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Franz Jevne State Park

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View of the Rainy River inside Franz Jevne State Park

View of the Rainy River in Franz Jevne State Park. Photo by Wikimedia Commons user Tony Webster, October 6, 2017. CC BY-SA 2.0

Franz Jevne State Park is Minnesota’s smallest state park, consisting of about 120 acres of hardwood forest and wetlands. Stretching along the southern shoreline of the Rainy River in Koochiching County, the park represents the combination of natural resources and social history that built Minnesota’s far north. It shares a rich culture with the Manitou Burial Mounds, a National Historic Site of Canada, on the river’s northern bank.

The geological history of Franz Jevne State Park surfaces in a 2.1-billion-year-old outcrop of bedrock within the park and in the boulders that form the nearby rapids, known as Ginwaajiwanaang (Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung, The Place of the Long Rapids) in Ojibwe. In English, they’re also called Long Sault Rapids.

Archaeological evidence indicates that humans first passed through the Rainy River Basin about 9,700 years ago, after the region’s last glacial ice sheet began its retreat. More consistent habitation began about 2,000 years ago (20 CE) when Native Americans—probably the ancestors of multiple Algonquian groups, including the Cree—began to gather annually along the riverbank to trade, socialize, fish, hunt, and celebrate together from April until October. They dispersed into smaller family groups for the winter. From spring to early summer, the fast-flowing, clear water and rocky riverbed of the rapids provided spawning grounds for lake sturgeon, a staple of the Native American diet along with wild rice and game.

These early inhabitants also buried their dead nearby. A series of burial mounds runs along both sides of the Rainy River for ninety miles that includes the Grand Mound Historic Site, about twenty miles southeast of the present-day park. Across the river, the Manitou Burial Mounds are protected at Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre, a National Historic Site of Canada.

The first European to visit the Rainy River Basin is believed to have been the French Canadian Jacques de Noyon, who camped on the shore of the Rainy River during the winter of 1688–1689. Next came fur traders and voyageurs who followed the river to Lake of the Woods and up to Hudson Bay. French Missionaries arrived to Christianize the area’s Native people in the 1730s, and French and then British trading companies established forts along the river to support the fur trade throughout the 1700s.

Starting in the 1870s, loggers moved illegally onto the Rainy River’s south bank, followed by squatters and settler-colonists. The river served as the major transportation system, increasingly enduring damage to its banks and contamination of its water caused by log runs, as well as pollution from pulp and paper mills upstream. Meanwhile, the Canadian government removed the Rainy River Ojibwe from their traditional lands to reserves on the north side of the river.

One of the early property owners in Koochiching County was Wisconsin native Franz Jevne, who moved to Big Falls in 1908 to open the town’s only law office. Four years later he was elected Koochiching County attorney, a position he held for nearly twenty years. Throughout his career in northern Minnesota, he bought and sold multiple properties, including the river’s southern shoreline along the Long Sault Rapids.

In 1961, the US National Park Service conducted a study of the Rainy River, resulting in a recommendation to preserve the river’s shoreline by establishing a 1,300-acre state park. At that time, however, the most scenic and historically significant land within the proposed park was owned by the family of Franz Jevne, and the family was not interested in selling the property.

The proposal to create a state park along the Rainy River languished without access to the Jevne property, but in 1966 the Jevne family offered to donate their land to the state of Minnesota. The offer came with a stipulation that it should become a park named for Franz Jevne. Although the site was small compared to other parks, the Minnesota legislature and senate approved the proposal in 1967, and Governor Harold LeVander signed the law creating Franz Jevne State Wayside Park. The word “wayside” was removed from the name two years later when the state park system unified its terminology.

In 2015, the Parks and Recreation Division of Minnesota’s Department of Natural Resources established a system-wide recreational plan to guide development for all of the state’s parks and recreation areas. Parks were organized into three categories: destination parks, to offer comprehensive resources and facilities and attract visitors; core parks, to provide well-maintained facilities and basic services; and rustic parks, with limited facilities and self-directed services. A year later, a management plan specific to Franz Jevne State Park outlined recommendations for maintaining a rustic environment that protects the natural and cultural resources of the property.

Franz Jevne State Park offers limited and basic amenities, such as wooden picnic tables, fire rings, vault toilets, unpaved trails, and minimal signage. Most visitors come to fish, to camp in one of the drive-in or walk-in sites, and for hiking and birdwatching.

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Canadian Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. “Rainy River Land Claim: Backgrounder.”
https://www.yumpu.com/en/document/view/37458756/rainy-river-land-claim-backgrounder-ministry-of-aboriginal-affairs

Catton, Ted, and Marcia Montgomery. . “Historical Overview of the Fur Trade in the Rainy Lake Region.” From Chapter 1 of Special History: The Environment and the Fur Trade Experience in Voyageurs National Park, 1730–1870. N.p.: National Park Service, 2000.
https://www.nps.gov/parkhistory/online_books/voya/futr/ch1a.htm

Franz Jevne State Park Checklist. Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/destinations/state_parks/franz_jevne/bird_checklist.pdf

Gibbon, Guy. Archaeology of Minnesota: The Prehistory of the Upper Midwest River Region. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012.

Hella, U. W. Quest for Excellence: A History of the Minnesota Council of Parks, 1954 to 1974. Minnesota Parks Foundation, 1985. https://www.parksandtrails.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Hella_Quest-for-Excellence.pdf

Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre. History and Culture.
https://manitoumounds.com/history-culture

“Koochiching County.” Duluth Herald, Section 2, November 21, 1910.

