Connecting More
Than Just River Rinks

Sometimes it takes time to incubate an idea—other times it just takes a few guys, a bonfire on the ice, and family conversations to make things happen. That’s how the Riverbend Skate Path came to be. The request of a teenage daughter to connect neighborhood rinks turned into a 2-mile path connecting the entire community.

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On a crisp night in mid-December, a firepit sat on the surface of the ice at Jared Olafson’s riverside home. While kids skated across the oversized rink that he plowed between his neighbor’s property to the east and his brother Travis’s property to the west, the adults gathered around the warmth of the fire. Craig Kennedy, their neighbor from across the road, joined them, along with his wife and children. It was around the bonfire that Tori, Craig’s daughter, proposed an idea that would grow to become a community-wide endeavor. “Why don’t we plow a path from this rink around the riverbend to our rink?” she asked.

The idea was simple enough. Each household was already plowing their own rinks, so extending these efforts to connect the three-quarters-of-a-mile around the riverbend wouldn’t be too challenging. But once this path was created, the neighbors got to thinking: “Why don’t we plow up to Doc’s?”

Doc’s River Rink is a mainstay in Warroad for the long Minnesota winters, offering skate and ski rentals and free access for the public to skate on its large surface area—and it was only a mile further down river. So they hooked the plows back up and got to work. Once they made it that far, their friend Izzy Marvin, coach of the Warroad High School girls hockey team, requested they extend the path to his property. 

“Why not?” the Olafsons and Kennedy said.

And so, the path continued under the Highway 11 car bridge. In the days and weeks that followed, it would continue to extend along all the residences in that neighborhood, then under the train bridge to all the residences along the other side, spanning more than two miles. With all the buzz and excitement, the team of neighbors got another request to connect to the local brewery just across the river, and their response was as expected: “Why not?”

The result? The Riverbed Skate Path. 

As the skate path has taken shape, new features have been added. After Christmas, the local Farmers Union donated all their unsold Christmas trees, which were placed between the skate path and the snowmobile trail that runs parallel to it. On the other side of the path, a cross-country ski trail has been groomed. Lights have been installed at private riverfront residences to illuminate the path as people continue to skate long after the sun has gone down. And the path has even recently extended to the north side of the river—connecting to the businesses there and granting additional public access points. 

Maintaining this path requires dedicated efforts. “Every morning, we fire up the Rangers and four-wheelers. Polaris Industries was gracious enough to lend us a power broom,” said Olafson. “So we plow the path, in its entirety, then we power broom the entire thing, and then it’s open for business.” 

When night falls, this same neighborhood crew works by the headlights of their ATVs to clear and flood the surface for the next day—tackling 200-foot sections at a time, which takes about 20 minutes per section. They originally used a homemade contraption consisting of a water tank, heat pump, generator, and garden hoses, but a recent donation of water pumps has greatly improved the flooding process. But, regardless of the method, all of them agree it is worth the effort.

They made sure to have the surface ready for New Year’s weekend and were pleased to see how much use it got. Kennedy estimated that over that weekend, “with the warm weather, there were probably 300-400 skaters a day” and cited that skaters were out from 8 a.m. to midnight.

Local riverfront resident Brandon Poole commented, “I’ve never seen so much activity on the river, including summertime!” People have been spotted walking, pulling sleds, pushing strollers, or practicing their stickhandling as they use the path. Curling games with shop brooms and gallon jugs as makeshift stones have been played, impromptu hot cocoa stands have popped up, and fire pits have been lit to warm up people along the path.

Warroad Community Partners (WCP), a local nonprofit group, began ideating a few years ago about how to leverage this natural asset. When this small neighborhood group took action, WCP supported them by establishing a Riverbend Skate Path Maintenance Fund and creating a highlight video of how this path came to be. The video was shared on the Warroad Community Partners Facebook page and went viral overnight. 

Momentum continued, and within less than a week of posting the video had been shared over 1,000 times and reached nearly 125,000 people. People from far and wide commended the ingenuity and dedication of the crew responsible for creating the path, and others tagged their friends to make a trip up. The river has been alive with activity, and residents are enjoying seeing so many people enjoy the beautiful winter weather. 

The Riverbend Skate Path may have started out on a whim, but it will be a community amenity for years to come. For those interested in supporting this endeavor, tax-deductible donations can be made to the Riverbend Skate Path Maintenance Fund through WCP. Contributions will be applied to the purchase of needed equipment, fuel, and amenities like signage and lighting along the path to ensure that Warroad can continue to enjoy life on the river for many winters to come.