REGIONAL – If you’re going to dream, dream big.
That appears to be the unofficial motto of the Voyageur Country ATV Club, a group started by four men in 2015 that now boasts over 700 members, all sharing the vision of an interconnected trail system that will eventually provide riders with over 500 miles of trails to explore.
Five years ago, Bruce Beste and Steve Koch weren’t at all satisfied with the ATV riding opportunities in and around Crane Lake and Elephant Lake.
“Looking at the U.S. Forest Service map and the St. Louis County map, I would say there were some disconnected trails,” Beste said. “You couldn’t get to them without a truck and trailer. So, what we did is come together and looked at those maps and drew what we felt could be a system rather than just a bunch of disjointed in-and-out dead end roads.”
The pair floated their idea to the Forest Service, the Department of Natural Resources, and two big landowners, and it was well received. But legislation required an ATV trail system to have a sponsoring club, and so Voyageur Country ATV Club was born. They picked the name Voyageur Country because they felt they could attract more members from a broader area that way, and big dreams needed a big club to pull them off.
As luck would have it, at about the same time the project got a boost from an unexpected source. Beste was presenting the trail plan at a hunting shack owners association meeting, and he arrived early to prepare.
“A guy came in and he asked me, ‘What have you got here?’ It’s like 20 minutes before the meeting,” Beste said. “So, I went through the thing and the guy said ‘We’ve got to do this.’ I asked if he had a hunting shack up there, and he said, ‘No, I’m county commissioner Pete Stauber.’”
Beste chuckled.”I didn’t want to practice on a county commissioner,” he said.
Stauber pulled in a couple of other commissioners who were attending the meeting and had Beste deliver the pitch again. The ATV trail system fit well with the commissioners’ desire to pass an ordinance to promote ATVs, part of which would be granting driving privileges on county roads. That, in turn, played right into the Voyageur Country plan, which needed to use some county roads to connect some of the disjointed trails.
Boosted by the commissioners’ enthusiasm, the club was off and running on a public relations and political adventure, meeting with agencies, delivering presentations, garnering the support of cities on the proposed routes, and working to get the abandoned Forest Service roads open.
But the key to making the whole system work was to build a bridge over the Vermilion River, no small task, and for that, another chance encounter paved the way.
Beste said he was snowmobiling at Namakan Lake in 2016 when a group of people recognized him as “the guy who’s trying to get this ATV thing going.” As they talked, Beste described the club’s vision for the bridge.
“They started asking me questions and they thought, ‘You know, this guy’s a little bit of a lunatic,’” Beste said.
But one of the men, his face obscured by his helmet face shield, latched on to the idea and told Beste they needed to meet. When Beste asked who he was, it turned out to be state Sen. Tom Bakk. And when 300 people gathered last September to celebrate the million-dollar bridge, Bakk was the person they asked to cut the ribbon.
“He’s been awesome for us,” Beste said. “A very big supporter, and he’s been very helpful.”
Mark Anderson, chairman of the club’s trails committee and owner of Anderson Canoe Outfitters in Crane Lake, agrees.
“We’ve got trails pending now from here to Kabetogama and from Buyck to Cook,” he said. “Those will be open in the near future, hopefully sooner rather than later.”
Thanks in part to the access provided by the Vermilion River bridge, the ATV trail system currently totals over 250 miles. A jaunt from Anderson’s store to the bridge and then on to another club construction project, the Pelican River Overlook near Elephant Lake, illustrates the patchwork combinations that have gone into creating the system. Starting on paved highway, the trail turns onto a county gravel road, traverses a Forest Service road, leads down a section of abandoned railroad bed, and utilizes a brand new trail section constructed by club members before winding up on another gravel road to arrive at the overlook.
The Pelican River Overlook isn’t simply an observation tower. It’s a massive viewing platform large enough for groups to enjoy a picnic meal together, and it also has a heavy-duty barbecue grill.
Voyageur Country ATV Club has built other trail enhancements, such as a picnic area at the Vermilion River bridge site, and plans more overlooks. Beste said the goal is to make the trails friendly for the wide variety of riders they see using it.
Anderson noted that many of the improvements are handicapped-accessible, and he described an encounter this past summer with a family with a disabled child that they took on a ride deep into the wilderness, something the family had never done before. The ATV trails, he said, make the backcountry accessible for people who would otherwise never experience it.
“We want everybody to get up here and enjoy these beautiful public lands,” Anderson said.
The trails have already been a boost for tourism in the region, Anderson said, and as they become better known, he expects to see a steady flow of people coming to Crane Lake to use them.
Trail development has been funded through a variety of state grants and donations, and the current bonding bill pending before the Legislature contains another $950,000 to continue development. But Beste said the club will need more to complete all three phases of the plan.
“Right now, phase two is going to connect Cook, Orr, Ash River, and Kabetogama,” he said. “Phase three will connect Littlefork and International Falls. And then phase three will also interconnect with two other ATV trail systems, Quad Cities and Prospector.”
But in the spirit of that informal club motto, the future holds even bigger possibilities.
“The bigger plan is you can start in Grand Rapids and end up in Grand Marais,” Beste said. “The goal is connecting Grand Rapids to Virginia to International Falls, Ely, Silver Bay, and Grand Marais, an interconnected destination ride. And that entire system would be about 2,000 miles.”
For a trail map, information about the system, and membership information, visit the Voyageur Country ATV Club website at http://www.voyageurcountryatv.com.