Grand Marais Parks and Recreation Director Dave Tersteeg presented the January reservation numbers for the campground, and they were up 12 percent from January 2019.
“We had a very strong month for reservations, with a total of 1,870 taken last month,” Tersteeg said to the board at their Tuesday, Feb. 4 meeting.
There were 1,672 reservations taken in January 2019.
The uptick in numbers resulted in an 11 percent increase in net revenue over the previous January, noted Tersteeg.
Six monthly sites have opened up for next summer, with 97 percent of the monthly owners sending $100 deposits and notifying staff they were returning next summer, Tersteeg said.
With those six openings, Dave mentioned the staff is now working with the internal list of campers at the park who want to move to sites they more prefer. If there are sites left once that list has been reviewed and checked, people who signed up on the waiting list in 2015 will be called and told about site availability at the park.
A warm winter has so far benefitted the de-icing efforts in the marina. Tersteeg reported that last year he spent up to $1,300 per month for electricity to run the de-icers and this year he recently spent about $300 for one month.
“I don’t want to sound like an old-timer, but in the 15 years that I have been here I have never seen so much open water this time of the year,” he said.
Once again, the park’s business partners renewed their agreements with the park. The partners are the Grand Marais Art Colony, North House Folk School, and WTIP radio. Both North House and the Art Colony steer business to the campground said Tersteeg, and WTIP gives the park four spots per week for advertising. “This year, we will use a majority of those advertising slots to promote the golf course,” he said.
Golf report
Gunflint Hills golf course superintendent Paul Jones brought before the board a list of suggested membership and daily rates, as well as new costs to rent golf carts. No decisions were made about new prices at the meeting, but quite a bit of discussion was held about ways to promote the golf course and increase the membership.
“The course is improving, and if we want to keep investing in the course, we need to think about bumping up the rates a little bit, so we have money to reinvest in the golf course,” Jones said, adding, “I have been talking to some of my peers, and their rates are going to be going up a little bit next summer.”
Board chair Sally Berg quipped, “We don’t want to brag that our golf course rates are the cheapest golf course rates on the north shore. Maybe we could use the model we used for the rec park, increasing the rates two to three percent each year. We haven’t raised the rates in a long time, but we can’t increase the rates unless we are giving our clients something more than they have now.”
Dave Tersteeg nodded, commenting, “Well, the clubhouse has been painted and improved, the golf course has been improved. Sally, you are right, we haven’t looked at increasing the rates like we do at the campground. The city council has asked us to make improvements and grow profits, so we should look at this.”
After further discussion and many ideas bandied about on ways to bring more golfers to Gunflint Hills, the board agreed to ask both Jones and Tersteeg to come up with a plan for new rates and bring back ideas for marketing the golf course.
The members of the park board were also unanimous in requesting that the citizens of Grand Marais be given a special rate or incentive to play at the golf course. After all, said Tersteeeg, “Their tax dollars paid for the golf course.”
Caribou will return to the town
The park board members heard a presentation from Corrie Steckelberg, who will build and install five life-sized caribou sculptures in different parks around Grand Marais as part of the Art Colony’s Land Cycle.
Sculptures will be made of wood frames that will hold dirt-containing seeds of grasses, flowers, and fast-growing trees. Over the top of the earthen clad structure, Corrie will hand sew low process textiles such as burlap and raw wool, which will act as the “skin.”
When the textiles deteriorate, the hope is that the plants will grow, making for dynamic and eventful sculptures.
Steckelberg suggested several options for where the sculptures could be placed. They include Boulder Park, the library lawn, Harbor Park, an area near the lake in the campground, near the pavilion that’s halfway up to Sweetheart’s Bluff and near the rocky bluff overlooking the hill in Sweetheart’s Bluff park.
Corrie said she was making sculptures of caribou because, “They are a beautiful animal that, as recently as 100 years ago, called his region home, but due to logging of the boreal forest do not come south of the Canadian border anymore. This [art project] is not meant to be anti-logging. I simply hope to provoke thought on human impact and habitat loss.”
Another feature Corrie mentioned was that she intends to put little plaques on each caribou with some history and also a reference— a clue—encouraging readers to find the next caribou until they have discovered all of them.
Sally Berg mentioned to Corrie that plants might not germinate in Boulder Park because it is typically windy and cold there.
Corrie noted the advice. She was asked if she would repair the caribou pieces if they were damaged and she said if possible, she would make repairs to any structures damaged by weather or vandals. She added she would document and photograph the caribou twice a week for her project grant.
The park board was enthused with the prospect of seeing the artwork in the town’s public spaces and wished Corrie luck on her project.
Environmental study
Tersteeg told the board that a Duluth firm had been hired to drill 30 test holes at the cost of $2,600 near and on the site of the old city garage in the park near the dog pound. The old garage will be taken down in the spring, and the dog pound will also be removed to make way for expanding and improving the public boat launch and building a new break wall that people can walk out on. No boat launch improvements will be made until next fall or even the spring of 2021. In the meantime, if any contaminants are found in the ground, they will be removed and cleaned up to make way for the state funded $2 million project.
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