Upper Manitou Forest Preserve If you’re looking to find some of the largest and oldest trees on the North Shore, check out the Upper Manitou Forest Preserve. It includes one of the best remaining examples of what the North Shore forest was once like. The 2,450-acre preserve is full of sugar maple, yellow birch, white spruce, and white cedar. They are estimated to be more than 300 years old. Some of the trees growing in the area are more than 5 feet in circumference! That is significant for a maple tree, especially along the North Shore where maples tend to [...]

About the Superior National Forest The Superior National Forest is an almost 4 million-acre forested area that is located in the Arrowhead Region of the state of Minnesota.  The forest also encompasses the greater Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). The forest is home to the tallest natural peak in Minnesota, Eagle Mountain, which is 2,301 feet tall and offers spectacular views over the vast forest. The Superior National Forest is part of the United States Forest system and offers unlimited recreational activities year-round. You will be treated to different images of the forest as the season change. The deep [...]

Due to decades of logging, a forest-destroying wildfire in the early 1900s, and continuing human expansions, there are not many old-growth forests remaining in the state of Minnesota. Despite all of that, we on the North Shore are lucky enough to have not one, but three of old growth forests. The three old-growth forests that are easy to access on the North Shore can be found at George H. Crosby-Manitou State Park, Tettegouche State Park, and Spring Beauty Northern Hardwoods SNA. What is an Old Growth Forest? An old-growth forest is a forest that has not undergone any unnatural [...]