Statement from Voyageurs National Park on the Resumption of Visitor Services Following End of Government Shutdown

With the enactment of the continuing resolution, staff at Voyageurs National Park will resume full park operations on Monday, January 28. The visitor center will be open Saturday and Sunday, January 26 and 27, as it has during the last few weeks of the shutdown. However, the Winter Speaker Series program scheduled for Sunday, January 27 is canceled. Please visit www.nps.gov/VOYA, and our social media platforms, for updated information about the park.

The team at Voyageurs National Park is ecstatic to return to the jobs that we love and are dedicated to. We look forward to assuring the on-going protection of the resources of the park and providing outstanding opportunities for visitors to enjoy and connect to this special place. I want to recognize Jeff Quam, Raphael Gelo, Ben Line, Mark Goulet, Eric Grunwald, and Lois Fogelberg, the excepted / exempted employees during the recent shutdown, for assuring the continuity of federal facilities, protection of resources, and providing basic visitor services.  

I also want to thank the team – Adam Hanson, Rusty Lehto, Adam Miles, Steve Schultz, Keith Stevens, and those excepted employees mentioned previously – for working diligently to establish the green trail for snowmobile travel connecting our gateway communities through the park. Establishing this trail assured that safe travel could continue during this winter operations period. 

Thanks also to the Voyageurs National Park Association, and the organizations with whom they garnered further support, for the funding to assure we could provide expanded basic visitor services during the shutdown and directly pay, at some level, those employees that continued to work. Thank you to the rest of the Voyageurs NP team who were furloughed completely for your patience during this challenging time.

Finally, thank you to the gateway community members that showed support to all of the Federal employees during this time, there are too many to list for fear of potentially missing someone or some organization. The kindness and generosity that you showed is greatly appreciated.

Once we resume full operations on Monday the NPS team will work diligently to safely establish the whole range of winter operational facilities.