Meyer, Roy W. Everyone’s Country Estate: A History of Minnesota’s State Parks. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1991.

Minnesota Department of Administration, State Archaeologist. Prehistoric Period:
An Overview of Prehistoric Archaeology in Minnesota (12,000 BC–AD 1650).
https://mn.gov/admin/archaeologist/educators/mn-archaeology/prehistoric-period

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Division of Parks and Trails. “Franz Jevne State Park Management Plan,” September 2016.
https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/input/mgmtplans/parks/lake_of_the_woods/franz_jevne_state_park_management_plan.pdf

Minnesota State Parks and Trails. “System Plan: Charting a Course for the Future,” 2015 (updated 2019).
https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/input/mgmtplans/pat/system_plan/system_plan.pdf

Nute, Grace Lee. The Voyageur’s Highway. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1941.

——— . Rainy River Country. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 1950.

Thorleifson, L. H. “Review of Lake Agassiz History.” Geological Survey of Canada.
https://www.geostrategis.com/PDF/review_lake_agassiz_history.pdf

Westerman, Gwen, and Bruce White. Mni Sota Makoce: The Land of the Dakota. St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society, 2012.

Wilford, L. A. “The Prehistoric Indians of Minnesota: Some Mounds of the Rainy River Aspect.” Minnesota History 31, no. 3 (September 1950): 163–171.
https://collections.mnhs.org/mnhistorymagazine/articles/31/v31i03p163-171.pdf

Wilson, Maggie, and Sally J. Cole. Rainy River Lives: Stories Told by Maggie Wilson. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2009.

Wright, James V. A History of the Native People of Canada. Volume II (1000 BC to 500 AD). Late Shield Culture (Précis, Chapter 25). Canadian Museum of History, https://www.historymuseum.ca/cmc/exhibitions/archeo/hnpc/npvol25e.html

Related Images

View of the Rainy River inside Franz Jevne State Park
View of the Rainy River inside Franz Jevne State Park
Rocky outcrop inside Franz Jevne State Park
Rocky outcrop inside Franz Jevne State Park
Visitors in Franz Jevne State Park
Visitors in Franz Jevne State Park
US–Canada border marker
US–Canada border marker
Picnic shelter in Franz Jevne State Park
Picnic shelter in Franz Jevne State Park
Signage in Franz Jevne State Park
Signage in Franz Jevne State Park
Upper Sault access sign
Upper Sault access sign
Ginwaajiwanaang (Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung)
Ginwaajiwanaang (Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung)
Ginwaajiwanaang (Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung)
Ginwaajiwanaang (Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung)

Turning Point

In 1966, five years after a 1,300-acre state park was recommended to protect the shoreline along the Rainy River, the family of Franz Jevne offers to donate land to the State of Minnesota to establish Franz Jevne State Park. The approximately 120 acres they donate represent the most culturally and historically significant land along the river.

Chronology

2.1 billion years ago

Molten rock solidifies beneath the earth’s surface in what is now northern Minnesota, forming an intrusion of volcanic rock.

9,700 years ago

As Glacial Lake Agassiz drains, its meltwater carves out the rocks that form the Long Sault Rapids. At around the same time, humans first pass through the Rainy River basin.

ca. 20 CE

People begin to inhabit the region around the Long Rapids, burying their dead in mounds near the river’s banks.

1688

Jacques de Noyon, a French fur trader and soldier, is believed to be the first European to travel the canoe route from the western shore of Lake Superior to Rainy Lake and along the Rainy River.

1889

US Congress passes the Nelson Act, removing multiple Ojibwe bands from much of their northwestern Minnesota lands, including traditional hunting and fishing grounds along the Rainy River. Logging companies and homesteaders subsequently acquire the land.

1908

Law student Franz Jevne graduates from the University of Minnesota with a degree in law and moves to Big Falls in Koochiching County. He serves as the town’s only attorney for four years.

1912

Franz Jevne is elected Koochiching County attorney. He moves his family to International Falls, where they live until the early 1930s. Jevne buys and sells multiple land holdings in Koochiching County for investment and recreational purposes.

1961

National Park Service planner Evan Haynes recommends creating a 1,300-acre state park along the Rainy River. The Jevne family owns about 120 acres of the most historically and geologically significant land in the proposed park and declines to sell it.

1966

The Jevne family offers to donate their Rainy River property to the State of Minnesota, with the condition that the park will be named for Franz Jevne. The gift is valued at $6,900.

1967

The Minnesota State Legislature and Senate unanimously pass a bill approving the creation of Franz Jevne State Wayside Park. Governor Harold LeVander signs the bill into law on May 24.

1969

The Minnesota State Legislature adjusts the names of a number of state parks to provide more consistency in terminology. The word “wayside” is deleted, and the park officially becomes Franz Jevne State Park.

1969

The Manitou Mounds are designated a National Historic Site of Canada, owned and operated by Rainy River First Nations as the Kay-Nah-Chi-Wah-Nung Historical Centre.

2015

Minnesota’s Division of Parks and Trails develops a plan for managing parks and recreation areas. The plan defines a system that provides a range of outdoor opportunities, from services and facilities to rustic experiences.

2016

The Department of Natural Resources releases a comprehensive management plan for Franz Jevne State Park, designating it as a Rustic Park with limited amenities and services.