Your Fee Dollars At Work

Year-round, the park maintenance crews are able to repair, replace, and build at many of the campsites throughout the park. Sites from left to right, Sand Point (S29), Pine Point (K45), and Windbreak Point (N45).

NPS

 

The National Park Service collects Recreation Fees under the Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Act (FLREA). Recreation Fees provide a vital source of revenue for improving facilities and services for park visitors.

At national parks collecting more than $750,000 in annual recreation fees, 80% of that revenue stays at the park to go toward visitor service improvements. At Voyageurs National Park, which collects less than $750,000 in annual recreation fees, 100% of the revenue generated stays right here at the park to go back into maintaining and improving recreational infrastructure and improving the overall visitor experience.

Your fee dollars go toward a long list of valuable uses:

• Providing staff to clean campsites, houseboat sites, day use sites, and visitor destination sites on a regular basis
• Funding rehab projects to address deteriorating conditions from years of visitor use as well as erosion and compaction
• Replacing aging or damaged amenities such as picnic tables, fire rings, bear lockers, privies, and mooring aids
• Funding projects that improve the park experience for a greater viariety of demographics, such as the addition of group sites and wheelchair-accessible sites
• The improvement of campsite tent pads to a new standard size of 14'x14' as existing tent pad timbers become rotten and need replacement
• Repairing exisiting docks and improving boat access at other locations through the construction of new docks
• Maintaining backcountry campsites and trails, and replacing backcountry canoes

If you have questions about Recreation Fees, contact the park's Recreation Fee Specialist.

Recreation Fee Project Highlights

 

Pine Point Campsite Rehab Project
This campsite sits on the sloping northern shoreline of Kabetogama Lake. Years of visitor use and erosion were creating a site with compacted soils and many exposed tree roots, which was damaging to the trees and posed a safety hazard for campers. Maintenance staff stabilized the shoreline with a small, level core area for the fire ring, added staggered stairs leading to the remaining amenities and tent pads, added fill to cover and protect tree roots while reducing tripping hazards to visitors, and constructed a dock along the shoreline to improve boat access. (NPS Photos)