Heritage Center

Heritage Center museum exhibit

NPS Photo / GM Spoto

 

Bark canoe and fireplace in the Heritage Center lobby

NPS Photo / GM Spoto

Exhibits about the Fur Trade and Anishinaabe Culture Past and Present

Open year-around, a visit to the Heritage Center is the best place to begin your exploration of Grand Portage National Monument. As you walk in you will be warmly greeted by helpful front desk staff. Behind the desk is a well-stocked bookstore and gift shop. Above your head a birchbark canoe is hung much as it would as an overnight encampment shelter for Anishinaabe families during their travels among the lakes and rivers of the Great Lakes region. Near the stairs, is the tallest fireplace in Cook County, made from a fine-grained sandstone called graywacke of the nearly two-billion year old Rove Formation which was excavated from the basement of this building.

Go upstairs to view special exhibits on different topics related to Grand Portage and the Fur Trade, look at the bottom of the bark canoe, and see great views of the bay, Tamarack and Hat Points, and Grand Portage Island. On clear days along the horizon of Lake Superior is Isle Royale National Park, traditional cultural property of the Grand Portage Band.

A paved pathway leads from the Heritage Center to the Historic Depot which is open from May to October between Memorial to Indigenous People's Day weekends. Paths in the Historic Depot connect to the Grand Portage footpath and the Mount Rose self-guided nature trail.

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The Art of the Trade interactive exhibit

NPS Photo / GM Spoto

Hear Oral Histories and Watch the Film

Three media displays bring to life the other exhibits by emersion into Ojibwe culture and history through oral histories in Grand Portage Stories, learning about fur trade interactions in The Art of the Trade, and the international nature of the fur trade in the 18th century in The Great Carrying Place.

Grand Portage National Monument, in partnership with the Grand Portage Band of Lake Superior Chippewa, is very proud to present a park orientation film Rendezvous with History: A Grand Portage Story in the monument's Heritage Center classroom.