About: Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park

Nerstrand-Big Woods State Park is a state park of Minnesota, US, northeast of Faribault just outside the small town of Nerstrand. The park derives its name from the Big Woods, a large, contiguous forested area covering much of southeast Minnesota prior to the 1840s, when European settlers began to establish farms in the territory, and from Nedstrand in Tysvær, Norway, of which Nerstrand is a namesake. The park and its forest were an outlying 'woods' typical of and similar to the Big Woods proper, which were historically found on the more recent glacier deposits located west of the Cannon River 10 miles (16 km) to the west. Aside from a small waterfall, the outstanding natural feature of the park is the forest itself.