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Further North: Back in the U. S. of A.
I’m back in the U.S.A. My family and I just returned from a week-long vacation in Winnipeg, Manitoba. We had a wonderful time in Canada. You know what’s on the news in Canada? Wildfires. Public policy (not politics … policy). Bears. Every day, the bears do something different. Sometimes they sneak into an old lady’s kitchen…
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Sweet summer’s last act, a pause
Sweet Summer’s Last Act Basswood leaves hang like dinner plates, flags drooping on the pole. The animals grow brazen now, I think that one’s a mole. Brown and white skinned road workers can no longer be distinguished. Last night’s maple log has yet to be extinguished. Biting flies rule the day; mosquitos rule the night.…
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Spend a summer night with Great Northern Radio Show
You might recall that the Great Northern Radio Show broadcast from the Reif Center last month. I write, host and produce the show for Northern Community Radio. We just released the podcast episodes this week. The first episode is titled “Nostalgia.” We put together a collection of music, comedy and stories exploring that fuzzy feeling about a…
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R-O-C-K in the Co-op, eh?
The Mesaba Co-Op Park sits on the border between Cherry and Hibbing. You can’t escape this place as a key setting for Iron Range history. This refuge for mostly socialist Finnish immigrants became a playground and a proving ground for 20th Century leftist politics in Northern Minnesota. And it’s still here! While the place continues…
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Finland’s whitetail deer have Iron Range roots
Finnish-Americans gave Northern Minnesota saunas, labor activism and light switches that are on the outside of the room for some reason. But few here know they also gave the “old country” more whitetail deer than they can shoot. Right now about 100,000 whitetail deer roam the Finnish countryside. In 1934, that number was a cold,…
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Northern Lights brings Barber of Seville to Iron Range
Each summer the Northern Lights Music Festival brings a fully staged classical opera to stages across Northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. This summer, festival founder Veda Zupancic and her company bring Rossini’s Italian comic opera “The Barber of Seville.” The festival also backs chamber orchestra, instrumental trios and kids programming across the region. Events kick off…
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U rejects, rejoice! Rural Minnesota is probably fine
The St. Paul Pioneer Press reports that the University of Minnesota system is exploring strategies to build enrollment statewide. The main University of Minnesota campus in the Twin Cities remains popular, constituting 71 percent of the system’s enrollment. They even have to turn away students from elite programs. But to reach its goals, the Board…
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Hot times at the Great Northern Radio Show
We’ll be live with a summertime edition of the Great Northern Radio Show Saturday evening at 5 p.m. The show features music from the Holy Hootenanners and The Don’t Tell Darlings. Our all-star house band led by Katie Houg plans some great surprises. Beyond that, we do comedy and storytelling centered in Northern Minnesota but…
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German TV station explores Bob Dylan’s Hibbing roots
Last fall the German/French art network ARTE-TV visited Hibbing, Minnesota, as part of a “Bob Dylan’s America” series exploring the roots of the erstwhile Robert Zimmerman, Hibbing Class of 1959. Host Wolfgang Niedecken interviewed me for local color up at the former Hull Rust Mahoning Mine View in North Hibbing. You can view the episode…
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Iron Range parades, street dances and fireworks
As a young kid I marched in the Keewatin Fourth of July parade as a patriotic penguin, Donald Duck, and other flag-festooned creatures. As an older kid I remember piling into a car with my friends, touring Range towns for street dances and fireworks. Before cell phones we would often try to anticipate where we…
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Great Northern Radio Show in Grand Rapids June 23
On Saturday, June 23 we’re bringing the Great Northern Radio Show back to the Reif Center in Grand Rapids, Minnesota. If you’ve followed this blog, you know that every few months I fire up this massive, sputtering contraption and have some fun with live radio somewhere in Northern Minnesota. And I’d love it if you…
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Summer brings 2018 Duluth-Superior Film Fest
The Duluth-Superior Film Festival opens Wednesday with a movie called “Virginia, Minnesota.” The film’s title refers to a character, not the Iron Range town. Nevertheless, this Minnesota-made film represents the creative spirit of this annual celebration of cinema here at the head of the Great Lakes. First, “Virginia, Minnesota” opens the festival with a special…
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Duluth, Hibbing ready for 2018 Dylan celebrations
This May 24, Bob Dylan turns 77. His twin hometowns of Duluth and Hibbing, Minnesota, prepare to celebrate with live music, tours and cultural activities. From May 19-27, the Duluth Dylan Festival brings something for fans of Dylan and the arts every day. The Hibbing Dylan Project also offers activities on May 19. Some of…
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Remembering Ray Szmanda, the ‘Menards Guy’
Ray Szmanda, known to TV viewers of the Upper Midwest as “The Menards Guy,” died Sunday according to his son. He was 91. Growing up in the Duluth, Minnesota, TV market during the 1980s and ’90s meant watching this man sell home improvement tools and materials during nearly every local TV break. It wasn’t just…
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Notable Iron Range mutant making whiskey now
In so many ways, Bob Dylan is a Northern Minnesota mutant. And I say that with respect, in the evolutionary sense. Born in Duluth, raised on the Mesabi Iron Range, Dylan shot out of this place like a rocket almost 60 years ago. You know the rest. Dylan might never be like the kids he…