Brainerd Lakes Events to Experience in Tori Oehrlein, Winterfest, Soupfest, Hope on the Slopes

It's been a strange winter up in the Brainerd Lakes country—the kind that makes old-timers shake their heads and mutter about climate this and weather that. Here it is, mid-February, and folks are walking around in windbreakers instead of parkas, watching thermometers climb into the fifties like it's April already. 

The lakes are still frozen, but you can feel them thinking about it, contemplating the thaw like a decision that needs making. Still, Minnesotans don't wait for perfect conditions to make something beautiful—they just adjust and carry on.

Records and Reverence

Up in Crosby, they've been talking about Tori Oehrlein the way people used to talk about the harvest—with a mixture of pride and astonishment that something so fine could come from their own soil. 

On January 20th, in the Dave Galovich Gymnasium, this senior guard for the Crosby-Ironton Rangers did what seemed impossible: she broke the state career scoring record with 5,085 points, surpassing a mark that had stood since 2013. She'd been playing varsity since seventh grade, which means that for six years, every Tuesday and Friday night, the good people of Crosby and Ironton gathered in that gymnasium to watch a young woman average more than thirty points a game, and in her final season, thirty-five.

What made it perfect, though—what made it the kind of story that Minnesotans tell their grandchildren—was that Rebekah Dahlman, the woman whose record Tori broke, was there to pass the mantle. "Records are meant to be broken," she said, and in those five words you could hear the whole philosophy of a basketball town that knows glory is meant to be shared across generations. Tori's heading to the University of Minnesota now, carrying Crosby's name into the larger world, the way all our best children do.

But if Crosby belongs to basketball, then the dance floors belong to everyone. The Crosby-Ironton Rangerettes have won their section in high kick for five consecutive years and in jazz for four, which is the kind of dynasty that doesn't happen by accident. 

It happens because mothers drive their daughters to practice on mornings that are sometimes dark and bitter cold, sometimes oddly warm like this February, because coaches believe in precision and beauty, and because small towns understand that excellence is its own reward. Brainerd High School's dance team is the two-time defending state champion in high kick, and when both teams headed down to the Target Center in Minneapolis on February 13th and 14th for the state tournament, they carried with them the hopes of forty-four municipalities and townships that dot the landscape like promises.

The state tournament schedule was precise as clockwork: Crosby-Ironton performing jazz at 12:19 p.m. on Friday and high kick at 11:44 a.m. on Saturday; Brainerd taking the floor at 2:44 p.m. Friday for jazz and 2:20 p.m. Saturday for high kick. Awards ceremonies at 5:30 p.m. for Class A and 7:15 p.m. for Class AAA. These are the rhythms that structure February in the northland—not just the competitions themselves, but the bus rides home afterward, the parents who drove down in caravans, the younger siblings watching with stars in their eyes.

Video Credit: Lakeland PBS

SoupFest and the Economics of Gathering

Meanwhile, over in Crosslake, they were celebrating WinterFest from February 5th through 7th, though the "winter" part required some imagination this year. There were horse-drawn wagon rides on ground that was softer than it should be, and snowshoeing where you could, and a "Search for the Lost Medallion" with a prize package worth over $3,500, which got everyone tramping through the slush studying clues like amateur detectives. 

But the centerpiece was SoupFest, and soup weather is soup weather whether it's ten below or fifty above, because what matters is the gathering, not the thermometer.

Andy's Bar & Grill won the People's Choice for the seventh consecutive year with their Chicken Fiesta, which tells you everything about brand loyalty in a small town. But the Judges' Choice went to Holiday Station Store's Bacon Cheeseburger Soup, a surprise victory for the amateur sector that probably caused some good-natured ribbing among the professional chefs. 

Key Wellness took the amateur People's Choice with their Homegrown Soup for the second year running, and there was even a tie for second place in the Judges' category between UpNorth Social's Lobster Bisque and JAG Interior Solutions' Gold Medal Zuppa—because in Crosslake, even the interior designers can make a mean soup.

