If you’ve ever spent time planning a milestone birthday party, and then found out you don’t have the resources to truly celebrate, you might understand what’s happening at Minnesota’s lone national park in 2025.

Voyageurs National Park, the 218,000-acre expanse of water and wilderness on the Canadian border just east of International Falls, turns 50 this year. And the gala celebration planned by the park’s myriad fans has been tempered just a bit by the announcement earlier this year of sweeping budget cuts all across the National Park Service.

According to some reports, the budget reductions announced in February by Elon Musk and his controversial Department of Government Efficiency have left as many as 10 park staff positions vacant at Voyageurs. The park opened in 1975 amid fanfare an

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