‘Priceless property’: 3M’s historic northern Minnesota resort to become public land

PARK RAPIDS, Minn. - A secluded lakeshore oasis accessible only to 3M employees for 70 years will eventually open to the public now that the company has sold most of its corporate retreat.

After buying nearly 450 acres of the retreat for $5.38 million, the Minnesota Land Trust and Northern Waters Land Trust will transfer the land on Big Mantrap Lake, just north of Park Rapids, to the state Department of Natural Resources.

Once the handover is completed this year, the DNR will open the land as a wildlife management area accessible for outdoor recreation.

“Before it was kind of an exclusive resort area that you just heard stories about,” said DNR area wildlife supervisor Erik Thorson. “It’s really picturesque and awe-inspiring.

“This is a one-of-a-kind property that I think everybody is gonna really enjoy and be really impressed with. It felt like a privilege to be out there, so everybody will get to have that same experience.”

Not included in the sale was the Wonewok Conference Center, a 180-foot-long, pine log lodge and six cottages sitting on 190 acres. Built in 1929, the center was bought by 3M in 1955.

The company said it is “exploring options to sell the remaining developed property.”

3M closed Wonkewok in the spring of 2023 and put it on the market. That raised fears among conservationists and neighbors that the pristine property — consistently ranked by ecologists as having “outstanding biological significance” — could be developed.

“That designation is the highest level quality of a lake,” said Ruurd Schoolderman, program manager with Minnesota Land Trust.

With more than 6 miles of shoreline, Big Mantrap Lake is home to wild rice, muskies and a diversity of species. It also serves a vital role to migratory birds, particularly Minnesota’s common loon.

The acquisition to permanently protect it as public lands was funded by the state’s Outdoor Heritage Fund, as a part of the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment.

A matching contribution came through the Minnesota Loon Restoration Project, born out of the settlement fund created after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion. The disaster affected hundreds of wildlife species, including loons that winter in the Gulf of Mexico.

Schoolderman said an active group of volunteers is dedicated to loon protection on the lake because of its long shoreline.

“Hence the name Mantrap Lake because there’s so many bays and nooks and crannies in there that it’s easy to get lost on that on that lake if you don’t know your way around,” he said.

Within a month of 3M listing the property, the land trusts submitted a letter of intent, initiating a nearly two-year negotiation process.

Annie Knight, executive director of Northern Waters Land Trust, said this property was long desirable to be protected as public lands.

“It’s always been out of reach, and so it was a pretty incredible opportunity when it went up for sale,” Knight said.

She said environmental partners rallied together to find the funding “in order to preserve the priceless property.”

Rich Halvorsen, former president of the Big Mantrap Lake Association, has looked out in wonder at the 3M resort for much of his life. The lake home his father built in the early 1950s is directly across from the resort, a place of legend and deep curiosity.

“They kind of kept it walled off from the world. It was a real exclusive treat to for the visitors,” said Halvorsen, who lives in Plymouth and still owns his Mantrap Lake home.

He strongly advocated for the property to be protected as public lands, though he had little control over the outcome. Halvorsen said people were caught off guard when the property went up for sale and his phone began to ring constantly.

“We were all sort of in crisis mode,” he said.

“There’s kind of two extremes: one where it’s protected and preserved and basically kept so that it’s untouched on one end. And on the other end, it’s completely developed. And we thought, boy, we’d sure be happy if we even just got somewhere in the middle.”

“Honestly, I don’t know that it could have turned out much better,” he said. ”This is pretty much perfect."

The acquisition builds upon adjacent public lands. There’s roughly 600 acres of Paul Bunyan State Forest and Hubbard County-administered land where the Mantrap Lake Campground is located with a day-use area, boat landing and 36 drive-in primitive campsites directly north of the land recently purchased from 3M.

Campers and visitors will have more than double the outdoors to explore. An extensive trail system on the former 3M resort will be maintained for the public. Halvorsen said he can’t wait to step foot on it.

“Not only is it safe,” he said of the historic property, “but now the curtain can be pulled back, and we can let some people actually get to see it for themselves.”