ORR- Shovels hit the ground Tuesday morning at the site of the old Orr school football field in a symbolic groundbreaking ceremony for a new facility that will give local trail groups a long-awaited home base. The 3,500-square-foot building will provide heated storage and maintenance space for a groomer and other equipment used to keep snowmobile and ATV trails in top shape across the region.
The project is the result of years of planning and partnership, anchored by a $750,000 grant from the Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation (IRRR).
Drake Dill, president of the Voyageur Trail Society, traced the long road that led to this moment.
“Actually I’ll go way back. Probably the first IRRR sponsored project was in 1994 in Crane Lake, the first grooming facility. So we’re thankful for that,” Dill said. “Fast forward, and about eight, ten years ago we had a board member named Tim Watson and he was looking to build a facility with the board in Orr. Through a series of events and horse trading, the Voyageur Country ATV club ended up with one half of the field and Voyageur Trail Society ended up with the other half.”
The two clubs decided to join forces rather than build separately.
“It didn’t make a lot of sense to have two facilities on each side of the field – we would be better off to do something together,” Dill explained. “Our use as a snowmobile organization is in the winter to get the groomer in and to get it out. The ATV club is year-round and they can have an obstacle course to do training or the types of things that they need to do in a clubhouse to put tables and chairs and whatnot. So we’re excited about the partnership and it should complement each other nicely.”
For Dill, the groundbreaking also carried a sense of family history.
“The infancy of that was dad (David Dill) refounded VTSI in ’86 and Crane Lake Snowmobile Club built in ’94. And so then he was on the IRRR board with your dad,” he said, nodding to IRRR Commissioner Ida Rukavina as he referenced her father Tom.
Rukavina highlighted the agency’s long record of supporting trails across northern Minnesota.
“I looked up how many years in a row we have supported this. In 2025, we did $700,000, then we did 2024, then 2023, then 2022. You guys have money after money of how we helped,” Rukavina said.
She also underscored the importance of local volunteers.
“Back in the day, when I was still a kid, the agency used to actually go and do the snowmobile trails and grooming. And obviously now we’re still supporting it monetarily. We help in the ways that we can with paying for the expensive equipment and stuff, knowing that these are volunteers out here doing this for fun, for their family members, for everybody else,” she said. “So we really appreciate and are thankful for people that live up here that do this.”
District 3A Rep. Roger Skraba reminded the crowd that the trail system is more than a tourist draw.
“The trails not only benefit tourism, but us,” Skraba said. “That’s okay if we win, too. When I’m talking to the bonding committees for trails, I’m like, ‘Guys, we’re building the trails for you.’ And we benefit from the tourists, for the rest of the state. So hopefully it’ll keep resonating.”
Skraba added his thanks to the volunteers who make the system work.
“This is what it’s about for me – getting the money for you. If you’re gonna use it and it’s gonna have a purpose, that’s easy. It takes some work, but the cause is the right cause,” he said.
For Dill, the facility will mean the simple relief of knowing equipment has a proper home.
“It looks like we’re going to be able to break ground and have a building,” he said.