Big Lake’s Jordan Lake Park is an ongoing labor of love

What you need to know:

• The once-bedraggled Jordan Lake Park in Big Lake has seen a series of significant improvements over the past 18 months thanks to volunteers, local businesses, contractors and the Mat-Su Borough. Together, they cleared 4.5 acres of debris and enhanced the park with new grass, flowering trees, a fence and pickleball courts.
• Jordan Lake Park was first developed in 2002, with additional volunteer-led upgrades completed about a decade ago. Organizers say community involvement has always been central to the park's growth.
• A development committee hopes to add amenities such as a fitness course, sports courts and an amphitheater as part of a vision for a walkable community gathering space. Future projects could cost up to $500,000, and organizers are seeking public support to help secure funding.

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BIG LAKE – A prominent plot of vacant land in Big Lake got a facelift recently thanks to a little help from its friends. And they’re still looking for ways to do more.

Community volunteers, local businesses, contractors and the Mat-Su Borough all played a role in recent improvements to Jordan Lake Park next door to Big Lake Public Library. The updates include new grass, a line of flowering trees, a new fence along Big Lake Road, pickleball courts and the removal of unsightly rocks and debris. 

“All of the results that have been accomplished this past year have been the result of our community banding together to make it happen,” said Larry McKinstry, who co-chairs the Big Lake Community Council’s Jordan Lake Park Development Committee. 

The park was first developed in 2002, when a walking path and lake overlook were installed.  A decade ago, volunteers expanded the parking area and made additional improvements to the picnic area. But McKinstry said the park’s southeast corner was “a mess.” 

“What was here before was just piles and piles of old gravel and dump truck loads of junk that had been cleaned off of surrounding parcels and dumped there over the years,” he said. 

In November 2024, the community council formed a committee to look into the situation. The impetus was a planned Mat-Su Borough project to divert springtime flow from nearby Jolly Creek into the park, which McKinstry said would have left the area even more neglected. 

The group worked with the Mat-Su Borough to create a more favorable solution for the drainage. McKinstry said 4.5 acres of land were cleared of rocks, debris and cottonwood, the site was leveled, a pickleball court was installed and the entire area was covered in grass seed. 

“The borough’s been great to work with,” he said, mentioning the Department of Community Development as particularly helpful in the process. 

More upgrades are planned. The group hopes to install an eight-station fitness course, soccer field, basketball court, more picnic tables, a well, electricity and a public amphitheater where concerts and other public events could be held. The idea is to eventually have the park be the centerpiece of a walkable public space in the heart of Big Lake.  

McKinstry said the committee, which has grown from its original five members, has so far spent about $70,000  – all of it coming from grants or donations.  

“At our last meeting we had 15 people there, so it’s getting a little bit bigger,” said McKinstry, who co-chairs the committee with Jim Fikes. 

The park has always been a community endeavor. When improvements – such as a new parking area – were made a decade ago, the effort was led by community members like Cathi Kramer and her husband, Bill, who was the council president at that time. 

“Nobody even knew this was a park,” Cathi Kramer said. 

At that time the council spent about $96,000 to improve the area and increase its visibility to the public. 

Cathi Kramer still tends to the park regularly. While raking an area near the library in late May she said community involvement has always been a key part of the park’s identity and said the most recent work is the continuation of that spirit. 

“This park is another example of volunteers stepping up and saying, ‘Okay, we’re going to do the next phase,’” she said. 

McKinstry said that in addition to volunteer support, there’s also been in-kind contributions from local contractors. The cooperation between members of the public, private enterprise and government, he said, has been a highlight of the effort to improve the park. 

But the public’s help is still needed to “keep the momentum going,” he said. The cost to fund future improvements could run as high as a half-million dollars, depending on the scope of the work, he said. The public can help by sending letters in support to the community council. 

“If they were to write letters and send them into the Big Lake Community Council, I would get them from there and we could use those as we apply for funding from different foundations and whatnot,” he said. 

McKinstry said he’s proud of the work that’s been done so far and hopes more community members step up to carry the torch held by himself and so many others.  

“We are building a park everyone will be able to enjoy for years to come and can point to with pride.” 

Matt Tunseth is a freelance writer from Southcentral Alaska. Write to him at matthew.tunseth@gmail.com.