(subtle groovy music) - We're not just boats, we are an entire museum dedicated to lake life and lake culture, and history of boating as an industry.

We have so much to offer that even if boats aren't your thing, you'll still love this museum.

(subtle groovy music) The Legacy of the Lakes Museum started when a group of individuals who either summered at the lake or were lake residents or lived in Alexandria, got together in the mid 1990s and they wanted to preserve wood boat craftsmanship.

They thought that it was something that deserved to be recognized and preserved.

We were officially incorporated in 1999 as the Minnesota Lakes Maritime Society, and we were able to open up the museum itself here in 2006.

(bright subtle music) Our mission at the Legacy of the Lakes Museum is officially to celebrate lake life and lake culture and preserve that for future generations.

In 2016, we switched our name from the Minnesota Lakes Maritime Museum to Legacy of the Lakes Museum, to more broadly encompass things beyond wood boats.

So, we still have a very large wooden boat collection, but we also do things like art displays, photography, swimsuit history, resort history, fishing gallery.

It's not just boats, it's so much more.

(bright subtle music) We usually open mid-May.

We're open through October 31st every year, and the reason behind that is that these wood boats, they have to go in special storage so that they don't dry out.

We wanna preserve them as long as possible, so in the winter months, that's a little bit more difficult, so we shut down the museum.

(bright subtle music) Our main collection, of course, is our over 100 watercraft, so that's everything from a 1970s version of a jet ski to an 1894 launch to 1950s wood classic runabouts, and we just try to focus on how do we interpret these boats with different stories.

We have lots of unique and rare watercraft in here.

Several of them are one of a kind.

One of our very unique boats here is one of only two that remain as built.

It's a naphtha launch from 1895.

It's called Frida.

Naphtha is like a low-grade gasoline, kinda like lighter fluid, but it worked like a steam engine, so instead of boiling water, you boiled the naphtha, which at the time was actually safer than boiling water.

They didn't last very long.

During the World Wars, they were stripped of all their copper fittings for the war efforts, so to have one that has its original engine with all its fittings is a very unique and rare thing.

(bright subtle music) The Falls Flyers are made by Larson Boat Works, and Larson is one of those brands that's kind of synonymous with Minnesota and has a lot of recognition.

The Falls Flyers came about in the 1930s.

They were heavily inspired by Charles Lindbergh's JN-4 Jenny Biplane, and Charles Lindbergh, of course, is also from Little Falls, same as Paul Larson, and they were classmates and friends, and so he made these Falls Flyers and kind of a tribute in honor of his friend.

(bright subtle music) You can also see things like the history of Alexandria Boat Works.

It's one of the very first boat works ever in the state, and it was around for over 100 years.

These little boat works were all over Minnesota.

Why?

It's 'cause lakes are very prevalent in Minnesota and boats were essential to commerce and recreation on lakes.

We tell the story of local resorts and why people have come to Minnesota for years because of the lakes.

(bright subtle music) Water skiing was invented in Minnesota on Lake Pepin, which of course, also borders Wisconsin, but because the inventor Ralph Samuelson lived in Minnesota, we get the credit.

He had this idea that if you're able to ski on snow, you should be able to ski on water, so he took a pair of snow skis and was pulled behind a powered boat and was able to stand up, and that is where water skiing was developed and it really rapidly developed after that.

(bright subtle music) Alexandria is one of those communities where we have a very vibrant permanent residency all year round, but we do also have people who return to the lakes every summer and have been doing that since as early as the 1880s.

If you could afford to, you would wanna come out to the lakes and just take in the cool breezes.

Fishing was a really large thing.

There were train companies that would specifically sponsor tickets and excursions if you booked with them to different resorts.

And so, from this, you get this lake culture of going to the lake.

It does make Minnesota special, and the ways we enjoy the lakes now are not that different than how we enjoyed them 100 years ago.

We are so incredibly supported by many different communities, not just our local community here in Alexandria, but also the wood boat community.

People love coming in here.

Even if you're not into boating, you can still appreciate these boats as art forms, because it is a craftsmanship that went into making these boats and they were aware of every detail that went into these boats.

We get visitors from far and wide because they've seen us advertised or stories have been written about us in different boating magazines.

We do a classic boat show every year in July, and so we have lots of involvement from the wood boat community in that, and the community here in Alexandria who come out to see all the wood boats.

(bright subtle music) It's important to preserve the history of lake life and lake culture because it's very ingrained into who we are as Minnesotans and Minnesota culture and Minnesota history.

People have been coming to lakes in Minnesota for generations.

We're the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

What makes us special is our lake life and lake culture, and so it's just a story that we wanna tell and make sure people are aware of.

(subtle groovy music) - [Narrator] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.