventure

TYPE OF TRAVEL/DISTANCE: An average day’s activities consist of hiking, canoeing and exploring the immediate area. You will travel in a 24-foot canoe, which holds 6-9 paddlers and 1 boat captain. They are fast and stable boats, designed specifically for big water, and have enough space for young children to sit comfortably with an adult. Canoe outings are typically 1-3 hours long.

WEATHER: Temperatures in the summer range from 40° F to 95° F. Rainfall can vary and you should expect the possibility of rain.

YOUR GROUP: The group size ranges from 15 to 28 participants, plus 3 or more Wilderness Inquiry staff. Each group consists of people of various ages, backgrounds, and abilities, including people with disabilities. Itasca is a kid-friendly vacation that lends itself to quality family outdoor adventures. Our trips are cooperative in nature. WI staff will assist you in whatever areas you need, however, most people pitch in where they can.

ACCOMMODATIONS: At night you will sleep in a comfortable 4 person tent with 3-4 people (other arrangements can be made). The campsite has a hand pump for water, toilets, and a screened shelter building.

MEALS: Enjoy preparing meals together using fresh, healthy ingredients for bountiful dishes. Rise to the smell of freshly brewed coffee to enjoy with your breakfast and pack trail lunches with hearty snacks before heading off to explore. In the evening, we’ll prepare our dinner together over stoves and campfires and then finish with s’mores. If you have special dietary restrictions be sure to list them on your registration.

EQUIPMENT AND CLOTHING: Wilderness Inquiry will provide all group equipment. You will need to provide your personal gear as outlined in the packing list. If you are new to outdoor activities, you do not need to spend a lot of money. Wilderness Inquiry can usually arrange for you to borrow most items.

Henry Schoolcraft, the first white explorer to recognize Lake Itasca as the head of the Mississippi, named the lake on his 1832 voyage of exploration guided by Anishinabe (Ojibway) people. Schoolcraft combined parts of two Latin words, veritas (truth) and caput (head), to form the name Itasca, meaning the true head of the Mississippi River.

Itasca State Park today includes over 100 lakes in addition to Lake Itasca. The park contains groves of towering old pines like Preachers Grove, a 2,000-acre Wilderness Sanctuary (designated as a National Natural Landmark), and Native American burial mounds at the Itasca Indian Cemetery. The Bison Kill Site along Wilderness Drive in the park gives visitors more history about this period. Visitors can walk across the Mississippi River on stones as the stream leaves Lake Itasca.

In the late 1800s, Jacob V. Brower, historian, anthropologist and land surveyor, came to the park region to settle the dispute of the actual location of the Mississippi Headwaters. Brower saw this region being quickly transformed by logging, and resolved to protect some of the pine forests for future generations. Brower’s tireless efforts to save the remaining pine forest surrounding Lake Itasca led the state legislature to establish Itasca as Minnesota’s first state park on April 20, 1891, by a margin of only one vote. Through his conservation work and the continuing efforts of others throughout the decades, the splendor of Itasca has been maintained.

Like the rest of northern Minnesota, Itasca’s present landscape resulted from burial under and gouging by glacial ice for thousands of years. Unlike northeastern Minnesota, which lay covered in ice until about 10,000 years ago, Itasca lay under the Wadena Lobe in the last ice age. The Wadena Lobe retreated from the Itasca area about 20,000 years ago, giving it a longer human history and an independent natural and geographical history.

Itasca’s topography remains more subtle than that found to the east or south. In those areas, glaciers gouged out the massive basins that gave form to the Great Lakes, and left records of its melting in the high bluffs along the Mississippi. The lakes and rivers of Itasca State Park formed from ice masses left behind after the glaciers retreated, buried under glacial debris. As the climate changed and temperatures increased, the ice melted, leaving behind a watery chain of lakes, streams, and shallow basins. Many of these lakes and chains slowly dried up over the years, leaving swampy areas scattered throughout the park.

The land itself is a glacial moraine left during the last ice age. A moraine is a mound of sand, gravel and other debris left behind as a glacier melts and recedes. Itasca also has many mounds or ‘knobs,’ deposits of silt left by melting glaciers or by streams flowing under the glacier while it was still active.

Several different habitats mingle within this section of the boreal forest, including bogs, grasslands, hardwood stands, coniferous forest, and a mixed forest. Maples, firs, pines, aspen, and birch dominate the forest within the park. Wildlife includes beaver, woodchucks, snowshoe hares, squirrels (red, gray, and fox), chipmunks, pocket gopher, raccoon, black bear, coyote, red and gray fox, porcupine, bobcat, deer, wolves, and moose. An array of birdlife also inhabits the park, including common loons, bald eagles, wood warblers, hawks, and woodpeckers.

Itasca State Park offers a terrific kid-friendly family camping vacation. Fishing, boating, canoeing, kayaking, hiking, biking, and horseback riding can all be found in Itasca. This destination will give you lasting memories.