The economic wisdom of WinterFest shouldn't be overlooked. When you get people out of their houses in February—whether they're bundled up or just wearing sweaters—when you send them on medallion hunts that take them past Chamber member businesses, when you get them tasting soup and buying raffle tickets, you're not just fighting cabin fever, you're keeping the whole community economy alive through what's supposed to be the lean season. They even ran a "Sweet Treat BINGO Challenge" from February 2nd through 14th that got people visiting the Common Goods thrift locations in Crosslake, Baxter, and Brainerd, linking seasonal tourism with the non-profit sector in a way that would make an economist weep with joy.

Mattresses, Music, and Meaning

Speaking of non-profits, Bridges of Hope was up at Mount Ski Gull on February 12th hosting "Hope on the Slopes," an event that featured mattress racing, which is exactly what it sounds like—people racing down a ski hill on mattresses. The warm spell meant the snow was a little softer, a little slower maybe, but nobody seemed to mind. 

There was live music from AJ Spoff starting at 5 p.m., and the races began at 6 p.m., and all of it raised money for Operation Sandwich, which feeds students during academic breaks, and for the Warming Shelter—which, ironically, wasn't getting much use this particular February—and for Common Goods Thrift Stores. This is what they call recreational philanthropy up here—the understanding that charity doesn't have to be grim, that you can do good while sliding down a hill on a mattress, laughing so hard your sides hurt.

The Brainerd Elks Lodge 615 was accepting scholarship applications through February 28th, but these weren't your typical academic scholarships based solely on test scores. These were character-based awards designed to recognize students who contribute to their homes, schools, and communities through personal skills and service. The awards ceremony in April would bring together educators, students, and community leaders to celebrate young people who understood that success comes in many forms, not all of them quantifiable.

Classrooms and Character

In the schools themselves, excellence was blooming early, like everything else this mild winter. Nicole Harmer at Brainerd High School was named the 2025 Innovative Teacher of the Year by the Innovative Schools Project for her belief that students are capable of "amazing" accomplishments when supported with faith and innovative methods. 

John Bellear was being celebrated during School Counselor Appreciation Week for his work guiding students through the increasingly complex transition from high school to whatever comes next. And in the elementary schools, Student Leaders were being recognized from kindergarten through fifth grade—children like Quinn Hite and Layna Peterson in kindergarten, Greyson Winter and Zoey Cook in first grade, all the way up to fifth graders Astrid Stumvoll and Claire Nickelson. 

These are the children who will inherit this place, who will one day break records and win Golden Ladles and teach the next generation what it means to belong to something larger than yourself.

The proof of good teaching shows up years later, of course. Ruby Rose Seidl from Pequot Lakes earned high academic honors at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Dawson B. Herd from Cushing did the same at Wichita State University, both in early 2026. They carried the rigorous preparation of regional high schools with them out into the wider world, becoming ambassadors for a place most people have never heard of.

Over in Pequot Lakes, the Greater Lakes Area Performing Arts was staging The Tin Woodman of Oz at the high school theater, with evening performances on February 13th, 14th, 20th, and 21st at 7 p.m., and matinees on the 15th and 22nd at 2 p.m.. Youth tickets were ten dollars, which meant every child in town could afford to see it. 

Theater in small towns is different from theater in cities—it's where grandparents sit next to teenagers, where the kid playing the lead might also be your paperboy, where the communal act of creation matters as much as the performance itself.

The Continuity of Small Things

Even the practical matters carried a kind of grace. Up in Cushing, Cushing Pride was hosting an e-waste recycling event on February 22nd in partnership with the Electronic Synergy Foundation, making sure that old computers and cell phones didn't leach hazardous materials into the lakes that give this region its name.

At First Western Bank and Trust in Crosslake, they threw a retirement party on February 2nd for Craig Henningson, who'd worked there for twenty-four years. Twenty-four years of approving loans and declining them, of knowing everybody's business and keeping it confidential, of being the kind of steady presence that makes a community bank feel like an extension of your living room. That's the kind of service that deserves cake and coffee and a room full of people telling stories, no matter what the weather's doing outside.

This is the Brainerd Lakes area in February 2026—forty-four towns and townships holding together through a winter that can't quite decide what it wants to be, making soup and breaking records and racing down hills on mattresses, teaching children to lead and honoring those who serve. The weather may be confused, wandering between seasons like a tourist without a map, but the people aren't. They know who they are and what matters, and that knowledge runs deeper than any thermometer reading. It's not perfect, and it's certainly not typical, but it's theirs, and that makes all the difference.