Photo of: South Beach on Gull Lake at Cragun’ s Resort in Brainerd, MN( Submitted photo) beach with both swimming and boating action. North Beach is a quieter and smaller sand beach.
Available group activities include guided fishing trips, bike rentals, build a boat races, scavenger hunts and horse drawn trolley rides. There are also golf tournaments and clinics.
Peterson said,“ We’ re in the fun business.” Along with an outdoor tennis court, there are three new pickleball courts, a fitness center, whirlpools and sauna, outdoor pool, event center, volleyball, basketball and an indoor running track.
Winter activities include ice fishing, ice skating, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, hockey, broomball and snowmobiling.“ We encourage people to get outside even in the winter,” said Peterson.
“ People are coming to experience what they cannot on a daily basis. Twenty to twenty-five years ago, I used to be asked all the time if the resort had a daycare where parents could drop their kids off. Now, families come to reconnect with each other. People are looking to do what they cannot do at home because they are too busy chasing everything. A lot of the activities they do are family activities and putting the phones away.”
Family activities the resort offers include movie nights; sandcastle building contests; family Olympics; frisbee golf; bingo; and yard games, such as cornhole.
Peterson said,“ As the sun is setting on the beach, you can see 25 to 30 bonfires roasting marshmallows for smores on the beach at twilight.”
Depending on the season, there are up to 500 employees working at the resort. Last year, there were 80 international staff members, mostly from Mexico, Jamaica and Eastern Europe.
Dutch Cragun, now 93, and his late wife, Irma, ran Cragun’ s for decades. They took over for Dutch’ s parents who bought the property shortly after the Great Depression. The resort’ s new owners, Leisure Hotels and Resorts, had been talking with Dutch over the past several years.
Jaimie Tatge, president of Leisure Hotels and Resorts, a Baxter-based company, said,“ We are incredibly honored and humbled to carry on the legacy and excellence of this legendary property, which has produced nearly a century of memories for so many Minnesotans. Over the last five years, Dutch and his team have put over $ 25 million into improving it and we will continue to put money in to improve it as we go forward.”
Cragun’ s Resort, one of the largest all-season resorts in Minnesota, has been a place of family traditions and lifelong memories for generations of visitors— and that legacy will continue under new ownership.
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