The Grantsburg Lions Club held its first Snowmobile Watercross competition in July 1977 when running snowmobiles over water was a new and challenging past-time. The first race was simply held to see who could make it from the island on Memory Lake in Grantsburg to the shore, some 300 ft. away. Most didn’t, but the winner did go about 500 ft. In the years following, racers became more skilled and the machines more powerful.
Watercross is held at Memory Lake Park in downtown Grantsburg, WI. It is a small flowage created by a dam on the Wood River. The Village of Grantsburg is located in Burnett County, about midway between Duluth-Superior and St. Paul-Minneapolis. Granstburg is located approximately 60 miles from the northern edge of the Twin Cities, 100 miles from the Twin Ports, 115 miles from Eau Claire, and 280 miles from Madison