Welcome, Governor

The ice has melted, the anglers are headed north, and our Main Streets will soon be bustling. It’s that time of year that just about every local business looks forward to all winter. And this year Gov. Mark Dayton will be headed to the area to help our region kick off the summer tourism season.

The annual Governor’s Fishing Opener, a tradition that dates back to 1948, when Gov. Luther Youngdahl first journeyed north to Lake Mille Lacs, has been a promotional extravaganza ever since, one that has generated countless stories and media coverage every year, around the country. This year the spotlight will be on Lake Vermilion, and we’re confident that the governor and the media will discover, once again, why Vermilion attracts so many visitors year-after-year.

And as if the fishing isn’t enough, Gov. Dayton will also be attending the groundbreaking of the new Lake Vermilion State Park, the newest, and soon-to-be one of the finest, state parks in Minnesota. He’ll be joined by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, whose vision of protecting Vermilion’s east end from future development led to the park’s creation. After a few years of planning, roadwork, and other preliminary steps, major construction on the campground will be getting underway at the park later this summer.

It’s all happening at a time when the city of Tower’s long-planned harbor project is finally poised to attract serious private investment. With the prospect of a new hotel, condominiums, dining, and retail shops, the harbor project is helping Tower cement its reputation as a tourism destination with a bright future.

While many communities in our region continue to face divisions over the path to future development, there’s broad agreement in Tower and Soudan that this area’s economic future lies in tourism and in building a quality of life that will attract more residents, both seasonal and year-round, to the area.

While tourism jobs sometimes gets dismissed as seasonal and low-paying, the reality is quite a bit brighter than that. For communities like Tower and Cook, tourism is the lifeblood that keeps Main Street businesses in business. Tourism isn’t a boom-and-bust industry. It’s one that businesses know they can rely on, year-after-year, as long as we protect the things that continue to bring visitors to our region.

And tourism-related businesses tend to be small and locally-owned, by entrepreneurs who bring diversity and creativity to the local economy. Dollars generated through tourism stay in the area, forming the kind of virtuous cycle that keeps economies healthy and stable. That’s far less true in capital-intensive, natural resource-based industries, which tend to be unstable and where the profits drain away to major shareholders, who typically live elsewhere.

As the spotlight turns to Lake Vermilion this year, we’re bullish on the future. The combination of public investment in amenities like the new state park and the new harbor is poised to generate significant private investment in the tourism sector. At the same time, public investment in the new Scenic Rivers Health Clinic and the Vermilion Country Charter School has brought more than two-dozen, new, good-paying jobs to the Tower-Soudan area.

All these investments represent the necessary pieces to building a healthy community backed by a strong, locally-based economy that will keep the Tower-Soudan area growing and increasingly vibrant economically. We’re pleased to welcome the governor, and the former governor, to the area. There’s plenty of good news to share!