Reporter’s Notebook: Forest History Center Brings Logging Days Back to Life

GRAND RAPIDS - If you find yourself, and your family, looking for something to do while you're up in northern Minnesota this summer, the Forest History Center just outside of Grand Rapids is a great option.

The site, run by the Minnesota Historical Society, features guided living tours of a reconstructed logging camp and how it would have looked in December 1900. It's a replica of what a typical medium-sized camp with 80 men would have included.

Buildings on the grounds include: the sleep camp, the cook camp, blacksmith shop, horsebarns, and more.

These camps were temporary, usually used for one or two seasons before the timber was cut, and then moved. White pine logging was done in the winter, when the ground was frozen, then the logs were sent down the river in the spring.

The Forest History Center also has an Interpretive Center with a museum and exhibits. There you'll see films that tell the stories of various people.

The Forest History Center is open seasonally through Labor Day. Their daily hours are from 10:00 a.m. until 5:00 p.m.