Free weekends coming to national parks

By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune

Last update: June 3, 2009 - 5:38 PM

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In a bid to boost visits this summer, the National Park Service is eliminating admission fees during three weekends at 147 sites across the country, including two in Minnesota.

It will be free to visit the national monuments at Grand Portage and Pipestone on the weekends of June 20-21, July 18-19, and Aug. 15-16.

The park service announced Tuesday that fees, which range from $3 to $25, are being waived in the hopes of giving an economic boost to communities neighboring its parks, monuments and recreation areas.

Elsewhere in the Upper Midwest, the three weekends will be free at Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota, Badlands National Park and Jewel Cave National Monument in South Dakota, Effigy Mounds National Monument in Iowa and Isle Royale National Park in the Michigan waters of Lake Superior.

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