Thom Peterson and one of his brothers visited the alpine wonderland of their childhood as a demolition crew began tearing it down this week.
“We met a lot of wonderful people there, went through a lot of ups and downs, but there are still people to this day talking about their experience out there,” he said.
Val Chatel, once a charming ski resort at the headwaters of the Mississippi River near Park Rapids, Minn., closed in 1984. The Peterson family opened it in the mid-1950s during peak ski culture. It was home to the state’s second ski lift, which hovered over the frozen lake. With short downhill runs, it was popular for school field trips. And a destination for wedding receptions and dinner with reviews of its first-class supper club “that draws customers from a wide radius. If those customers are skiers, they’re doubly satisfied,” a 1968 profile in Skiing Magazine read.
"Bit of Switzerland in the Park Rapids resort region of Minnesota is the Val Chatel ski lodge," the Star Tribune said in December 1971. "Natural snow is hauled to the slopes from Lac Chatel. The ski area is 16 miles east of Park Rapids." (Ralph Thornton/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
(Sharon Peterson/The Minnesota Star Tribune)
But following some snowless winters and divorce, new owners never got the historic ski lift running again. After a short-lived outdoor Viking re-enactment amphitheater overlooking the lake (yes, real ships crossed the lake for performances), the property sat vacant for decades, becoming the frequent target of vandalism and squatters who rummaged the property for copper.
To breathe life back into the place, amphitheater demolition is underway. Next, the gingerbread-trim lodge where yodeling could be heard and guests dined at the dinner theater and could book a lakeview room, will be razed to make way for a new regional park.
“They can take away the buildings and they can demolish this and that,” Peterson said. “But our memories can’t be taken away.”
The park, tentatively called Deep Lake Regional Park, was slated to open last year, but the project — made possible by an anonymous donor and the Trust for Public Land — hit hurdles and delays with archaeology work and asbestos removal from the lodge.