АҚШ, Миннесота штатындағы Bear Head Lake мемлекеттік паркі

State park of Minnesota, United States

Bear Head Lake State Park is a state park of Minnesota, United States, providing ready access to outdoor recreation in the Boundary Waters region. It boasts scenery similar to the nearby Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness, with the added conveniences of road access, modern facilities, and motorboating. The most popular visitor activities are boating, fishing, swimming, and hiking. The park entirely surrounds Bear Head Lake and three other fishing lakes. It was established in 1961 in Saint Louis County near Ely, Minnesota. The park also contains the woodlands surrounding the lakes, which gives an entire total of about 5,540 acres. The park also shares a large border with Bear Island State Forest. In September 2010, Bear Head Lake State Park was voted "America's Favorite Park" in a major online poll. The little known park, not even among Minnesota's most popular, won in a surprise landslide, capturing 28% of the more than 5.7 million votes. The strong showing was credited to the online fan community of mother and cub black bears, featured on a popular webcam, whose territory included the park. Elevation ranges from
A succession of ice ages scoured the region down to the 2,700 million year old bedrock. The last glacial period from 12,000 to 10,000 years ago deposited stony till only about 4 feet (1 m) thick, as well as the Walston and Vermillion moraines. These two terminal moraines were formed at different periods of the glacier's retreat, leaving thick ridges of sandy debris across the landscape. However extensive logging around 1900 and subsequent wildfires, followed by years of strict wildfire suppression, have produced a much altered secondary forest throughout much of the park. Each forest type attracts its own subset of summer birds. The aspen–birch community supports ovenbirds, red eyed vireos, veeries, ruffed grouse, black capped chickadees, least flycatchers, and black throated green warblers. The same species appear in the aspen–birch–fir forest with the addition of white throated sparrows, magnolia warblers, yellow rumped warblers, and winter wrens. The most common overwinterers are black capped chickadees, gray jays, pine grosbeaks, and hairy and downy woodpeckers.

In September 2010 Bear Head Lake State Park was the unlikely winner of the inaugural "America Is Your Park" internet poll. More than 5.7 million votes were tallied in the contest sponsored by the Coca Cola Company's Live Positively charitable campaign and the National Park Foundation. Users were invited to vote as many times as they liked for any U. S. national, state, or municipal park to receive $100,000 and the title "America's Favorite Park." Over 1.6 million votes were cast for Bear Head Lake, easily besting runner up Great Smoky Mountains National Park by more than half a million. This was an impressive showing for a park with an annual attendance of about 100,000, not even ranking in Minnesota's top ten state parks for overnight visits.

Bear Head Lake State Park mixes the North Woods scenery of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) with modern access and amenities. As such it has been described as an "entry level taste" of the BWCAW. It is especially known for its fishing and canoeing opportunities. Bear Head and Eagles Nest Lake No. 3 have boat ramps. Bear Head is also developed with a sandy swimming beach, canoe launch, and handicapped accessible fishing pier. Both large lakes support northern pike, walleye, black basses, black crappie, and panfish, while Norberg and Cub Lakes are stocked with brook trout. The park's various overnight options are all convenient to a lakeshore. The drive in campground has 73 sites—45 of which have electrical hookups—and five camper cabins, plus showers, flush toilets, and a dump station. A rental guesthouse offers a full kitchen and heating/air conditioning for up to 10. A secluded group camp accommodates up to 50 tenters. Scattered elsewhere in the park are six backcountry campsites catering to backpackers or boaters. The park's modest trail system totals 17 mile (27 km). Much of Bear Head Lake State Park is inaccessible by trail. In winter 9 mile (14 km) are groomed for cross country skiing, while the rest of the park is open to snowshoeing. The 165 mile (266 km) Taconite State Trail and a 1 mile (2 km) spur to the picnic area provide a snowmobile route through the park.