Minnesota’s Backyard: Myre-Big Island State Park increases access, has plenty to offer

ALBERT LEA, Minn. — The largely flat farmland of northern Iowa may be fairly in its personal approach, however whenever you journey north on Interstate 35, there are two very clear indications that you’ve got left the Cyclone State and entered the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

The primary is an enormous signal, proper on the border, that claims, “Welcome to Minnesota.” The following, possibly 10 minutes additional north, is a bridge throughout the sprawling expanse of Albert Lea Lake, which tells drivers, “Bye Iowa, you’re in lake nation now.”

That broad and shallow physique of water is the centerpiece of

Myre-Massive Island State Park

, which was established shortly after World Conflict II to protect the 116-acre wooded island for which the park is known as. From that starting, the park now contains almost 1,800 acres of public land and 16 miles of climbing trails.

It was the useless of a Minnesota winter the primary time Brittanie Wilson received the chance to strive an all-terrain monitor chair. Wilson, who’s the communications director for the Minnesota Council on Incapacity, has used a wheelchair to get round all her life. The monitor chairs can take customers off the paved trails onto gravel, snow, no matter. It was a thrill that Wilson gained’t neglect, even within the winter.

“You’re wrapped in such freedom that you simply don’t even discover the chilly,” mentioned Wilson, who was readily available at Myre-Massive Island on a latest sunny weekday to advertise the rising availability of monitor chairs (lots of them made in Marshall, Minn.) at 5 Minnesota State Parks – Camden, Crow Wing, Lake Bemidji and Maplewood are the others) and at different county and municipal parks this summer season.

Certainly, taking a hike on the 1.5-mile loop across the perimeter of Massive Island later that day, guests may see tracks from chair customers who had gotten out to see elements of the park not usually accessible through conventional wheelchairs.

“Entry advantages everybody,” Wilson mentioned, with a broad smile.

Along with nice tenting, fowl watching and biking on web site, the lake offers introduction to paddle sports activities and fishing, in line with Adam Kurtz, the park supervisor.

“The lake is admittedly, actually shallow. It’s a reasonably large physique of water, but it surely’s solely about 6 toes deep at its deepest level,” mentioned Kurtz. “That’s why it’s such a fantastic paddling lake is there’s not numerous boat site visitors creating waves … There’s a walleye, northern and crappie inhabitants within the lake. Sadly, you need to work fairly onerous to get these. I like to inform individuals it’s a fantastic lake for instructing fishing.”

It’s a easy organic truth: climbing makes you hungry. To quench that rumble within the stomach, it’s roughly 20 minutes east of the park to seek out Austin, which is the house of SPAM and the birthplace of legendary soccer coach and broadcaster John Madden. For greater than 80 years, hungry guests have stopped on the

Tendermaid

, a tiny takeout-only restaurant close by of the city’s well-known SPAM Museum, for his or her wonderful unfastened meat hamburgers and milkshakes. Every order comes with a spoon, that isn’t for the beverage, however to select up the occasional nugget of unfastened meat that falls off your burger. You’ll not wish to miss a morsel.

This text is a part of the “

Minnesota’s Yard

” sequence which returns for the summer season of 2022.