Tettegouche State Park

The park carries an unusual name and an unusual history. In 1898 the Alger-Smith Lumber Company came north and began cutting the old-growth pine forests of this coast, setting up a logging camp on the shore of an inland lake. When most of the big pine was gone, in 1910 the company sold the cut-over land to a group of Duluth businessmen who formed the Tettegouche Club and used the woods and lakes as a private fishing retreat.

The name Tettegouche is often traced to a French-Canadian phrase meaning meeting place, a fitting name for what the land eventually became. After passing through private hands over the decades, the property was protected and grew into the state park it is today. What was once a stripped logging tract and a rich men's fishing camp is now open to everyone, and the forest has grown back tall and green over the old scars.

The most dramatic part of Tettegouche is where the land meets the water. Shovel Point is a long finger of dark rock jutting out into Lake Superior, and a trail leads to its very tip, where you stand on the cliff top with open water stretching away in every direction and no far shore in sight, because Superior is the largest freshwater lake on earth by surface area. Just down the coast, Palisade Head rises in a wall of sheer cliff, one of the tallest on the whole shore, with a drive-up overlook and, on many days, climbers working ropes down its face.

These cliffs are old volcanic rock, hardened lava from a time more than a billion years ago when this part of the continent was pulling apart and molten rock welled up. The lake has been chewing at that rock ever since. Standing at the edge, with the wind coming off the water and waves breaking on the stone far below, is one of the great free experiences of the North Shore, and it costs nothing but the walk out.

The Baptism River is Tettegouche's other headliner. As it runs down toward Lake Superior it drops over a whole series of falls, four of which you can visit: Illgen Falls, High Falls, Two Step Falls, and Cascade Falls. High Falls is the star, about 70 feet tall and the highest waterfall entirely within Minnesota, reached by a climbing trail with wooden staircases and boardwalks and, near the top, a swinging suspension footbridge over the river gorge that is a small adventure of its own.

Behind the shoreline, the park hides a quieter world. A cluster of inland lakes, remnants of that old fishing club, sit ringed by forest and reachable only on foot, where you can paddle a rented canoe in near silence or hike to a rustic camp on the water. With something over twenty miles of hiking trails, plus groomed routes for skiing and snowshoeing once the snow flies, Tettegouche is a four-season park, quieter and wilder in the back country than the busy overlooks along the highway.

Tettegouche sits right on Highway 61 about an hour up the shore from Duluth, near the town of Silver Bay, and the visitor center on the highway is the natural place to start, pick up a trail map, and get your state park vehicle permit. From there you can tailor the day to your legs: a short walk to a cliff-top view, the longer climb to High Falls, or a full loop past several of the falls and out to Shovel Point.

Come prepared for Lake Superior weather, which can swing cold and windy even in summer, and treat the cliff edges with real respect, since the drops are long and unfenced. Give yourself most of a day if you can, because the park packs so much into one place: the tallest inland falls in the state, the great sea cliffs, the hidden lakes, and the endless blue of the biggest lake on the continent, all within a few miles of the road.

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