Ask anyone who grew up around Lake Minnetonka how to spend a summer afternoon on Big Island, and the answer used to be simple: walk down to the dock, buy a ticket, let the steamboat do the work. That boat has been sitting in dry dock since 2019, and as of early August 2026 there's still no launch site and no public schedule. If you're planning a trip out to Orono's own island park this season, the old plan doesn't work anymore, and most of the guidance still floating around online hasn't caught up.
That gap between what people assume and what's actually true this summer is worth untangling, because Big Island isn't a minor detail in Orono's identity. It's the largest undeveloped piece of ground the city owns, and for more than a century it's been the place where residents figure out how to get out onto the water.
The postcard image everyone still carries around
The Minnehaha is a genuine piece of Twin Cities transit history. Built in 1906 by the Twin City Rapid Transit Company, she was one of six streetcar boats designed to ferry passengers around Lake Minnetonka before roads circled the shoreline. When ridership collapsed in the 1920s, TCRT scuttled her along with several sister ships in 1926. She sat on the lake bottom until a diver found her in 1979, and after a long restoration she returned to passenger service in 1996, running excursions between Excelsior and Wayzata for more than two decades.
That run ended in 2019, when the boat lost access to its launch site. The nonprofit that now owns her, the Lake Minnetonka Historical Society, has been open about where things stand.
"Now, sadly, Minnehaha no longer has access to a launch site on Lake Minnetonka."
That's the organization's own description of the situation, and it hasn't changed. A relaunch effort is underway, but there's no timeline attached to it, which means anyone picturing a summer steamboat ride to Big Island is picturing a version of Orono that hasn't existed for seven years.
What the city's own paperwork still implies
Here's the part that catches even longtime residents off guard. The City of Orono's own facilities page for Big Island Nature Park still describes the park's two docks this way: one built to accommodate occasional stops by the steamboat Minnehaha, and a second for general public use. That language is accurate to how the park was designed, but it reads like the boat is still an option. It isn't, at least not this season, and the disconnect between the signage and the reality is exactly the kind of thing you only notice if you've actually tried to plan a trip out there recently.
| Getting to Big Island | Then (through 2019) | Now (2026) |
|---|---|---|
| Steamboat Minnehaha from Excelsior | Regular scheduled excursions | Out of service, no launch site, no public schedule |
| Private boat | One option among several | The only practical way in |
| Public dock access | Two docks, one built for steamboat stops | Both docks still standing, general-use dock is your entry point |
What a visit actually looks like this year
None of this means Big Island is off limits. It means the trip now runs through your own boat or a friend's, not a ticket window. Once you're there, the park itself hasn't changed much. It's a 56-acre nature preserve on the eastern end of the island, developed jointly by the City of Orono and the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District, with roughly three-quarters of the acreage held under a conservation easement to keep it from ever being built on. Orono's mayor put it plainly at the park's reopening ribbon-cutting: this is probably the biggest piece of property in the city that doesn't have a house on it, and he made a point of saying the park isn't just Orono's or Excelsior's. It belongs to everyone who uses the lake.
The trails are ADA-accessible now, winding through woods and an open grassy area to a beach with long views across the water, and the park is open daily from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. If you go early on a weekday, you'll likely have long stretches of shoreline to yourself. Rick Carter, who has been part of the volunteer effort to fund trail and signage improvements through Big Island Legacy, has said as much himself: on his early weekday visits he rarely sees more than two boats at a time, even though the island's summer-weekend reputation as a busier gathering spot is well earned.
Pair it with the quieter landmark on the same bay
If a boat isn't in the cards this week, Crystal Bay still has a landmark worth the drive. Noerenberg Gardens sits on the shore of the same bay, a 73-acre former lakeside estate built in 1890 by Frederick Noerenberg, the founder of Grain Belt Brewery. His daughter, a trained horticulturist, kept the gardens through her own life and left the entire property to the Three Rivers Park District when she died in 1972, on the condition that the mansion itself be torn down. The garden stayed, the shoreline stayed intact and unsubdivided, and it's now managed as public parkland, open to visitors from May through mid-October. Free garden tours led by Hennepin County Master Gardeners have become a recurring part of the summer calendar there, a low-key counterpart to the more physical experience of hiking Big Island.
Or skip the boat entirely and take the trail
For residents who want lake views without a dock at all, the Dakota Rail Regional Trail runs directly through Orono as part of a paved route connecting Wayzata, Minnetonka Beach, Spring Park, Mound, Minnetrista and St. Bonifacius, following the corridor of a rail line that once served these same resort towns. Leaving Wayzata heading west, the trail crosses a bridge directly over Crystal Bay, which puts you eye level with the same water Big Island sits in without needing a boat at all. It's flat, paved the whole way, and one of the more reliable ways to see the bay on your own schedule.
Where the day actually ends
Whether the afternoon involved a boat, a garden tour or a bike ride, Orono's dinner options sit close to all three. Bucks Pub and Birch's on the Lake Brewhouse & Supperclub both come up repeatedly in local business listings for the area, alongside Talavera Mexican Restaurant, Two Pony Gardens and Primo Plates & Pours. None of them require a reservation weeks out, and all of them are a short drive from either the Big Island public boat launch or the Crystal Bay stretch of the Dakota Rail Trail.
If golf is part of the plan instead, Orono Golf Course sits in Crystal Bay as well, a public course designed by Leo Baser that's been open since 1924, which makes it one of the older pieces of recreational infrastructure in this part of the lake.
The thing worth remembering this summer
The version of Orono that includes a scheduled steamboat to Big Island is a real place. It just isn't this place, not in 2026. The island is still there, the docks are still standing, the trails are better than they've ever been, and the rest of Crystal Bay, from Noerenberg's gardens to the rail trail bridge, is exactly as accessible as it's always been. The only thing that's changed is how you get to the island itself, and that's worth knowing before you plan around a boat that isn't running.
Living here long enough means watching these small shifts happen in real time, the kind that never make it into a listing description but change how a weekend actually unfolds. If you're weighing a move within Orono or one of the west-metro communities nearby and want someone who tracks these details as closely as the market itself, Eric Bigham is a good person to talk to. Let's Connect.
