If you are traveling along Billings Drive just before White Birch Trail you’ll find the recently reopened Woodstock Bay. The new and improved boat launch area recently reopened delighting anglers and kayakers alike.

The Woodstock Bay project took nearly six years and over a million dollars to complete. The once primitive boat launch is now a new and improved public space in the Billings Park neighborhood. Mayor Jim Paine says this project is a transformative moment for people who love the outdoors.

“For a community that is 100% within Lake Superior, that is defined by named after Lake Superior, to lose access to water is something that is just unforgivable. As a kid in the 90s, you definitely could not drink this water. You weren’t supposed to eat the fish that came out of it,” Mayor Paine said. “You weren’t supposed to go swimming out of it, which is very different from the generation that came before me that did grow up swimming in Billings Park.”

It took several years and one $1.4 million dollars to transform Woodstock Bay into a new rustic public access point for people traveling out on the St. Louis river.

“We’re investing considerable millions of dollars into this project to protect our other river, the St. Louis River. One of three navigable rivers in the city of Superior, which puts us well ahead of Duluth. I know that it is easy to just see it as a nice place to go. It is that, of course it is, but it’s supposed to be so much more,” Mayor Paine said. “You practically are in the Superior Municipal Forest here, Wisconsin’s only boreal forest. It is 4,400 acres, completely contained within the city. This is the best access to find the forest by water. You can get into the Pokegama River right around the corner. I frequently skip out of work to do that through the summer. If you can’t find me, there’s a good chance I’m lost out there.”

But the restoration of Woodstock Bay to become a new and improved boat launch is more than just for people wanting go fishing or kayaking. Kris Eilers with the St. Louis River Alliance says the project is also restoring the shoreline along the St. Louis river.

“Our organization was started when the EPA designated this river as an area of concern back in the late 80s due to all of the severe pollution. And so you can see we’re transforming the river. The river is transforming itself as we kind of stop the bleeding.”

Eilers also says with the new pavilion, boat launch, and other fishing spots along Woodstock Bay will help continue preserving the environmental landscapes in Superior.

“When you build a place like this, you aren’t just building a place where people can get on the water with their boats. You’re building a place where people can possibly, round that corner up there and they see an otter for the first time. Or maybe they look up in the sky and there’s usually eagles up over here. There’s a million ways in which the river transforms our lives.”

The Woodstock Bay project included the removal of several invasive species, and approx. 1,200 Feet of shoreline was restored. Also finally hundreds of native trees and shrubs are now planted in the new public space.