The Kooky Kettle Falls Hotel in Voyageurs National Park
One of the many reasons I love the 400+ sites1 of the National Park Service is the variety of experiences: not just the physical environments, but the stories and history surrounding each site.
Even in the big capital-letters NP National Parks, you’re not always getting a dramatic set of mountain peaks with lots of crazy long hiking trails. Sometimes you’re getting a two-mile trail and many, many gulls on tiny East Anacapa of the Channel Islands; other times, you get a midcentury architectural marvel at Gateway Arch in St. Louis.
all photos copyright Casey Barber – please be respectful and don’t use without permission!
And when you go to Voyageurs National Park at the tippy-top of Minnesota, you’re getting a lot of water and wildlife — along with a side of American-Canadian historical fun.2
When we visited Voyageurs last August, we knew we wanted to stay at the only lodging structure in the park: The Kettle Falls Hotel. (The only other in-park options are campsites or, if you’re more of the seafaring type, you can rent a houseboat.)
Its singularity made the hotel adventure as much a part of our goal in experiencing Voyageurs as the solitude and kayaking.
The Kettle Falls Hotel is more of a boarding house than a hotel by modern standards: small bedrooms and shared bathrooms on the second floor upstairs and a homey dining room, reception area, and the legendary Tiltin’ Hilton bar on the first floor surrounded by a screened wraparound porch.
As a 1935 clipping from the International Falls Daily Journal Tourist Edition noted, “Three meals and a room at the hotel cost $2.50 a day. The Williams advertised ‘comfort in the wilderness, electric lights, charming rustic porch, 22 fine sleeping rooms, excellent dining, cozy lobby, bar and boat service.’ “
This is all mostly true today, except there are only 12 rooms available for guests and private “villas,” AKA cabins, closer to the lakes. According to the BBC, the hotel was renovated in 1987 and I would make an educated guess that not much has changed since that point, either.
The hotel is sandwiched between Namakan Lake and Rainy Lake, and the location is key to its long and tilted history. Originally constructed as lodging for the timber industry that was making big bucks in the Minnesotan and Canadian forests in the early 20th century, the remote spot unsurprisingly found a set of fans in another industry: bootlegging!
Even after Voyageurs National Park was established 50 years ago in 1975, some carousing remains. The boozing is still a popular pastime, with fishing enthusiasts bringing their own boats and coolers to catch walleye in the cool blue waters and have their catch fried up for dinner alongside the famous pink slushies from the Tiltin’ Hilton and a few cans of Hamm’s.3
This was one of the most unintentionally humorous parts of our two-night stay at the hotel. Sitting on the porch (a recurring theme) in the morning after the departing guests had boarded the boat for the mainland, Dan and I said, “well, it’s going to be a quiet day here.”
Just kidding!
Right before noon, the National Parks-operated boat tour pulled up and a steady stream of visitors started marching up the dirt road from the dock, like a plague of locusts to match the curtains of mosquitoes in the air.
We had tried to make things easy for Kevin, the sole cook, and Tammy (named after the legend Tammy Wynette), the sole doing-everything-else-but-driving-the-boats person by eating our lunches early. But because Kevin had to prep all the boat tour folks’ box lunches, Tammy suggested we cool our heels and watch the show, if we had the patience to wait.
She wasn’t wrong.
The daytrippers lined up for their lunches, dispersed throughout the property, filled every wicker chair and couch on the veranda and crammed into every booth in the Tiltin’ Hilton’s stuffy confines. Private boats docked and dads brought their kids up to the porch for the afternoon. Red plastic cups of pink slushies abounded.
The hotel was rollicking again, if only for a few hours each day. Then they were gone and we were left with the overnight fishing guys and members of Women of the Water on their annual getaway trip.
Oh, and lest you think we spent all our waking moments on the porch, we also kayaked both lakes, Rainy and Namakan, during our time in Voyageurs.
We saw otters, loons, turtles, an eagle’s nest sans eagle, a beaver dam sans beavers, and Canada. Yep, we paddled south across the international boundary line and touched Canadian soil — er, rocks — and no one cared. Indeed, the peninsula on which Kettle Falls is constructed is north of the border. Fun fact!
Apart from the animals (including the mosquitoes, which were truly a persistent bunch), the humans who actually ran the hotel were few.
Craig took care of all things boat-related, running guests to and from the Ash River Visitor Center in the morning and helping one of the owners, Sean, to portage private boats between the two lakes throughout the day. It was a fascinating operation to see the boats go through the wash station that kept invasive species from hitching a ride between the bodies of water — often with their occupants still sitting inside!
Now the hotel is up for grabs, if you’re interested in operating a National Parks Service concession that’s only accessible via watercraft. The current contract runs through 2026, and so far I haven’t read any news on anyone stepping up to the plate.
So if you love boating, fishing, somewhat crappy beers from the mid-20th century, a wild history that probably involved Al Capone and Nellie Bly, lots of beautiful otters and other majestic creatures, and being away from people except for the lunch crowds. . .
. . . then please invite me to the Kettle Falls Hotel when you become its next steward! I’ll take your promotional photos!
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Oh, and I can’t let this post end without two more mosquito-related notes:
- First, here’s my pitch for Picaridin: we spent roughly 48 hours in Voyageurs, and despite being a mosquito magnet, I only got two or three bites total because I slathered myself head to toe in Picaridin lotion at all times. Seriously, I watched mosquitoes bounce off my skin. That stuff works.
- And second, I must share this quote found in the hotel’s truly excellent binders on its history, from one Mr. Nicholas Garry, a British trader and Deputy-Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company, in 1821: “The Annoyance of the Musquitoes was dreadful from which we suffered nearly an Hour, the Distance of the Swamp being about two miles, the Course tedious and difficult.”
- 433 as of this writing in July 2025, but honestly, baby, who’s counting? ↩︎
- You also get a trip to Orr to see the secret inhabitants of The Dam Supper Club! ↩︎
- Apparently the famous Hamm’s commercials were filmed at Rainy Lake! ↩︎
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