The park protects a northern boreal forest with stands of red and white pine and leatherleaf-black spruce lowlands.

The glaciers that moved through the area gouged and tore at the bedrock, the cooled lava of ancient volcanoes.

Over the years, the area became a popular picnic and tenting ground for people from the Iron Range.

When the property owner John A. McCarthy died in 1943, his daughter sold the land to a lumberman.

Local citizens became concerned about the fate of the timber and were able to persuade the new owner to sell the land.