AITKIN -- Sometimes the hardest part about completing a project is figuring out where to start, especially when it comes to a logistically challenging proposal to connect Aitkin and Deerwood.

The Cuyuna Lakes State Trail is 8 miles of paved trail within the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area from Crosby to Riverton. One mile passes through Aitkin along Highway 169.

“This is the first step for our city of Aitkin … as we move ahead with what we feel is the next leg of the Cuyuna Lakes State Trail Association,” Mayor Gary Tibbitts told a packed room.

The Wednesday, Oct. 23, meeting at the Aitkin Fire Department included local mayors, business owners, bike enthusiasts, members of chambers of commerce, county officials, city officials, local state representatives and more.

“A lot of you may know, if you’ve read the newspaper, is just as of last year, they opened another leg of the Cuyuna Lakes Trail Association from the city of Crosby to the city of Deerwood,” Tibbitts said. “Our emphasis today is, ‘What is our first step?’”

Cuyuna Lakes State Trail

The Cuyuna Mountain Bike Trail System includes 25 miles of riding and over 30 routes also in the Cuyuna Country State Recreation Area.

“You just need to talk to anyone who is in the Crosby area and look at what’s happened in downtown Crosby,” Tibbitts said. “Downtown Crosby for some years was known as the antique capital of the world. It is now a very viable, exciting community. New businesses are moving in.”

The Cuyuna Lakes State Trail Association has played a key role in supporting the Cuyuna Lakes State Trail project, according to Rep. Dale Lueck, R-Aitkin.

“The city purchased a 10-acre parcel … right behind the St. James rectory, so we’ll have a place where people can come … when everything is ready,” Tibbitts said. “We now can offer parking, so you can unload your bicycles, get on the bike trail and actually start heading west.”

The first completed segment connects Deerwood and Riverton, via Crosby-Ironton. Unfinished are the Riverton-Brainerd leg and the Aitkin-Deerwood leg.

“How do we get from A to B? What makes more sense?” Tibbitts said of the two to three tentative routes for the proposed Aitkin-Deerwood leg. “Which one do we want to proceed ahead with?”

Aitkin County Engineer John Welle talked about the long-term project and outlined some of the logistical and financial challenges that can seem daunting.

“Trails don’t happen fast. The funding isn’t there to make them happen fast. The very process of putting a trail on the ground is a lot of work because you don’t have a corridor to put it in, there just isn’t a real clean corridor between Aitkin and Deerwood to put that trail,” Welle said.

Deerwood Mayor Michael Aulie told those at the meeting, “Don’t get discouraged on how long it takes because it’s just the way that it is. It was years in the making to get from Deerwood to Crosby. … Be prepared for the long haul, but it’s worth going through. Don’t despair.”

Complicating matters is the lack of public land between Aitkin and Deerwood where a trail could be located, nor are there old railroad corridors where a trail could be made.

“It’s all private land, and to try and put a trail on private land … you’re basically inching that trail along one landowner at a time, trying to figure out where there’s a willing landowner to put the trail, so it’s a very hard, very arduous process,” Welle said. “As far as the route between Aitkin and Deerwood, there’s nothing at all set in stone. That’s what needs to be determined before we can proceed. … Once you decide where the trail is going, you have to basically survey the area, do a design plan, do all kinds of federal reporting.”

Paul Bunyan State Trail

The Cuyuna Lakes State Trail will ultimately connect to the 120-mile Paul Bunyan State Trail at Baxter.

“From the time that you determine where the trail is going and you have funding until the time you build it is a two- to three-year period at a minimum,” Welle said. “The bulk of the work is to just determine where the trail is going to go, and that’s what’s going to be our challenge.”

The Paul Bunyan State Trail extends from Crow Wing State Park to Lake Bemidji State Park, north of Bemidji. It is the longest of Minnesota’s state trails and the longest continuously paved rail-trail in the country.

“We’ve talked about the option of perhaps looking at the corridor of Trunk Highway 210. If you look around the state, a lot of the state trails, they end up being in the right of way of another major highway just because it’s hard to get folks to give up land to put a trail,” Welle said.

Welle said trail construction costs could be between $200,000 to $300,000 a mile, with a minimum of 10 to 12 miles of trail and the costs for a 10-foot-wide bituminous paved trail varies with the terrain that the trail will be built on.

“The counties, Crow Wing and Aitkin, have helped to act as the fiscal agent in other aspects of the project, too, to get the projects in place, to secure the funding, to do basically all of the design and construction work that’s related to the trail construction,” Welle said.

Welle said building a bike trail is more difficult than constructing a road, as road authorities can consider using eminent domain to obtain right of way to build the road. Eminent domain is the right of a government to expropriate private property for public use with compensation.

“We have to work closely with Crow Wing County and the communities over there to figure out where the corridor is going to go because we need to be in agreement whether it continues to go in the area previously thought of south of Cedar Lake … or up along 210,” Welle said.

Tibbitts said, “We know that it’s going to take some years to get this done, but we need to start the process. … We want to get a plan in place, get a committee in place. … We need to be involved. We need to bring all of you together in this room to make it happen.”