WINTON – Lonn Cunningham, who is from Iowa and now lives in Texas, served his country in the first Gulf War, and after he came home from his military service he got hit by a drunk driver. He has been in a wheelchair ever since.
He has one arm and very limited mobility, but there are few places he can’t get to at Veterans on the Lake Resort in his motorized wheelchair. If one looks closely, one will see a custom-made fishing rod holder and casting apparatus that allows him to catch all the fish he wants on Fall Lake.
“This is a magical place. I’ve been coming up here now for about 20 years,” he said to Minnesota’s Veterans Affairs Commissioner Larry Herke and other regional officials Tuesday afternoon as they visited with resort representatives to hear how the facility, located just outside of Ely, utilized a $50,000 State of Minnesota grant to help disabled Minnesota veterans visit the North Country.
“I was up here at a time when this place was at its worst,” Cunningham said as he described the improvements completed to make the resort more handicap accessible. “That road out here was in such need of repair ever since I started coming up here,” he said as he described muscle damage in his legs that causes unbearable pain every time he hits a bump. “You guys got it done. I love this place.”
Herke, Minnesota House Veterans Committee chair Rep. Rob Ecklund, officials from the Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation, Minnesota’s Legislative Citizens Commission on Natural Resources (LCCMR), and St. Louis County learned about the recent accessibility upgrades at the resort.
Veterans on the Lake was founded in 1982 as a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization providing recreational resources for disabled veterans and their families. Board chair Eric Mayranen said the organization also serves able-bodied veterans, active-duty veterans, their families, and friends.
“In 1978 there were two resorts here,” Mayranen said. “Both of them were shut down. Back in the early 1980s, a group of volunteers came up with the idea of putting the two resorts together and focused a mission to help disabled people enjoy the outdoors.”
The U.S. Forest Service owns the land (about 28 acres with Fall Lake frontage) and the organization owns the buildings, consisting of a main lodge, heated outdoor swimming pool, numerous outbuildings and workshops and 28 cabins and rental units, with 11 that are ADA accessible.
Mayranen noted that construction will begin next month on replacing two aging cabins with new, up-to-date and ADA accessible structures.
“It took two and a half years to get through the permitting process to build the new cabins,” he said.
Andy Berkenpass, general manager at the resort, chimed in with a goal of making all the resort cabins handicap accessible.
“I want to see every unit here to be fully wheel-chair accessible. That is our long-term goal and it is on our radar,” he said.
Iron Range lobbyist Jeff Anderson, who organized the event, described Veterans on the Lake Resort, “as the easiest entity I’ve worked for in telling the story about this place.”
“These funds invested in this resort by the groups gathered here today are being used for numerous upgrades,” Anderson said. “The State of Minnesota also invested funds to provide scholarships for individual disabled veterans and their families to come her and experience northern Minnesota.”
Last year, with the help of LCCMR and Rep. Ecklund, Veterans on the Lake was awarded $553,000 to be used for paving and trail work, renovations to their cabins, and the construction of the two new cabins, according to Anderson.
“In addition, $125,000 was awarded by IRRR for the paving project, and $100,000 came from St. Louis County,” he said. “That is on top of the $50,000 in scholarship funds from the State of Minnesota. And we wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t request more support from these entities for continued support for this great resort.”
In 2021, Veterans on the Lake served 713 disabled veterans, along with 78 helpers and families for the veterans.
“We had 170 active duty military personnel here last year,” Mayrenen said. “In total, we served a total of 1,981 people, and our statistics are up for this year already.”
Cunningham described the reaction from most people when they encounter someone who is wheelchair-bound.
“When you have a disability, nobody pays any attention to you,” he said. “People stare holes through me at restaurants.”
He added, “But here at this resort we are the normal ones, and you all are the odd ones. I can’t express to you what it means to me and thousands of people over the years to come up here to Veterans on the Lake.”