Clarks to open Christian hunting and fishing club, Cross Trail Outfitters, in downtown Boyceville

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By Renee Bettendorf

BOYCEVILLE — The building at 1002 Main Street in Boyceville has housed many different enterprises over the years including a mercantile, a market, several different taverns and a food pantry. New owners Nathan and Nikki Clark will be taking the property in a whole new direction. 

The Clarks, who acquired the property last winter from the non-profit organization Food Harvest Ministry, will use the building as a lodge for a chapter of the Christian hunting and fishing club known as Cross Trail Outfitters (CTO). The club is for kids ages eight and up and teaches hunting, fishing and other outdoor skills through a religious perspective.

“We thought it was very interesting what they wanted to do,” said Food Harvest Ministry board member Sandy Christian of the Clark’s plans.

Food Harvest Ministry got its start in Boyceville in 1996 when five local women noticed there was a need in the community for food assistance. At first they ran the non-profit out of their homes and then from the community center, said Sandy. In 2018 Food Harvest Ministry purchased the building from People’s State Bank and used it for storing and distributing food. Sandy and her husband Harry, along with generally about 15 volunteers, distributed food to many residents in the community and surrounding areas over the years.

“We had great volunteers, without volunteers you don’t have a program,” said Sandy. 

Sandy was on the Food Harvest Ministry five member board along with Curt Matula, Shelley Mittlestadt, Karetta Horky and Elaine Grutt. Due to failing health in the volunteer base, the organization was looking to end operations. When the board learned about the Clark’s ministry they ultimately made the decision to bypass the selling process and donate the building to them plus $15,000 to help cover utility costs for a couple of years. 

Since they acquired the building, which is now known as The CTO Lodge, the Clarks have been busy getting it prepared for events. The first event will be held on April 10 and is an after school program called After School Sportsman’s Night. This after school program will be held every Thursday for middle and high schoolers. Kids from any school district can attend, it’s a free program that involves learning outdoor skills, bible study and snacks. There are also pool, air hockey and ping pong tables available for use.

Even though the building is new to them, the Clarks are not new to teaching kids outdoor skills. Back in 2019 Nathan officially started the first chapter of CTO in Wisconsin which is known as Cross Trail Outfitters of Dunn County. Ever since he started the chapter the Clarks and their small team of volunteers have been taking kids on hunting, camping and fishing trips and teaching skills like archery, shooting, fish and game processing and foraging.

“It’s pretty much anything outdoors,” said Nikki.

They are looking forward to using the lodge as a central location for taking advantage of several nearby outdoor opportunities including; teaching fly fishing on Tiffany Creek near the high school, heading to the shooting range in town and going to Glen Hills County Park.

Some of the trips they organize are local and others are out of state in collaboration with other CTO chapters. The more local trips include camping near the Brule River, or in the boundary waters or on the Chippewa Flowage. Out of state trips have included, ram hunting on a 2,000 acre ranch in Missouri, fly fishing with a US olympic fly fishing coach in Arkansas and fishing with professional bass fishermen near Branson.

“Some unique things happen across the nation with CTO,” said Nikki. 

1002 Main Street History

The building has a long history. According to the book Panorama of Progress written by William L. Clark Jr copyright 1960, back in the 1920’s part of the building had two stories and on the lower level Daigneau’s Mercantile operated. The upper level housed Daigneau’s Hall which is where a short lived branch of the KKK held meetings up until about 1927.

At the time Panorama of Progress was written Peterson’s Market occupied the space. Several taverns also called the building home over the years including Charlies’ Place, Bloomers Bar, The Red Eye Saloon and The Eagle’s Nest before Food Harvest Ministry purchased the property.

Neither of the Clarks had spent much time at the building before they became owners of it. Nikki remembers going there as a kid with her dad to enter the buck pools or register deer. The only time Nathan had ever been there was in 2018 when he was called in as a contractor to give an estimate on demolition of the building. 

