The Grand Marais Recreation Area phone was ringing off the wall when park board members sat down for their first meeting of the year on Tuesday, January 3, 2012, also the park’s first business day of the year. As they do every year on that day, lots of Grand Marais Campground enthusiasts were making frantic efforts to reserve spots for Fisherman’s Picnic. By 3:30 p.m. over 250 reservations had been made, booking up the park except for a few tent sites. Park Manager Dave Tersteeg said reservations were averaging three sites per call.
Community Connections
The board examined three site drawings for a “community connection” walkway into the east end of the park proposed by Short, Elliot, Hendrickson of Duluth. The firm had been asked to come up with less expensive alternatives after the board hired it to create drawings of what it had envisioned.
The new proposals range from about $242,536 to $314,986, but that does not include a pond for $30,000 or an underground grit chamber to catch runoff debris for $300,000.
The least expensive plan estimates the cost of boulders and landscaping to be $95,000. Board member Paul Anderson said he thinks they could get those items installed for less than that. Manager Tersteeg agreed, saying they could probably save a lot of money by using volunteer and staff labor and park equipment.
Grants will be sought to help pay for the project, which will include storm water management features.
The board will discuss the project further after they have an opportunity to think about the options.
Pool busy
December was another good month for the pool, Tersteeg reported.
Repairs are being done on the hot water system to ensure that showers don’t run out of hot water. “For approximately $2,000 we’ll be making some pretty significant repairs to the domestic hot water system,” Tersteeg said.
The new design will be an improvement over the one that has been in place. “A couple of installation errors made for unreliable hot water,” Tersteeg said.
Snow sculptures in park
The board approved a special event application from the Cook County Visitors Bureau for snow sculptures during the Winter Tracks Festival February 3-12. Work will begin on the sculptures around January 27.
Where will you be getting the snow? Board Chair Walt Mianowski asked event manager Maggie Barnard. She said they plan to get it from the Devil’s Track airport, but if they get really desperate, they can truck it in from Lutsen Mountains.
This event was a good one last year, Tersteeg said, adding, “It’s a needed event for the wintertime.”
Leave a Reply