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Southern Minnesota Tourism Association

Tourism Board Medford, Minnesota, 55049

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2020 Chicago Travel & Adventure Show

End Date: Feb 9, 2020

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PO Box 454 Medford, MN 55049

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Discover Austin director earns top tourism award

Published 8:07 am Wednesday, September 27, 2017

By Daily Herald

Nancy Schnable, executive director of Discover Austin, the community’s Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, has been awarded the 2017 President’s Award by the Southern Minnesota Tourism Association.

The award was presented to Schnable, who serves as treasurer of the group, at the annual meeting of the organization Sept. 13 and 14 in Wabasha. The association represents 36 counties in southern Minnesota.

‘It was totally unexpected, but pretty exciting,” said Schnable.

Nancy Schnable, executive director of Discover Austin

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The award is given annually by the president of the association whose goal is to draw tourism regionally. Stephanie Busiahn of Fairmont said she had no doubt who her selection would be.

“Nancy is one who truly does go above and beyond,” Busiahn said. “She is awesome at promoting Austin — but she also can see the big picture. She’s phenomenal at understanding that what benefits the region can benefit Austin, too — if people are drawn to southern Minnesota, there is a good likelihood that they’re going to come to Austin, too.”

Busiahn added Schnable took on a larger burden as treasurer than what the organization first anticipated. Some housekeeping issues needed to be taken care of that made the position more work-intensive.

“But Nancy never missed a beat,” Busiahn said.

Busiahn said Schnable will continue in the position in 2018, “and we are very happy about that.”

Schnable, who lives in Hayfield, has served as executive director since 2013.

Schnable holds a bachelor’s degree in marketing and communications from the University of Wisconsin — River Falls. Before coming to Austin, she worked for Door Off Broadway Dinner Theatre in Door County, Wis., a popular tourist spot.

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Where Will Adventure Take You? Southern Minnesota!

Houck Transit Advertising partnered with Explore Minnesota and the Southern Minnesota Tourism Association to promote travel to and within Minnesota’s southern region.

A first-time client, SMTA/Explore Minnesota was looking to increase brand awareness and encourage travel to southern Minnesota from the Omaha, NE market. “Residents of Omaha have ranked highly in travel interest to Minnesota of late, so we wanted to keep Minnesota and the southern region top of mind while they plan their upcoming vacations.”

With attractions like the National Eagle Center and the world’s largest boot, along with activities year-round from snowmobiling to kayaking and rock climbing, southern Minnesota offers an experience that is truly #OnlyinMN.

From Our Client

The communication and service we received were exactly as I would have expected, and then some. The Houck team was responsive and open to our edits and suggestions and also provided some suggestions on their end. Along with SMTA, we are excited about this and hope it makes an impact in the Omaha market. We anticipate a lift in website traffic and visits to Minnesota from the Omaha, Nebraska area.

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Things to Do | Northern Minnesota: Soudan Mine tours reopen…

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Subscriber only, things to do | northern minnesota: soudan mine tours reopen after 4 years of work, waiting, first covid, then a major reconstruction project, have kept the state park attraction from operating on a full schedule since 2020.

After closing for COVID, and then reopening on a limited schedule given ongoing transmission concerns, the facility closed again in October 2021 for a $9.3 million reconstruction project that included rebuilding 500 feet of the steel skeletal structure lining the mine shaft.

“Some of that steel was 100 years old,” said Jim DeVries, assistant manager of the Lake Vermilion-Soudan Underground Mine State Park. “As you can imagine, steel that’s been in a wet environment for 100 years was starting to degrade. So we’re glad to get new steel in there, rebuild that piece so that we’re able to bring tourists down for generations to come.”

That work was concentrated between levels 19 and 24 of the mine, following similar work done on lower levels after a two-day 2011 fire when wood debris was ignited by sparks from shaft maintenance work. Seventy thousand gallons of fire-suppressing foam took a toll, in addition to damage caused by the fire.

“We did that section from 24 down to 27,” said DeVries, “right after we had the fire in the shaft and we had some emergency funds to repair that steel. We knew at that point that we needed to do the 500 feet up above that.”

New video, exhibits

The shaft lining reconstruction won’t have much perceptible impact on the experience of visitors riding an elevator down to level 27, where tours take place. Upon arriving at the decommissioned ore mine, though, visitors will certainly notice the new eight-minute introductory video, as well as new exhibits that include a three-dimensional model of the entire mine.

