Voyageurs National Park / Rainy Lake
Day 3 in Voyageurs National Park | Hiking in the Rainy Lake District | Kayaking to Little America Island | July 2026
After a day and a half in the Ash River district of Voyageurs National Park, we continued on further North to the Rainy Lake district, just East of International Falls, right across the border from Canada. Right away we got the impression that this area of the park receives a lot more visitors than the Ash River district, at least visitors that we could see. Ash River did seem to have a lot of vehicles in the lot, but we never saw most of those people because they were all out on boats on the lake. Here, the visitor center and trails actually had visitors, as well as plenty of boaters.
When we first arrived, we spent some time at the visitor center, where we walked through the museum and collected our America 250 stamps. After chatting a little with a ranger and looking at our hiking options, we set out on the nearby trails to continue filling out our Voyageurs Hike for Health Passport. We started on the Oberholtzer Trail which began right next to the visitor center, heading West into the woods. When we came to a spur trail, we followed that to a little vista of the wetlands between us and the lake. This part of the trail was the busiest; after we continued following the trail West, we didn’t see anyone else. Further along the trail, we crossed a road and then went on another spur to another spot marked as an overlook, but it turned out to just be a bench in the woods — not exactly our idea of a scenic spot unless you’re really into tree bark, but that’s ok. We eventually ran into the entrance road, and decided to follow the Rainy Lake Recreation Trail back to the visitor center. This trail is also a bike trail and is paved the whole way as it parallels the main road.
With that, we had hiked enough to qualify for the first level of the Hike for Health challenge, which we knew we’d have to settle for just that achievement on this trip. There are more trails out there, but they can be really remote or require taking a boat out to other islands, so it just wasn’t in the cards for us today. It would seem that we were the first ones to receive this award in a while though, because the ranger had to go digging for the stamp (which was our reward) and it appeared to be unused. Hopefully they continue this challenge so someday if we return, we can earn the others!
After wandering around the Rainy Lake district, we felt that we needed to at least try kayaking while we were in the park. We just knew that without going out on the water, we wouldn’t truly be able to appreciate what this park is really all about. But the size of the lakes are just so intimidating, and it certainly doesn’t help that motor boats are still permitted almost everywhere on the lake. We feel so small in our little foldable kayak, watching them whip by and stir up waves that we can only sit tight and wait out. Another easy option for anyone else in this dilemma is to look into the tours given by the national park on larger boats — but they were all sold out for today, so that wasn’t an option for us.
After some back and forth on what our best options were and consulting with the Park Ranger, we decided to try and kayak out to Little American Island. We drove further East on the scenic highway to a boat ramp, set up our kayak, and prepared for our paddle. Once on the water, we made our way North out towards the wide open lake, staying close to the North shoreline as long as we could. The lake and wind were fortunately calm enough, and it turned out to not be too busy today. Once we were out in the open, we had some difficulty initially figuring out WHICH island was the one we were hoping to reach. There are a lot of islands, and from 3 feet above the surface of the water, they definitely all look the same, and it can be hard to tell what’s an island and what’s connected to the mainland.
Once we were sure which one was Little American Island and we were headed in the right direction, we paddled all around the South and West side of the island, circling around before finding our way over to the little dock on the North side of the island. An interpretive trail wanders around the island, showing off the artifacts left behind from the gold mining operation that used to be here. We spent a long while just sitting, looking out over the water at the vista towards the East before returning to our boat and making the paddle back to shore. We had the island all to ourselves until just before we left, when another small boat arrived with a few people. We found this little venture to be the perfect, least intimidating way to experience being on the water with very little planning in advance, and were very glad we did it!
With that, our time in Voyageurs had come to a close. We drove back to the town of International Falls where we were fortunate to find a free public shower and a beach park where we could spend the rest of the evening. Overall, we think that while Voyageurs isn’t close to being our favorite of the National Parks, it certainly isn’t the worst. We won’t go out of our way to visit again, and next time would probably opt to go to the Boundary Waters instead if we wanted a kayaking destination. This park is probably best enjoyed if you have a motorboat and like to fish. But, on the other hand, if we find ourselves passing through again, we would probably stop if only for a walk in the woods. After all, if we’ve proven anything in our life, it’s that we always return. It’s just not often that we ‘pass through’ an area this remote.
We spent our evening at the beach, then as sunset approached we moved over to a spot where it was legal to park overnight. Adjacent to the spot was a trail leading into the woods, so we took that just for an evening stroll. After walking through the woods, we found ourselves walking out into an open area, with a boardwalk over wetlands and lovely sunset views. We stopped briefly to enjoy this moment, until the mosquitoes caught up with us and sent us hurrying back to the van for the night.
