This park is popular not only because of its beauty, but also because of its year-round tranquility. It is a place where people can relax in peace and quiet and enjoy the outdoors. The songs of birds, including the call of the loon, can be heard during the day. At night barred owls and whippoorwills add their melodic calls to the whispering voice of the wind.

The colors in the park are cool. The lake is a soft blue, and the trees present all the shades of forest greenery. An evening spent fishing on Lake Itasca observing birds and animals that come to bathe and drink is a delightful experience.

At Itasca State Park, you can camp, hike, bike, and canoe in the footsteps of American Indians, fur traders, an explorers. You can see carnivorous plants, rare orchids in bloom, and watch herons, ospreys, and bald eagles soar. You can see stands of old-growth pine over 200 years old, including Minnesota's record white and red pine trees.
        

In the vast pine forest of Itasca State Park is the beginning of the great river known to all the world as the mighty Mississippi. Here, at the Mississippi's source, the water is transparent and beautiful, and flows over the rocks into what looks more like a little stream than a great river. It is here that the Mississippi River begins its journey to the Gulf of Mexico.

Itasca offers many ways to explore and enjoy the park's beauty and history.

Click here to visit the Department of Natural Resources' Itasca State Park web site.