Qualla: Savanna Portage State Park

Savanna Portage State Park: Introduction

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. Water flows two directions from this patch of Minnesota bog. Stand at Wolf Lake, near the park's eastern boundary, and the East Savanna River carries your reflection toward Lake Superior, the Saint Lawrence River, and eventually the Atlantic. Walk a few miles west to Savanna Lake, and the West Savanna River sends its current to the Prairie River, Big Sandy Lake, and down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Two oceans, separated by a stretch of swamp and forest that Native Americans navigated for centuries before the first European ever shouldered a canoe across it. Savanna Portage State Park, established in 1961 and listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, preserves this geographic hinge and the grueling trail that once connected half a continent.

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Savanna Portage State Park: Where Glaciers Drew the Line

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The park sits on the floor of an ancient glacial lakebed. During the last phase of the Wisconsinan glaciation, the retreating Saint Louis Sublobe of the Superior Lobe left behind two connected bodies of water, Glacial Lakes Aitkin and Upham. As these lakes drained, they deposited...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Savanna Portage State Park: The Worst Portage in the Fur Trade

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The distance between navigable water on the East and West Savanna Rivers was not great, but the terrain made every step miserable. The portage trail departed the East Savanna downstream from Wolf Lake to avoid the worst of the bog, then pushed west through swamp and wooded upland...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Savanna Portage State Park: Du Lhut, Aitkin, and the Fur Trade Highway

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The portage likely saw its first European traffic as early as 1679, when Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut -- the French explorer for whom Duluth is named -- visited a Sioux village at Big Sandy Lake during his exploration of the Lake Superior region and the upper Mississippi. Over...

Image: Tony Webster from Minneapolis, Minnesota, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

Savanna Portage State Park: Hills, Lakes, and Bogs

Thu, 05 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Tim Dachtera from Cottage Grove, MN, USA, CC BY 2.0. The interest sparked by investigations into the old trail's route inspired the Minnesota Legislature to create Savanna Portage State Park in 1961. Today the park encompasses a landscape of rolling glacial hills, quiet lakes, and expansive bogs -- the same terrain that made the po...

Image: Tim Dachtera from Cottage Grove, MN, USA | CC BY 2.0