Heyburn State Park

The first people of this country are the Coeur d'Alene, who call themselves the Schitsu'umsh, often translated as the ones who were found here. For countless generations they fished the lakes, hunted the timbered slopes and meadows, and gathered water potato and other foods from the marshes.

The park was carved from the Coeur d'Alene Reservation by an act of Congress in 1908. That history is not a footnote; the tribe remains present and active in the region, and much of the land around the park is reservation land. Visitors move through a living homeland, and the marshes that make the park so rich in birds are the same ones that fed people here for thousands of years.

When the deed was signed in 1908, Heyburn became the first state park in the region, older than the state park systems of most of the country. It was named for W.B. Heyburn, an Idaho senator, and its early roads, trails, and buildings were the start of a public-lands tradition.

Much of what gives the park its character was built during the Great Depression by the Civilian Conservation Corps. Beginning in 1934, CCC crews built roads, campgrounds, picnic shelters, and the stone-and-timber Rocky Point Lodge, and their handsome, durable work still shapes the visitor experience today.

The park's signature curiosity is the St. Joe River, which flows through the lakes with its banks still standing above the surrounding water, lined with cottonwoods. It is often described as a river within a lake, and it is genuinely unusual, the result of the old river channel and levees persisting after the water rose behind downstream dams.

Around it lie the interconnected Chatcolet, Benewah, Hidden, and Round lakes, a paddler's paradise of quiet channels and hidden bays. The Trail of the Coeur d'Alenes, a paved path on a former rail line, crosses the water on a long bridge and threads the park, a favorite for cyclists.

The wetlands are alive with birds. Ospreys nest on snags and pilings, bald eagles hunt the lakes, and herons stalk the shallows, while the marshes host waterfowl and, in migration, huge numbers of ducks and geese. Deer, elk, and the occasional moose move through the surrounding forest.

Summer is the season for paddling, camping, and swimming in the warm shallow lakes. Fall brings color to the cottonwoods and quieter campgrounds. Winters are cold and often gray under Panhandle clouds, and high water in spring can briefly flood the low channels, so time a paddle for the settled months.

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