The view from a YouTube video of a drone flight over the east pit at MinnTac near the Iron Range city of Mountain Iron. (screenshot, SquatchAttack)
This Thursday brings the first of the Hibbing Taconite mine tours available via the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. The tours run every Thursday afternoon from June 25 to Aug. 6.
The Hibbing Taconite mine tour takes you through an active iron mine and processing facility.
You see how iron is blasted out of the ground and turned into the unique taconite pellets that still comprise a major part of the region’s economy.
You may board the bus at 12:45 each Thursday with the bus departing promptly at 1 p.m Cost for the Hibbing Taconite mine tour is $13 per person which includes admission to the Minnesota Discovery Center. They don’t allow photographs on Hibbing Taconite property, so prepare for that. Further, the tour is advertised as best for kids ages 12 and up, though kids ages 10 and 11 may be accepted based on bus driver’s discretion. The tour takes about two hours.
If you don’t have a couple hours to see the workings of a real taconite plant, see the depth of mining’s impact with this drone video of the MinnTac pit near Mountain Iron taken by username “SquatchAttack.”
I like to point out that when you see these pits, you’re seeing 120 years of mostly sustained human extraction of heavy iron rocks from the Mesabi Iron Range — generations of immigrants, struggle, class battles and the generational toll of physical and emotional labor.
Before this land was mined, it was logged of the continent’s tallest white pine forests. When people ask what moment in history I’d like to tour for a day, it would be to see what this place looked like before all that. That time was more recent than America’s Civil War.
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