Video: Re-opened North Shore campgrounds, state parks see busy weekend
Jun 15, 2020 05:48AM ● By EditorWatch the WDIO-TV Report here
By Emily Ness of WDIO-TV - June 14, 2020
Campgrounds and state parks along the North Shore re-opened Monday. This led to a busy weekend for Minnesotans hoping to make the most of it.
On Sunday, Gooseberry Falls’ parking lot was filled with cars belonging to people from all over the state who came to camp and hike.
For one couple, being at Gooseberry Falls over the weekend was especially special because it marked their 50 year wedding anniversary.
For other groups, Sunday’s outing was solely about enjoying the beauty of nature.
“The scenery really and then its just a lot calmer and quieter than the cities,” George Chang of St. Paul said.
As always, the Minnesota DNR asks those hiking and camping to keep safety in mind. But, some new protocol as a result of the pandemic includes cleaning common spaces more frequently, bringing all necessary supplies to the campsite to minimize unnecessary travel and spacing campsites apart to allow for social distancing. More information about this can be found here.
“A lot of the camping I’ve seen has been separated around where: here you can camp, here you cannot and then you can for the next one and so on and so forth,” Wesley Dicks of Minneapolis said. “It has been busy. The park like lower falls, upper falls have been pretty packed.”
Northeastern Minnesota state park campgrounds that reopened on Monday include:
- Banning State Park
- Gooseberry Falls State Park
- Itasca State Park
- Mille Lacs
- Kathio State Park
- Moose Lake State Park
- Savanna Portage State Park
- Split Rock Lighthouse State Park
- Temperance River State Park
- Tettegouche State Park
