Popular Wildlife Management Area
Managed by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
205 acres
🐕 Dog rules not recorded
Directionsto the parking lot
Outdoors in Acton
Lakes, trails & woods in Acton
About 3.8% of Acton is conserved land, roughly 860 acres. There are about 1.6 miles of mapped trails.
Conserved land
3.8%
860 of 22,521 acres
Trails
1.6 mi
0 mi per sq mi
Parks & preserves
3
named on the map
Bike routes
0.0 mi
Lakes & rivers
7
What kind of outdoors town is Acton?
Read from the map. The page puts what stands out first.
This week on the trails
Best day for a walk: Sunday
62°, sunny, 0% chance of rain.
Today63° 46°5% rain
Sat66° 47°34% rain
Sun62° 41°0% rain
Mon62° 49°0% rain
Tue71° 52°2% rain
Wed69° 50°2% rain
The map
Conserved land, trails & bike routes
Tap a number to zoom to a park. Tap a layer to hide it.
Easements protect land from building but are usually private.© OpenStreetMap contributors · USGS PAD-US
★ What stands out · Trails & water
7 lakes & rivers
Lakes & rivers tap for directions
Places to walk
Pick a walk
Directions go to the nearest trailhead or public parking.
Butternut Wildlife Management Area
Managed by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
151 acres
🐕 Dog rules not recorded
Directionsto the parking lot
Acton Wildlife Management Area
Managed by Minnesota Department of Natural Resources
40 acres
🐕 Dog rules not recorded
No trailhead mapped yet
Who protects it
860 conserved acres
Who manages Acton’s conserved land, from the USGS Protected Areas Database. Approximate, because parcels can overlap.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service539 ac
State fish & wildlife396 ac
Other state land48 ac
State Conservation Area · 396 acConservation Easement · 339 acResource Management Area · 249 ac
Good to know
Conserved doesn’t always mean open to visitors. 339 acres are conservation easements, usually private land. The walks above are places people visit.
The biggest protected places
| Place | Managed by | Acres | Public access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Meeker County Waterfowl Production Area Resource Management Area | U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service | 249 | Restricted |
| Popular State Wildlife Management Area State Conservation Area | State fish & wildlife | 205 | Restricted |
| Butternut State Wildlife Management Area State Conservation Area | State fish & wildlife | 151 | Restricted |
| Acton State Wildlife Management Area State Conservation Area | State fish & wildlife | 40 | Restricted |
Next door
Acton and its neighbors
Acton has the second most mapped trails of the 5 towns around it. Tap a town to see its outdoors.
| Town | Conserved | Parks |
|---|---|---|
| Acton | 3.8% | 3 |
| Danielson | 5.4% | 4 |
| Litchfield | 12% | 2 |
| Gennessee | 6.4% | 1 |
| Swede Grove | 3.1% | 1 |
Trail talk
Conditions, parking and favorite walks from Acton neighbors.
Weigh in
Is Popular WMA the best walk in Acton?
Your answer becomes a post in Town Square.
Share a tip
Trails, parks, preserves, courts and bike lanes © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), map data as of 2026-09-28. Conserved land: USGS Gap Analysis Project, PAD-US. Measured against the Census town boundary. Forecast: National Weather Service.
How we measure
"Trails" are OpenStreetMap paths, bridleways, public tracks and unpaved footways, plus footways inside a park or preserve or on a named trail route. Sidewalks are left out. Areas are counted on a 20-meter grid, so overlapping parcels count once. "Conserved" includes conservation easements, which protect land from development but are usually private property. Trailheads are the nearest marked trailhead, public parking lot or information board within about 150 meters of a preserve. Dog rules come from OpenStreetMap when someone has tagged them; otherwise we show what’s typical for the land manager, or say the rules aren’t recorded.