INTERNATIONAL FALLS, Minn. — Oct. 27, 2026 (Minnesota Nice News)
America’s newest national park is in Arizona, and Minnesota’s own Voyageurs National Park has more in common with it than you might think. Chiricahua National Monument in southeastern Arizona officially became Chiricahua National Park on Oct. 20, when the Chiricahua National Park Act was signed into law, the National Park Service announced.
It is the country’s 64th national park and Arizona’s fourth, joining Grand Canyon, Petrified Forest and Saguaro, EarthSky reports. One is a desert of stone towers and the other is a maze of lakes and pines, but both are places where the stars still come out to play.
Meet Chiricahua National Park
Chiricahua covers about 12,000 acres near Willcox, Arizona, according to the Park Service. Its signature sights are towering rhyolite rock spires and balanced rocks, formed by a volcanic eruption about 27 million years ago.
The park rises from what is called a sky island in the Chiricahua Mountains, a spot where desert, grassland and forest all meet. Visitors come to hike, watch wildlife, go birding, camp, stargaze and take scenic drives.
The land is the homeland of the Chiricahua Apache, and it holds the homesteading history of Faraway Ranch. It was first protected as a national monument in 1924, so the new title has been a long time coming.
Interior Secretary Doug Burgum called the park “one of America’s most extraordinary landscapes,” according to the Park Service.
The change is mostly in the name. Boundaries, federal ownership and management stay the same, EarthSky reports. About 70,400 people visited in 2025, and the park has one campground with 26 sites. EarthSky also reports the park is home to black bears, white-tailed deer, coatimundi and about 200 kinds of birds.
Minnesota’s own national park
Up here, we have had our national park a while. Voyageurs National Park was established April 8, 1975, and celebrated its 50th birthday in 2025, according to Voyageurs Conservancy.
The park covers more than 218,000 acres of lakes, forests and streams along the Minnesota-Ontario border, with 655 miles of shoreline. Some of its rock is more than 2.8 billion years old, among the oldest exposed rock in North America. That makes Chiricahua’s 27-million-year-old spires the new kids on the block.
About 40% of Voyageurs is water, MNopedia reports in MinnPost. Its four biggest lakes, Rainy, Kabetogama, Namakan and Sand Point, wrap around the Kabetogama Peninsula and drain north toward Hudson Bay.
The park is named for the French Canadian voyageurs who paddled furs and trade goods between Montreal and the West. Long before them, Cree, Monsoni and Ojibwe people lived in the region, and by the 1760s the Bois Forte Ojibwe were the main people there. More than 220 sites from before European contact have been found in the park.
The push to create Voyageurs got rolling after Gov. Elmer L. Andersen took a 1962 trip through the area with Park Service staff and Minnesota officials. Congress authorized the park in 1971, and it was formally established four years later.
Two parks under the same dark sky
Here is where the desert and the North Woods shake hands. Chiricahua is an International Dark Sky Park, EarthSky reports, and it is open 24 hours a day for anyone who wants to look up.
Voyageurs holds the same honor. It is Minnesota’s International Dark Sky Park, according to Voyageurs Conservancy, known for some of the darkest night skies in the country. On a clear night out on Rainy Lake, the Milky Way looks close enough to hook with a jig.
So if your cousins in Tucson brag about the newest national park, you can tell them Minnesota has been stargazing in the dark since before it was cool.
A new leader at Voyageurs
Voyageurs has news of its own this month. The Park Service named Jennifer Onufer as the park’s next superintendent on Oct. 2, and she starts this fall, the Park Service announced.
Onufer brings more than 20 years of experience with the Park Service and the Bureau of Reclamation, including posts at Grand Canyon National Park and San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park. She currently manages Lake Berryessa in California.
“I am honored to join the team at Voyageurs National Park,” Onufer said in the announcement.
Visit both if you can
Chiricahua is a desert road trip for a winter getaway. Voyageurs is a short drive for most of lakes country, with the Crane Lake Visitor Center that opened June 6, 2025, as a gateway to the park’s eastern side, according to Voyageurs Conservancy.
One park has coatimundi. The other has loons and the state bird, the mosquito. Both have stars, and both are worth the drive.
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Advertise with usWriting By: Gregory Moyer | Editing by Jodi Moyer
EDITOR’S NOTE:
Sources
Chiricahua National Park
National Park Service, Chiricahua National Monument Becomes America’s Newest National Park the Oct. 20 signing, about 12,000 acres near Willcox, the rhyolite spires and 27-million-year-old eruption, the sky island, the Chiricahua Apache and Faraway Ranch history, 1924 protection, activities and the Burgum quote.
EarthSky, It’s official! Chiricahua is now the 64th US national park 64th national park, Arizona’s fourth, unchanged boundaries and management, 2025 visitation, the 26-site campground, wildlife and International Dark Sky Park status.
Voyageurs National Park
Voyageurs Conservancy, 50th anniversary fact sheet the April 8, 1975, establishment, 218,000-plus acres, 655 miles of shoreline, 2.8-billion-year-old rock, International Dark Sky Park status and the Crane Lake Visitor Center opening.
MinnPost (MNopedia), The history of Minnesota’s only national park, Voyageurs 40% water, the four largest lakes and Hudson Bay drainage, the voyageurs, Indigenous history, Gov. Elmer L. Andersen’s 1962 trip and the 1971 authorization.
National Park Service, New Superintendent Announced Jennifer Onufer’s selection, background and quote.
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