After resort fire, Concordia Language Villages weighs permanent home for Chinese program

This week begins a beloved Minnesota summer tradition, where 3,000 kids from 50 states immerse themselves in learning at the Concordia Language Villages.

Most of the learning occurs at the main campus near Bemidji, though a few other locations are scattered at resorts up north throughout summer. But one of the villages now has an uncertain future: the Chinese Language Village is temporarily relocating to Concordia College in Moorhead after a fire destroyed its home at Maplelag Resort, north of Detroit Lakes.

The Chinese village is named Sēn Lín Hú — "Forest by the Lake" in Mandarin. It began in 1984 and had been headquartered at Maplelag Resort for years. The October fire burned the main lodge, where Concordia Language Villages stored its Chinese village supplies. The organization lost almost all its Chinese curriculum, posters, costumes, dishes and books.

"It was devastating," said Mary Maus Kosir, executive director of Concordia Language Villages. "We're starting from scratch."

A donation fund raised $75,000 as well as $50,000 worth of in-kind donations — costumes and artwork, chopsticks and calligraphy pens — to restart the village. A Concordia College dorm will be transformed into the Chinese village for about 300 students this summer, with all signage in Chinese and the school's dining services serving Chinese cuisine.

It won't be the same as the old resort on Little Sugar Bush Lake. Language immersion is easier when you're on an isolated campus 200 miles north of the Twin Cities instead of a college dorm across the river from Fargo. But the organization will try to retain the outdoorsy summer-camp character at the dorm, with a fire pit, singalongs, field trips and a swimming pool.

The program, affiliated with Concordia College since its founding in 1961, has been financially devastated by COVID. Its annual revenue of nearly $14 million dipped to $2 million. It experienced furloughs, virtual language villages in 2020 and dramatically reduced in-person capacity in 2021. Even this summer, the program will host 3,000 students compared to a typical pre-COVID summer of 4,000 to 4,500 students.

"What makes the program shine is living and breathing and immersing yourself in language and culture," Kosir said.

The organization is in the middle of a couple construction projects, including a new Korean Language Village near Bemidji, and is evaluating where the permanent spot will be for the Chinese Language Village — back at a rebuilt Maplelag Resort or elsewhere.

Jay Richards, owner of Maplelag Resort, was planning to celebrate the resort's 50th birthday this summer until the fire turned its future uncertain. He hopes the decadeslong relationship with Concordia Language Villages will continue. But first he needs to figure out how — and if — the resort will rebuild.

"The No. 1 thing we thought of after the fire was the (language) village," Richards said. "So, we went to the sites at Bemidji, and that was our inspiration for ideas in building a new structure."