Buffalo River State Park

Before settlement, tallgrass prairie stretched across much of western and southern Minnesota, a rolling ocean of grass taller than a person by late summer. The deep, rich soils that grew that grass were also perfect for crops, so nearly all of it was plowed under within a generation. Today only tiny fragments remain, and the prairie here is one of the finest of them.

The park and the neighboring Bluestem Prairie together protect a great sweep of unplowed grassland, home to hundreds of kinds of native plants. Big bluestem, Indian grass, and prairie flowers bloom in changing waves from spring into fall, and the deep tangled roots below hold the soil and store water the way they have for thousands of years.

This is part of Mni Sota Makoce, homeland of the Dakota, and the Red River Valley country was traveled and used by both the Dakota and the Ojibwe, or Anishinaabe, who moved across the prairies and woodlands with the seasons. The bison that once grazed this grass were central to Plains life, and the river and prairie provided food, materials, and travel routes long before any farm broke the sod.

In the eighteen hundreds treaties opened the valley to settlement, and the fertile land was quickly claimed and plowed for wheat, the crop that built the towns of the Red River country. The prairie preserved here is a reminder of the land as it was, and the Dakota and Ojibwe nations remain a living part of Minnesota today.

The Red River Valley is famously flat, and for good reason. It is the bed of an enormous glacial lake, Lake Agassiz, which filled this basin at the end of the last ice age with meltwater from the retreating glaciers. When the lake finally drained it left behind the level, fine-grained soils that make the valley some of the best farmland in the world.

The Buffalo River cuts a gentle, winding course across that old lakebed, lined with cottonwood, elm, and oak that shelter deer, birds, and other woodland life. The contrast is part of the park's charm, the shady, twisting river corridor threading through the open, sun-filled prairie, two very different worlds within an easy walk of each other.

For many local families the park means summer swimming in its cool, spring-fed pond, a welcome relief on hot valley days. Trails loop through the prairie and along the river, easy walking that puts you among the wildflowers and birds, and the campground makes an easy base near Fargo and Moorhead.

The prairie is alive with birds, from bobolinks and meadowlarks bubbling over the grass to hawks hunting the open ground, and butterflies and pollinators fill the summer flowers. Spring greens up the grass and returns the birds, summer brings peak bloom and swimming, fall turns the grass gold and copper under wide skies, and winter lays the valley bare and quiet under snow and wind.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.