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Chanhassen * 952-934-5659

Leuthner Well Company

Victoria * 952-443-2582

Laser and Electrolysis

Chanhassen 952-474-7474

Dine in Downtown Victoria * 952-443-2858

Victoria * 952-443-2022

MACKENTHUN’S Gourmet Meats

Victoria * 952-443-1841

St. Bonifacius * 952-446-1338

Holy Family Catholic High School

Victoria * 952-443-4659

by Sue Orsen

The Marsh Lake Hunting Club was incorporated exactly 40 years ago. The date was April 1st, 1969. No fooling.

The 400-acre hunting club is located in Laketown Township, about a mile south of the Victoria Elementary School. When the “orderly annexation agreement” is on the table for discussion, Marsh Lake becomes part of the dialogue because it will one day become part of Victoria.

Said Shawn Eastman, longtime general manager and dog trainer at Marsh Lake, “We want to stay a hunting preserve as long as we possibly can. We are grandfathered in. But we might get to the point of getting tired fighting it and, second, the taxes.”

Continued Shawn, “We’ll end up being annexed to Victoria. Victoria has worked well with us. We feel we’ve got ten years. The economy today actually helps us.”

From the Marsh Lake Hunting Lodge, looking north, the fields are wide open and, in the distance, you can barely see the rooftops of a couple Victoria homes in the upscale Laketown neighborhood. They are not moving closer to Marsh Lake. Encroachment has halted. New housing starts, which were averaging 150 per year in the City of Victoria in the early to mid 2000’s, have slowed to a crawl. In 2005 the number of new home building permits reached a high of 174. In 2008 only 43 new home building permits were issued.

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The hunters’ paradise was formerly a dairymen’s paradise. It all changed when a city fellow by the name of George J. Ruediger bought up three farms in the ‘60’s with no intention to milk cows. Milk trucks practically disappeared from Marsh Lake Road except for Dick Schmieg and his family who still hang in there on their nearby Century Farm.

“Ruediger bought this property basically to train his dogs for hunting,” said Shawn. “He was a field trainer for German shorthaired pointers. His line of pointers was called Big Island because that’s where he lived. He lived on Big Island in Lake Minnetonka.” The commute from Big Island to Marsh Lake was under 30 minutes.

“This lodge was a dairy barn,” said Shawn of the rustic building that doubles as living quarters and club house. “He converted it into a lodge in 1967. He named it the Marsh Lake Hunting Reserve. Ruediger’s the one who named it. He died shortly after that, in 1967 or 1968. I never met him.”

Shawn’s personal tour of the Marsh Lake property revealed a landscape of rolling hills and steep hills, valleys and ravines, woods and swamp land, ponds and, of course, Marsh Lake. His four-wheel drive pickup truck had no trouble climbing to the summits from where the views were breathtakingly beautiful, almost pristine, not unlike the views from the high points of Deer Run before it was annexed to Victoria and developed into a golf course and 400-home neighborhood.

Patches of field corn and sorghum that had been planted last fall and left unharvested are interspersed with trees and brush planted by nature. It is a hunters’ paradise as far as the eye can see, except for a glint of the IDS Tower 30 miles to the east ... and those Victoria rooftops a couples miles to the north, beyond the rolling elevations.

Said Shawn, “This is a very unique piece of property. We’re fairly protected here. The first half is bounded by Marsh Lake. The second half is wooded.”

“I want the hunters to feel like they’re going out to the family farm,” said Shawn. “Our fields are pushed back from the fence lines so our hunters and neighbors don’t have to worry about interfering with each other.”

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