The Grand Portage National Monument in far northeastern Minnesota was established in 1960, after the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa (Ojibwe) ceded nearly 710 acres of their land to the US government. A unit of the National Park Service (NPS), it consists of the eight-and-a-half-mile Grand Portage trail and two trading depot sites—one on the shoreline of Lake Superior and one inland, at Pigeon River. A partially reconstructed depot sits at the Lake Superior site.

In 1939, a small-town doctor and his wife created a striking amateur film that captured their Minnesota community near the end of the Great Depression. The film is now included in the Library of Congress’s National Film Registry, which recognizes it as a significant documentary of rural life.

Superior National Forest is an iconic part of northeast Minnesota that comprises over three million acres (more than 445,000 of which are surface water) of boreal forest. The forest itself is part of the vast North Woods, a tourist destination in northern Wisconsin and Minnesota and the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCA) is within the forest, which is itself part of the Quetico Superior region that extends into Canada.

The November 1914 death of Mary Fridley Price made the front page of the Minneapolis Journal: “Woman Killed in Attempt to Save Pet Dog.” Her grieving husband, Fred Price, told police she had fallen off a Mississippi River bluff in a vain attempt to keep her dog from going over. But by January 1916, that grieving husband was at the center of a sensational murder trial, accused of shoving her off the cliff for her money.

The Minneapolis chapter of Up and Out of Poverty Now! was a highly visible organization created by and for the houseless community in the early 1990s. Although short-lived, Up and Out provided a voice for those without permanent housing and helped secure affordable options for those in need by using the radical tactic of occupying publicly owned buildings.

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 Minnesota Valley Historical Society (MVHS) was formed in 1895 under the leadership of Charles D. Gilfillan to determine and mark sites significant to the US–Dakota War of 1862 in Redwood and Renville counties. MVHS was largely Gilfillan’s project. He founded it, was its principal leader during its most active period, and personally funded significant portions of its work. After his death in 1902, MVHS became much less active, and the group dissolved in 1915.

On June 6, 2015, a bronze statue of Shaynowishkung (He Who Rattles, commonly known as Chief Bemidji) was erected in Library Park on the shore of Lake Bemidji. Meant to honor the Ojibwe man’s life and bring people together, the statue was the result of a six-year community-driven process.

Cecil Newman was a pioneering newspaper publisher and an influential leader in Minnesota. His newspapers, the Minneapolis Spokesman and the St. Paul Recorder, provided news and information to readers while advancing civil rights, fair employment, political engagement, and Black pride.

In October of 1949, the Leif Erikson Memorial was unveiled on the grounds of the Minnesota State Capitol. The memorial was part of the Scandinavian American community’s efforts to credit their ancestors—not Christopher Columbus—with the “discovery” of the Americas.