Attendance at the Grand Marais Recreation Park has been record setting this summer. The 300 campsites are filled this weekend for the Fisherman’s Picnic festivities as the park swells to more than 1,000 people.
Hard working Grand Marais Recreation Park Manager Dave Tersteeg had some good news for the Grand Marais Park Board at its Tuesday, August 2 meeting.
“Year-to-date revenues continue to outpace last year by nearly 20 percent,” said Tersteeg.
July revenue finished at $260,345, up 3.5 versus 2015. Tersteeg noted that many people had paid their summer trailer rental fees last winter, which meant the park was experiencing strong growth in overnight stays.
“Overall our occupancy is up five percent this July over last July,” Tersteeg said, adding sales of firewood are 34 percent higher than last summer and fuel sales are 70 percent higher at the marina than the summer of 2015.
“We are experiencing our busiest, most successful season to date,” he added.
Gunflint Hills Golf Course in good shape
Gunflint Hills Golf Course Manager Mike Kunshier wasn’t able to attend the meeting so he sent his report to the office.
Revenues at Gunflint Hills are up seven percent and the used mowers recently purchased from Superior National at Lutsen golf course for a song and a dance have been repaired for $3,000 and are running great, Kunshier said in his report.
Park Board Member Kaye Tavernier said she had a weekend guest who played the golf course twice and found the course to be in good shape and fun to play.
Park board member needed
Grand Marais City Councilor Dave Mills, who is the city’s liaison to the park board, reported the city council’s main priorities currently are working to see that the new city garage gets planned and built and they are also brainstorming to figure out where to build bathrooms for the public.
Mills added the city would soon advertise for a new park board member to replace Reid Dusheck, who moved out of the city limits, which caused him to lose his spot on the board. The board currently consists of Mills, Tavernier, Sally Berg, and Jennifer Stoltz.
Because the park is so busy, summer plans to pave and repair some of the parks roads will be pushed back to the fall, said Tersteeg.
The July 25-26 heat wave caused an electrical breaker to trip several times, noted Tersteeg.
“It’s a 100 amp breaker that supplies power to 16 large, overnight sites,” Tersteeg said. “The heat definitely has some effect on it, so we are taking steps to shade the panel during hot days in the future. I know we were talking about getting electrical upgrades for the right [marina] side of the park, but I think we need to look at getting prices to upgrade this island and other high value sites so they can adequately provide power to modern RVs.”
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