If you have lived in Dundas for more than a couple of summers, you already know the rhythm. The pedestrian bridge between Mill Park and Memorial Park is the front door. Kids run across it in swim trunks. Dog walkers meet halfway. Someone is always taking a phone photo of the Archibald Mill ruins downstream.
What has changed is where the walk keeps going after you cross.
The center of a Dundas summer moved south
For years, the working assumption was that a walk out of Mill Park ended when the pavement ended. That is no longer true. The Minnesota DNR finished another mile of the Mill Towns State Trail last October, extending the paved surface south from Mill Park to the city limits at the county line, according to the Friends of the Mill Towns Trail. It is a small change on a map. On the ground it means a Dundas evening walk can now push in a direction it could not push before, away from the Northfield end and toward open country.
The bigger picture is worth holding. When the trail is complete it will run roughly 25 miles from Faribault to Cannon Falls, connecting the Sakatah Singing Hills State Trail to the Cannon Valley Trail. Right now the network is stitched together in pieces, with about 14 of 32 planned miles built and two big rural gaps remaining, from Lake Byllesby to Waterford and from Dundas to Faribault. What we have in Dundas is the most finished portion of an unfinished trail. That is a real amenity most towns of 1,700 people do not sit on.
A loop that actually loops
The Dundas-to-Northfield segment is the workhorse. Three paved miles between the Mill Park trailhead on Railway Street and the Northfield trails near Babcock and Riverside Parks, following the Cannon River almost the whole way. Loop it back and you have roughly 6.3 miles with only 131 feet of elevation gain, which is why AllTrails clocks the round trip at two to two and a half hours.
Here is what is currently paved and rideable in the Mill Towns system:
| Segment | Distance | Access point in Dundas |
|---|---|---|
| Dundas to Northfield | 3 miles | Mill Park / Railway Street trailhead |
| New southern extension | 1 mile | Mill Park, heading toward city limits |
| Faribault segment | 1 mile | Not connected yet |
| Lake Byllesby to Cannon Falls | 2 miles | Not connected yet |
The Dundas trailhead is the only place on the system where you can chain a real loop together on paved surface. That is a quiet advantage.
The stops that make the loop worth doing
A trail is only as good as what waits at the end of it. In Dundas the shortlist is genuinely short, and that is the point. You are not choosing from thirty places, you are choosing between a handful of specific ones, each with its own reason to exist.
- Lyle & Pauline's L & M Bar & Grill, on Railway Street a block from the trailhead. Burgers, wings, and a room where regulars and cyclists share the bar. Call ahead at (507) 645-8987 for parties of eight or more.
- Dawn's Corner Bar & Grill, 200 Railway St N. Open at 8 a.m. most weekdays, which matters if you want breakfast before an early ride. Tripadvisor reviewers keep flagging the homemade pizza.
- Rosemary Italian Kitchen, a wine bar and Italian spot that shows up on the Yelp shortlist for Dundas even though most of the roster is technically over the line in Northfield.
- Tanzenwald Brewing Company at 103 Water St N in Northfield, if you took the trail all the way north. The house tap list leans seasonal, and the patio is dog-friendly and first-come, first-served, with reservations only for parties of six or more.
The distance between the L & M and Tanzenwald is exactly the length of the built trail. That is a coincidence worth building a Saturday around.
The river itself, not the view of the river
Most Dundas residents walk over the Cannon River more often than they get in it. Consider flipping that this summer.
The three-mile stretch from the Dundas pedestrian bridge downstream to the Ames Mill Dam in Northfield is one of the easiest paddles on the Cannon River State Water Trail, with parkland on either side of the river for nearly the entire reach. The DNR video pegs it at roughly a minute and a half of edited footage, and about a lazy afternoon on the water. Put in at Mill Park, pull out upstream of the Water Street Bridge in Northfield, look up at the historic Ames Mill Dam and the Riverwalk buildings, and you have done a version of the trail-and-town loop with wet feet instead of dusty ones.
The pedestrian bridge itself is a better landmark than most residents give it credit for. It is the only crossing between Mill Park on the west bank and Memorial Park on the east, and it puts you directly in view of what remains of the Archibald Mill, a facility that once produced 500 barrels of flour a day and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Standing there is the closest thing Dundas has to a civic front porch.
Memorial Park is doing more this summer than you think
Memorial Park, at the south end of 1st Street on the east bank, is usually described as the ballfield. Fair enough. The Dundas Dukes play their home schedule on the diamond, and the 2006 pavilion still works as a reservation shelter for family events. But two other things also happen there.
First, Memorial Park is the start and finish for the Mill Towns Race Series, a 10K, half marathon, and marathon that all run the same tree-lined loop from Dundas to Northfield along the Cannon. The 10K is one loop, the half is two, the marathon is four. Even if you are not running, packet pickup and pre- and post-race festivities center on the pavilion, which means Memorial Park has a spectator gear day baked into its summer.
Second, the park is now the launch point for a trail that keeps growing. Watch for the July 27, 2026 meeting of Friends of the Mill Towns Trail. The group has floated the possibility of walking or biking a brand-new stretch from Woodley Street to the Waterford Bridge in Northfield, if the timing lines up. That kind of soft opening does not get advertised broadly. Locals show up and see the trail first.
"By 2026 we should have roughly 14 of about 32 miles finished, leaving two big rural gaps," the Friends of the Mill Towns Trail note in their most recent progress update. Translation: the map you knew last summer is not the map you have this summer.
A quick planner for the next few weekends
If you are the one who organizes weekends for the household, here is the shortest useful list.
- Morning ride, roughly two hours. Coffee, then a Dundas-to-Northfield-and-back loop from the Mill Park trailhead. Six point three miles, mostly shaded on the northbound leg.
- Long paddle Saturday. Launch at Mill Park, take out near the Water Street Bridge, arrange your own shuttle.
- Sunset walk. Cross the pedestrian bridge, sit on the Memorial Park side, watch a Dundas Dukes home game.
- Race weekend. Volunteer or spectate the Mill Towns Race Series. The finish line festivities are worth watching even if you are not running.
- July 27, 2026. Show up for the Friends of the Mill Towns Trail meeting. If a preview walk happens on the new Woodley to Waterford segment, you will be among the first to try it.
The reason this all matters is not that Dundas is suddenly a different town. It is that a very local piece of infrastructure quietly changed direction over the last twelve months. The river is still the river. The bridge is still the bridge. The trail now points somewhere it did not point before, and the loop that has always been walked is one mile longer than it was last July.
If you are thinking about how your own house fits into this corridor, or you have a friend who keeps asking what makes Dundas different from Northfield, I would love to talk. Reach out to Megan Culhane any time. Turn the Key to New Beginnings.