Nathan and Nikki noted that it’s a big space and it was a little overwhelming at first. The building has a bar area, a three season room, a dance floor, a basement, an apartment and a kitchen area. Through donations, they’ve done a lot of painting, decorating and retrofitting and are getting to know the building. Many parts of the interior were updated by Food Harvest Ministry but it still needs some work, especially on the exterior, said Nikki.

“Food Harvest Ministry did a ton of work here,” said Nathan.

On a Mission

Like the building, the Clarks have quite a long history as well, especially with mission work.

“Nikki’s background is music, that’s where we really got started with ministry work,” said Nathan.

Nikki is a Christian songwriter and recording artist and has recorded two CDs. She’s mostly a soloist but has occasionally collaborated with other musicians to do outreach events around the state. Sometimes her songs are played on the Christian radio stations out of Eau Claire.

The Clarks have two daughters and one son. Nikki started her music career when their girls were little and traveled to bookings in the tri state area. She performed at a Mother’s Day concert the day before their son was born. At one point the Clarks were very busy with their music ministry. 

They did lots of travel with their young family, doing between 70 and 80 events each year. Nathan said that their daughters did not inherit the musical genes, but their son did and he is a talented drummer and has traveled and performed with Nikki. Nathan, who also is not musically inclined, did a lot of behind the scenes work like setting up and tearing down equipment. 

“I was the roadie,” said Nathan. 

For about three years they traveled all over with their music ministry. Locally they performed at Pickle Fest and Freedom Fest at Wakanda Park in Menomonie. Besides their music ministry project, the Clarks both worked for Nikki’s parents’ small business, Gary Cormican Excavating.

Between working, traveling with their music ministry and raising three kids, it got to be too much and the Clarks made the decision to decrease the amount of time they were devoting to the music ministry. 

After their schedules became less hectic, Nathan started thinking about the youth, the community and how children are impacted by absent fathers. He thought there might be an opportunity for him to help bridge that gap by teaching kids things that dads often do like fishing, hunting and camping. While doing research on how to make his idea work, he came across CTO and learned that it was an organization that already did everything he wanted to do.

So he embarked on the year-long process that it takes to become an outfitter with CTO which is a national organization that was founded in 2004 and currently has about 35 chapters across 11 states. After he completed that process Nathan, Nikki and their three kids, who are all outdoor enthusiasts, became volunteers for CTO on evenings and weekends.  

Going Full Time

Last summer, Nikki’s parents proposed selling their excavating business to her and Nathan and encouraged them to put together an offer. That’s what the Clarks thought they were going to do because it’s a stable and established business and they both had worked there for years.

“It’s like a no brainer, why wouldn’t you do that?” asked Nathan.

The Clarks got an offer put together and were planning on giving it to Nikki’s parents that weekend. Days before they were going to submit their offer the Clarks believe they were both called by God to walk away from the excavating business and go into ministry with CTO full time. And they followed that call. Even though it meant that they would have to raise their own funds to support themselves as missionaries.

“You can’t think too hard about it because it sounds really crazy, but yet that is what I felt God was calling us to,” said Nathan.

Shortly after making their decision, Nikki texted their accountant Deb Nelson who had helped them put together the offer to let her know that they were not going to make the offer and were going into the ministry full time. She was the first person they told.

“She was very excited for us and that was really cool,” said Nathan.

The next morning Deb called Nikki and asked if they were going to need a building for their mission work. Deb told Nikki that the Food Harvest Ministry was closing down at the end of the year and she wondered if they would be interested in the building. Nikki could see that having a building would be handy but was not sure how they would afford one.

Deb said she would talk to Food Harvest Ministry and Nikki said she should talk it over with Nathan and they would “see what God does with it”. When the Clarks heard back from Deb they learned that Food Harvest Ministry was thinking about finding another non-profit to donate the building to. Getting a building was really unexpected for the Clarks especially since they had just decided to go into mission work full time. 

About a week later they got a call from Sandy who wondered if they wanted to come tour the building and meet with the board. 

“So we did that and here we are,” said Nikki.

Anyone interested in registering for the after school program or learning more about the hunts and camps scheduled for this spring and summer can find more information on their website: https://www.teamcto.org/state/wisconsin.