Check out this innocuous headline from yesterday’s Hibbing Daily Tribune:
Snooze, right? Small town jibber jabber. I didn’t even click on the story when I saw it online. Then later I saw the print version of the paper. Guess who’s coming to the Iron Range in August 2009?
Trappers!
CHISHOLM — The St. Louis County Fairgrounds in Chisholm will be home to the 2009 Trappers Association National Convention.The event — to be held Aug. 12 through Aug. 16 — is expected to draw 4,000 to 5,000 people from all over the country. And cultivate a significant impact on the local economy.
Chisholm, for the uninitiated, is positioned in the heart of the long string of communities along the Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota. Though not the Range’s biggest town it has long held a great deal of the region’s political clout as the hometown of U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar, his predecessor John Blatnik and many, many DFL legislators over the years. And clearly this power has paid off as Chisholm outfoxed (Ha!) trapping meccas like Pelt City, W.Va., (Ha-ha!) and Beaver Junction, Ky. (Ha-Ha-Ha!) Most industry insiders believed the convention would go to Topocwachaichi, N.M., a town named for the obscure Furryori tribal language word for “Eats Like Chicken, Wears Good as Coat.” (Stop! Stop! I’m killing me!)
So St. Paul may have the GOP convention coming up, but we’ve got the trappers on the Iron Range in 2009. I wonder which group will go through the most hookers?
And by hookers, I mean the sharp objects used to pin up pelts during the tanning process.
That would be the trappers, I guess. Right?
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