Vacation / Travel Supplement
Lake Minnetonka: Minnesota lakeshore is popular vacation destination up north
More modest lake cottages are mixed among huge mansions on scenic Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota, which has been a popular summer resort near St. Paul and Minneapolis since the late 1800s. (Submitted photo by Ed and Cynthia Dewes)
By Cynthia Dewes (Sipecial to The Criterion)
WAYZATA, Minn.—They call Minnesota the “Land of 10,000 Lakes.”
Actually, there are lots more than that, and when I lived there having a natural lake handy was common.
As a result, I was surprised to learn upon moving to Indiana that lakes here are so few that even abandoned gravel pits qualify for that name!
“My lake,” as I like to call it, is Lake Minnetonka, which is located about 15 miles west of Minneapolis.
Lake Minnetonka has 125 miles of lakeshore featuring some of the most expensive properties and palatial residences anywhere.
But local residents also enjoy the same scenic beauty, good fishing, boating and other water sports as do their wealthier neighbors.
Lengthy articles in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Magazine are devoted to this scenic lake.
Celebrities hang out there, and tourists have enjoyed its charm since the late 1800s.
In years past, streetcars connected the nationally popular resort locale to Minneapolis, and several large tourist hotels lined the lake. A steamboat regularly ferried passengers from place to place.
About 1900, my husband’s grandparents came to a resort on Lake Minnetonka from St. Louis for their honeymoon.
We possess a beautiful antique maple bed and dresser set, which my own grandfather purchased at a fire sale when one of the big hotels burned down as most of them eventually did.
The two major towns on opposite sides of Lake Minnetonka are Wayzata and Excelsior. Both towns, according to their current advertising, are “noted for their boutique shops and restaurants.”
In contrast, “my” town of Wayzata was only a small community with James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railway rattling right down the main street.
At Wayzata’s western edge stands a neighborhood called Ferndale, which contained the homes of the wealthy movers and shakers from Minneapolis industry—the Pillsburys, the Bells of General Mills and other noted families.
In my day, Excelsior was smaller and known chiefly for its amusement park, now gone, and later the Old Log Theater, which is still popular today.
One of the early steamboats, called the “Minnetonka,” has been restored, and now takes sightseers back and forth from Excelsior to Wayzata.
There are also commercial outfits like Al and Alma’s, which rent boats for cruises, some involving meals.
Last summer, 100 of my relatives and I enjoyed a luncheon cruise around the lake for our family reunion.
Large cruise boats such as we were on as well as sailboats, speedboats and rowboats with or without outboard motors fill the lake, especially on weekends or holidays.
Many marinas and dockside marina restaurants like the popular Lord Fletcher’s dot its shores.
Fishermen catch walleye pike, bass, crappies and sunfish galore, and swimmers and sunbathers enjoy clean, sandy beaches. The lake is big enough for jet skiers and sail gliders to have fun without bothering more passive sports enthusiasts.
Everyone living lakeside has a dock, a boat and often a small beach. In Wayzata, we had the “Lagoon,” a large pond behind the public swimming beach where picnics were held.
The Wise Boat Works where my grandfather built cabinetry for Cris Craft boats stood next door.
Today, a community center occupies that space and the train depot nearby now houses the Wayzata Historical Society. Volunteers keep the gardens in front of the depot and bordering the public dock in beautiful bloom.
In the winter, ice hockey, skating and ice fishing are popular recreational activities on Lake Minnetonka.
Despite its size, the lake usually freezes over completely and fishermen drive their cars onto the ice. They build ice “shacks,” which are often quite luxurious, with TVs and cots inside.
Everyone used to take bets on “when the ice would go out,” which usually occurred sometime in April. Of course, some fool would invariably go out on the ice too late in the spring and drop his car into the drink. Now, a stiff fine makes people more careful.
Visitors from outside Minnesota often rent cabins and cottages along the lakeshore. Many local people commute on day trips from Minneapolis, St. Paul or other towns in the area because they’re close by. But others go “up north in our own back yard,” as an article in the Star Tribune of Minneapolis reported.
Thanks to the dip in our economy, young single and married Minnesotans who used to vacation on Catalina Island or in the Carolinas now choose to rent a cottage on Lake Minnetonka instead.
One local man who brought his family to vacation on Big Island in Lake Minnetonka put it this way: “This is quite a unique take on a vacation for us. But with hectic kid schedules, we’re close enough that we’ll take one child to baseball practice at 8 o’clock tomorrow morning. And we’ll probably go home and mow the grass on Saturday morning.”
From an $8.5 million home to the most modest residence, the people who live around Lake Minnetonka are a fortunate bunch. Luckily for the rest of us, the lake and its many winter and summer vacation attractions are accessible to everyone.
(Cynthia Dewes is a regular columnist for The Criterion. For more information, request the Explore Minnesota Travel Guide at www.exploreminnesota.com.) †
