The shutdown of Minnesota’s government has some people confused about whether Voyageurs National Park continues to operate.
Voyageurs National Park is under federal jurisdiction and is not governed by the budget of the state of Minnesota, so is not impacted by the state government shutdown, according to VNP Superintendent Mike Ward.
“We’ve had several folks by email, phone and also had folks in the community hearing from folks across Minnesota that they thought we were closed,” said Ward. “The visitor centers and everything here that is normally open is open.”
Ward said park officials had hoped that park use would see a spike because the shutdown has closed state parks. “We’re not seeing that, so far,” he said.
In addition, Ward said a lot of people visiting the park are concerned about how to get fishing licenses during the state shutdown. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is not selling licenses during the shutdown.
Ward said visitors without licenses are able to fish provided they give the information needed for a license to one of the vendors that sell fishing licenses. The license providers can’t charge a fee, but will collect the needed information for the license.
He said park officials worked with the DNR to allow fishing to continue for people unable to obtain a license, but that they will need to purchase the license when the state operations start up.
“A lot of resorts were concerned, so we queried the DNR, and we assume these people would be following the rules if the state was open, so they’re gathering that information so when the state reopens, they will have a time period when they can get a license, and won’t be fined or cited,” said Ward. “We realized that a lot of people are coming up for the purpose of fishing and may not have known the state of Minnesota was closed.”
Meanwhile, Ward said visitation to the park was up on weekends prior to July 4.
In June, the park was at 90-95 percent full capacity and he said that’s not typical, but is good.
“We focus on the shoulder seasons (prior to and after the summer months), because we can’t put too many more people here in July and August — everything is full, but it’s more about getting people spread out through the year so everyone can enjoy the park.”