“We are so fortunate that we were able to, over the last two years, do a lot of research and development to have for the very first time a professionally created exhibit in this space,” said interpretive supervisor Sarah Guy-Levar, standing in the mine’s dry house. That structure, where miners would change clothes after a shift, now functions as the attraction’s visitor center.

The model depicts the 54 miles of drifts — “what we would call tunnels,” explained Guy-Levar — that were excavated during the mine’s 80 years of operation.

“Not only do they get to have a real experience,” said Guy-Levar about mine visitors, “but they can come back here in the visitor center and fully understand the complexity” of the mine.

Tourism landmark

Since first opening for public tours as a state park in 1965, three years after the 1882 mine ceased operations, Soudan has become a tourism landmark on the Iron Range. In a typical year, said DeVries, about 35,000 people descend 2,341 feet below the surface to visit the most recently excavated section of the mine.

That’s deeper than any other public underground mine tour in the United States, based on a list maintained by the National Mining Association. DeVries believes the state of Minnesota, which paid for the recent reconstruction through a combination of bonding money and state park funds, appreciates the value of its unique attraction.

“There’s a lot of commitment statewide, from the (DNR) commissioner’s office to the governor’s office,” DeVries said while standing near the towering elevator hoist Thursday. “They’re excited that we are opening up again.”

Aside from tourist infrastructure such as the passenger rail cars that carry visitors three-quarters of a mile through the mine’s deepest drift — “train is for ore, train is for product,” said interpreter Reed Petersen about how the mine’s tracks would have been used during regular operation — the Soudan Mine remains largely frozen in time as it was left when miners last clocked out on Dec. 15, 1962.

“By the early 1960s, the mine was no longer profitable,” a narrator’s voice explains in the new introductory video. “Instead of the rich iron ore found in Soudan, steel producers wanted a processed ore called taconite … With new technology, mining companies could gather lower-grade ore more quickly, process it more cheaply.”

“Soudan was called ‘the Cadillac of mines,'” said Petersen on Thursday while standing in a stope, or underground room, created by ore excavation. “Because this rock is so dense, it seals out most of the water. … There’s also a good airflow that happens through this mine.”

Total darkness

Standard mine tours offer a 90-minute experience highlighted by the elevator plunge, the train ride and an opportunity to experience total darkness when interpreters briefly extinguish the stope’s electric lights.

In Petersen’s experience, “Whenever you ask people, ‘What do you remember from this tour?,’ they always say, ‘I remember going down the mine shaft and I remember being in total darkness.'”

Park staff said that later this summer, they expect to resume occasional “science tours” that include a visit to the mine’s laboratory space. Most recently, two large physics experiments, active until 2016, took advantage of the mine’s insulation from cosmic radiation.

The science tours will explain the research conducted in the space, which was first used for laboratory work in the early 1980s, and will publicize the fact that “it is open for a new group (of researchers) to move in there.”

The facility’s historic infrastructure includes the 1924 electric hoist that still lifts and lowers the elevator cars. While the cacophonous half-mile ride is a vivid experience that leaves some visitors rattled, DeVries explained there’s no need to be nervous — the elevators have well-functioning emergency brakes and were built to lift heavy loads of iron ore.

“The rope is able to hold up to 90 tons of weight,” said DeVries. “Putting tourists on the cage, we don’t even come close to that kind of weight.”

During the recent reconstruction work, the hoist returned to something like its original mining schedule, running around the clock. With 40,000 square feet of shaft lining to remove and replace, workers relied on the same hoist and cage used by yesterday’s miners and today’s visitors.

“We had hoist operators from the park here that were manning this hoist throughout that time,” said DeVries. “They did two 12-hour shifts, six days a week while construction was going on.”

Little brown bats

One reason for the hustle: Work had to break for bats.

“This is the largest hibernaculum for little brown bats in Minnesota,” said DeVries. “During our construction phase, we did have to close down for two months, from the middle of March to the middle of May, to allow those bats just enough time to get through that hibernation period.”

Among the many thousands of miners who worked to liberate ore from subterranean Soudan, four live to this day, said DeVries. One of those aged industry veterans recently returned to his former workplace for a tour.

“He was excited,” said DeVries, “to be able to go underground again.”

Park staff encourage visitors to make advance reservations for Soudan Mine tours, as time slots regularly fill up. For information, see  dnr.state.mn.us .

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