Chippewa County

** Look for one of Minnesota’s largest cottonwood tree – over 140 years old! You’ll find it near the Lac qui Parle Mission Church.

Watson Hunting Camp specializes in offering you a high quality hunting experience. Located in the heart of the Lac qui Parle Wildlife refuge in western Minnesota, the hunting opportunities available at the camp are very diverse and plentiful.

The hunting camp offers a fully guided Canada goose, duck, and dove hunting experience over high quality decoys in pre-scouted fields. Lac qui Parle is known for it’s legendary waterfowl hunting, but did you know that it’s home to trophy walleye, slab crappies and big northern pike?  Perch and catfish also roam these waters. We are now offering fish house rentals throughout the winter.  Stay in our big, heated sleeper houses, or rent them by the day and stay back at the WHC hotel and bar. In addition, we can also provide a preserve pheasant hunt on 165 acres of pristine western Minnesota prairie!

The cabins are being offered on a first-come, first serve basis, at $50 a night. Reservations can be done in person or by phone at the Land and Resource office in the county courthouse building, (320) 269-6231.

Starting with each clip of the pruner during the long winter on the prairie begins a new season and expectation of a wine from the sweet land of the prairie. Hinterland Vineyard and Winery produces a wine that you can share with family and friends, and brings people together in conversation and laughter. Stay and sip wine while trying one of their delicious menu options or take a botle to go. The labor in the vineyard ends in an experience that can be taken in and shared with others.

The quality of the grapes at harvest is the result of attention to detail throughout the growing season. From using a trellising system that allows them to use the heat degrees that our prairie region offers, to managing crop production, they can produce a fruit that their confident is at its’ prime when it is picked. Then, it is on to the wine making process where skill, science, and the winemaker’s artistic style, combine to bring you Hinterland Vineyard’s best wines.

Thousands of people have taken to the ice on legendary lake in western Minnesota.  Mostly known for it’s goose hunting, Lac qui Parle is quickly becoming a destination in the winter.  Cars, trucks and SUVs traveled from all parts of the state and arrived at the Watson Hunting Camp for the ice fishing tournament hosted by the Ice Castle Fish Houses company, “The Ice Castle Classic“.

$10,000 is up for grabs for 1st place, while three Ice Castle units are scattered among 50 total prizes valued at over $75,000.  Any fish is eligible, with the largest taking the grand prize.  That could mean carp, catfish, sheephead or the usual suspects like walleye, crappie and northern.   Lac qui Parle is part of the Minnesota River system, so you’ll find a wide variety of species under the ice.

The Minnesota River Valley and Montevideo were important sites in the Dakota War of 1862. In the fall of 1862, the Dakota tribes surrendered to Colonel Henry Hastings Sibley on a bluff overlooking the valley and the present-day site of Montevideo. The monument, which is located on the edge of Montevideo within the Camp Release State Memorial Wayside, was the first property added to the state park system and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973