Ask Mr. Answer Person: "What happened to the chalet that was at the old Norski ski slope?

View looking down Nor-Ski run (Photo courtesy of Ted Sojka)

Ann e-mails Mr. Answer Person: "What happened to the chalet that was at the old Norski ski slope?  I took a walk back there last week and it looked like it had been burned down."

Mr. Answer Person says: "For those who have moved to Decorah after the closing of Nor-Ski, the ski hill was located on land owned by Luther College past Chattahoochie Park, off Highway 52.  The ski hill was closed following a number of years with low snowfall.

The Decorah Parks and Recreation Department recently looked into a plan to remove the former ski chalet and move it to the Decorah Campground.  However, the campground property is zoned as a floodplain--and the regulations on building in a floodplain are strict.  So the Park-Rec Department gave up on the idea and instead told Luther College it could have the building.  Luther officials ran into the same type of problems.  It looked like the building would be demolished, but, instead, a Decorah resident stepped forward and dismantled the building with plans to reassemble it at another location.

So the ski chalet was not burned down.  We're not sure why it looked this way to you--perhaps some debris from the deconstruction got burned up.  Nevertheless, the Nor Ski chalet, which decorahnews.com reader Ted Sojka says was built by the late John Sproat of Decorah out of thick tongue and groove Larch wood, will find new life.