The original idea for the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail was forged in 1998, 24 years ago. A collection of Cuyuna regional residents attended a Blandin Leadership session in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. Community graduates (called cohorts) of the 1998 program were challenged to form a team to initiate a project that would address a need in their community.

A grassroots idea that sparked decades of hard volunteer work.
One community team identified the need to create a safe, useful space within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area (formed in 1993) for our community to use and enjoy, which also connected all the Cuyuna regional cities, together. The team of community residents started small but eventually grew to include John Schaubach, Bill Bedard, Dan Cruser, Jenny Smith, Dr. Jerry and Meredith Poland, Dr. Peter Stokman, Terry McGaughey, Kathy Bussard, Joel Peck, Johnna Johnson, Penny Johnston, Bud Lound, Denny Palmer, Julie Hofius, Lorne Dooyema, Kathy Brophy, Sylvia Graff, Representative John Ward, Senator Carrie Ruud, Congressman James Oberstar and countless others.

1998: The real challenges our Cuyuna region faced.
When open-pit and shaft mineral extraction ended in the early 1980s, mining and railroad companies abandoned thousands of acres of barren mine land. Another newfound challenge occurred when the mining and railroad companies also ceased to provide trespass enforcement. Our former mine land had no standing boundary fences, the “no trespass” signs were removed, and the mine land was eventually accessible by anyone, from anywhere, on anything, in a landscape with no rules, no enforcement, and no accountability.

During that time, multiple safety hazards naturally existed, including unmarked mine shafts, abandoned and crumbling mining infrastructure, and steep fragile slopes of the remaining overburden soil and bedrock. As the mining and railroad companies no longer chose to secure the land, the land very quickly became an area that attracted trespassing, which spawned additional illegal activities including hiking, trash dumping, disposal of old vehicles in the mine lakes, and underage partying. All of which contributed to the overall degradation of the historic landscape our mining forefathers spent decades creating.

When reflecting upon this critical moment in our community history, John Schaubach commented, “When I look back, our plan for this paved trail was for it to allow our mine land to represent what’s best about our community versus allowing the trespassing and illegal activities to define our community. If we could make our former mine land a safe place for families to go to be inspired, it could become lifechanging for our people, and our community.”

As the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail was in the preliminary idea stages with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR), our former mine land was in process of developing a reputation as being unsafe. The DNR at that time was concerned local and state citizens would feel unsafe going into the designated Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area.

Jenny Smith mentioned, “New names such as ‘Hell’s Half Acre’ and the ‘Pit of All Evil’ were used to deter volunteers’ appetites to move forward with paving a safe and sustainable way to recreate. It was clear right away, the volunteers of the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association and our community grassroots volunteers needed to be persistent, consistent, and optimistic in the work they chose to take on. They knew in their hearts and minds that our region needed a rec area, not a wreck area.”

What was the paved trail intended to do?
The purpose was two-fold:
#1) Recruit a 21^st century workforce through a quality-of-life enhancement that was not available elsewhere in Minnesota. Looking back to 1998, the closure of mining in the 1980s was still felt in our regional community. This emotional and economic loss continued to create an invisible challenge to recruit our next generation of doctors, nurses, and surgeons in healthcare, teachers for our public school, and a skilled workforce in our manufacturing industries.

#2) The aim of the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail was to establish a five-acre sanctuary of safety within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area where every level of human-powered physical ability has equal access to recreate, and view and learn about the history of our former mine land. Additionally, the paved trail was to deliver an anchor amenity upon which to build additional uses identified in the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area Implementation Plan (e.g., hiking, birding, equestrian, paddling/portaging, mountain bicycling, overnight camping, day-use areas)

The Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association volunteers have worked incredibly hard from 1998 through today, meeting each month, developing the Master Plan for the Cuyuna Lakes State Trail. In 2018, the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area became an official segment of the nationally-designated Mississippi River Trail (MRT) that starts at Lake Itasca in Itasca State Park and ends at the Gulf of Mexico. In 2000, the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association was established as a 501(c)3 non-profit, which made fundraising and grant writing possible. In the same year, the State of Minnesota established the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail as a statutory entity separate from the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area, with its own state-approved Master Plan from the Northland Arboretum in Brainerd to the City of Aitkin campground.

The challenges were never ending.
Despite our former mine lands being designated a State Recreation Area in 1993, back in 1998 there were few ways to legally recreate within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area boundaries. The biggest problem our Cuyuna region faced within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area was that the state did not own enough of the land within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area boundaries to develop new recreation uses within the Implementation Plan.

To help remove this barrier, the volunteers of the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association focused on solving the complicated land ownership of the former mine and railroad land on behalf of the State of Minnesota. They partnered with state employees Lowell Jaeger, Steve Weber, and Theresa Thewes, local community volunteer Bud Lound, and Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association land acquisition project manager Denny Palmer. Any land which was owned by mining companies, railroad companies, and private individuals on which the State paved trail would be built needed 100% state ownership.

The challenge the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association faced was that the abandoned mine and railroad land ownership was termed ‘Undivided Interest.’ Absentee owners by multiple individuals and entities, who owned the same property together undivided to each owner. This lack of 100% State of Minnesota ownership, if not corrected, would stop any legal recreation from being implemented or developed within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area.

In addition, the land required for the paved trail needed to provide ADA accessible use which was a formidable challenge in a geography consisting of open pits and overburden hills of dirt.

From 1998 to 2002 the Cuyuna Lakes Trails Association worked exclusively on acquiring the land where the paved trail is today to be owned 100% by the State of Minnesota. The Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association volunteers did this work on behalf of the State of Minnesota, and on numerous occasions also assisted in providing their own hard-earned fundraised and grant dollars to the State of Minnesota to help acquire the needed land within the State Recreation Area. Equally challenging, the volunteers of the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association focused on advocating and raising the needed dollars to actually construct the paved trail once the land was acquired and owned 100% by the State of Minnesota.

Remarkably, by 2002 the hard work of the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association volunteers paid off. Through a team effort between the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association and the Minnesota DNR, more than 2,000 acres of land and water (635 acres of land) of the statutory 5,000 acres of the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area was now 100% owned by the Minnesota DNR. The state now had enough land on which to build the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area, which required five acres to build a five-mile section of the paved trail.

From day one, the volunteer members of Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association were committed to our regional community quality of life and safety. These volunteers aimed for not only safe access, but a safe space for people who did not have any other place or way to recreate, both locally, and throughout the State of Minnesota. Walkers, hikers, foragers, birders, artists, photographers, wheelchair users, and cyclists to name a few, were the target outdoor recreation users the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association focused to represent.

In 2005, the first five miles of paved trail were constructed within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area. Historically important to note, Congressman James Oberstar championed a $2.1 million T21 Federal Transportation and Enhancement Act appropriation funding the infrastructure and development of the Cuyuna Lakes State Paved Trail. This appropriation made the first five miles of paved trail within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area possible.

2042: A 20-year vision look forward.
The Cuyuna Lakes State Trail is still in process of enhancement and expansion today as it now connects the cities of Deerwood, Crosby, Ironton, and Riverton. The paved trail master vision now focuses on the opportunity to connect our Cuyuna regional cities to Brainerd to the west, then eastward to Aitkin and eventually Grand Rapids. Once completed, this will deliver a destination that not only has the power and draw to recruit visitors and future residents from the United States, but from Europe as well.

To learn more or to donate to the ongoing mission of the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association please visit cuyunalakestrailassociation.org or eMail contact@cuyunalakestrailassociation.org