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CRANE LAKE— Business owners and residents in Crane Lake are hoping that the site of the former Borderland Resort near the entrance to the community’s “downtown” will become the new home of a …
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CRANE LAKE— Business owners and residents in Crane Lake are hoping that the site of the former Borderland Resort near the entrance to the community’s “downtown” will become the new home of a visitor center for Voyageurs National Park.
Their plan has the backing of legislators in St. Paul, who approved $950,000 to assist in the acquisition of the 30-acre former resort site as part of House passage of projects to be funded for 2017 through the Environment and Natural Resources Trust Fund.
Town board vice chair Jim Janssen, who has been spearheading the effort, said the acquisition is part of a plan to partner the National Park Service and the Department of Natural Resources on a combined project that would eventually include a visitor center and associated campground and boat launch.
Janssen noted that park organizers had initially promised a visitor center at each of the four resort-based communities located near the park, including Crane Lake. While the Park Service has built centers at Rainy Lake, Ash River, and Lake Kabetogama, it has yet to follow through with the commitment at Crane Lake, which has become the park’s busiest point of entry.
“The community wants a visitor center here yesterday,” said Janssen, and he expressed some impatience with the slow pace of progress on the part of the Park Service. “We’d like to see them become the driver of the project, rather than the passenger,” he said.
So far, however, the Park Service has been non-committal. “We would like to get a presence there,” said Bill Carlson, with Voyageurs National Park, “but we have not made a commitment.” Capital project funding is part of the issue— it’s been tight for years and that isn’t likely to improve under the current administration. President Trump has proposed a 12-percent cut in funding for the Interior Department, including capital spending in national parks.
But that would not necessarily prevent construction of the visitor center, notes Janssen, who points to an arrangement the Park Service has with the city of International Falls, where the city built a park headquarters that it leases to the Park Service. Janssen envisions something similar at Crane Lake, with the township as the potential developer of the center. That way, the Park Service could pay for the lease through operating funds, rather than scarce capital dollars.
Janssen notes that the park generates about $300,000 a year from fees on private rentals for houseboats that enter the park, and he said some of those funds should come back to the communities that serve park visitors.