Grand Forks: Trails, Gardens and City History

Grand Forks offers a range of options for your trip: natural open spaces and trails, as well as museums, art and historic sites. The city brings both together, so you don’t have to limit yourself to just one kind of outing.

Greenway and Sertoma Park

At the heart of Grand Forks and East Grand Forks is the Greenway, a natural open space spanning about 2,200 acres. It includes more than 20 miles of multi-use trails. The Greenway also offers opportunities for outdoor activities in an urban setting throughout the year. This brings together an expansive natural area and activities that aren’t limited to a single season.

Sertoma Park complements this natural and recreational area with biking and hiking trails that connect to the Greenway. The park is also home to the Japanese Garden, which Awano in Japan gifted to the Grand Forks Park District. The garden offers a different focus from the trails: here, the emphasis is on a landscaped garden. Sertoma Arboretum offers another distinct botanical attraction. The forestry division of the Grand Forks Park District cultivates 65 unique tree species there.

Sertoma Park is also home to Ali’s Boundless Playground, where all children can play, including children with disabilities. So, alongside trails and gardens, the park offers a playground and a range of outdoor activities. If you’d like to focus your trip more on movement and green spaces, you can consider these places as separate stops rather than treating the Greenway and the park as the same offering.

History in buildings and museums

The Downtown Historic District encompasses nearly 70 structures and buildings dating from the 1880s to the 1960s. A tour of Historic Downtown Grand Forks illustrates the influences of the river, railroad, transportation routes and retail. Together, the historic buildings and these themes offer different ways to explore the city’s history: the buildings themselves on the one hand, and the influences on downtown’s development on the other.

The Myra Museum features exhibits on the history of Grand Forks, from the Ice Age through the settlement period. Its historical scope therefore reaches further back than the period described for the Downtown Historic District. If you’re interested in history, you can choose between a broad overview of the city’s past and a closer look at its buildings and downtown.

The Grand Forks County Historical Society also offers several ways to explore history. It operates a museum complex as well as a program of public exhibits and events. Its grounds include the historic Thomas Campbell House. The museum complex, public events and historic house are distinct parts of the offering; by contrast, the Historic Downtown tour focuses on the river, railroad, transportation routes and retail.

Art and events

The Empire Arts Center is a cultural anchor in historic downtown Grand Forks. The UND Art Collections Gallery there showcases regional artists alongside artists of national and international renown. The gallery thus brings local artistic perspectives together with work by artists known beyond the region. The Empire Arts Center is also the venue for Music Box, a monthly event that showcases local musical talent. Check the schedule before your trip if you’d like to plan a visit to Music Box.

Accessibility is also worth considering when visiting the North Dakota Museum of Art: all galleries and facilities are accessible to wheelchair users. If this information is important to your planning, check the latest visitor information in advance. That way, you can choose museum visits and other stops to suit your interests while looking for a hotel in Grand Forks for your trip.

For the main travel overview: Grand Forks.