-
Hibbing grapples with beer brewhaha
Communities across the country are working on an abstract concept called “wellness.” Healthy, happy people are more productive and efficient, costing local, state and federal governments less money to pump full of drugs and replacement joints. So, that’s why there’s a wellness committee at my job, and a wellness event scheduled in Hibbing, Minnesota, next…
-
Beat spring fever with 2-day bus trip to different part of Midwest
So, the other night I was watching the local news in real time, which means watching actual commercials as they happen. (You know, the way “normals” watch TV). We often see the morning news shows, but usually miss the 10 p.m. edition. Anyway, that’s where we saw this ad for a new bus-to-bus service offered…
-
Minnesota DNR maps help explore state with new eyes
The above image was created with a maps feature from the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources web site. You can use data to create all kinds of different maps. This is the Mesabi Iron Range, as seen from the air in 2010. Naturally, I spent my time on the site checking out places around the Iron…
-
Great Northern Radio Show is Saturday night
It’s an exciting day: the live broadcast of my Great Northern Radio Show on Northern Community Radio is Saturday night, beaming out from the Mesabi Range College theater in Virginia, Minnesota. The Great Northern Radio Show broadcasts from small towns and offbeat theaters around northern Minnesota, telling the story of the place and its people,…
-
‘The ore won’t burn up, won’t go out of fashion’
A friend of the blog recently sent me an old book: “Duluth and St. Louis County Minnesota: Their Story and People,” edited by Walter Van Brunt and published by The American Historical Society, 1921. The 1890s in northern Minnesota were historic for transfer of public lands to lumbermen. In process, lumbermen either discovered ore or…
-
Iron Range officials fear dangers of Hwy 53 reroute
New problems arising from the much anticipated reroute of the Iron Range’s primary north-south highway might require more funding, officials now say. Highway 53 has to be rerouted between Virginia and Eveleth next year to accommodate mining by Cliffs Natural Resources at United Taconite. One version of the Hwy 53 reroute would dramatically reshape the…
-
EPA offers mixed view of PolyMet EIS
The 90-day comments period for the PolyMet Environmental Impact Statement closed yesterday. More than 50,000 people and organizations offered questions, support and opposition to the proposed copper/nickel mine near Hoyt Lakes in northern Minnesota. That is, by all accounts, a record. The final and perhaps most important comment issued was the final opinion of the…
-
St. Urho and the outcasts who settled the Iron Range
Sunday, March 16, brings St. Urho’s Day, a Finnish-American celebration of a fictional saint who did something that never really happened. You won’t see the holiday in Finland, because that’s not where the tradition comes from. St. Urho’s Day is a 1950s vintage fabrication of an American Finn on northern Minnesota’s Iron Range. Richard Mattson…
-
Chisholm musher finishes Iditarod as top rookie
Nathan Schroeder, the Warba native and Chisholm-area musher who won the Beargrease earlier this winter, just finished the grueling Iditarod Sled Dog Race in Alaska. Schroeder crossed the finish line in Nome earlier today in 17th place, first among all rookies. He and his dogs are all safe and, presumably, somewhere warm right now. It’s…
-
Man vs. Moose: nature’s fury in northern Minnesota
Greg Clusiau’s Iron Range fishing report is usually the place you find out where the crappies are biting, but this week the Itasca County fishing guide’s weekly newspaper column instead recounted memorable mammalian news. In a March 3 item published in the Scenic Range News Forum and elsewhere, Clusiau describes Nashwauk-area trapper Donny Newman’s encounter…
-
Northern Minnesota musher has Nome-where to go
Nathan Schroeder of Chisholm, originally of Warba, is mushing in the Iditarod Sled Dog race in Alaska right now. After winning last month’s John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon in Duluth for the third time, Schroeder and his canine racers are making their first-ever run at the best-known and most grueling sled dog race in the world.…
-
‘Not Dark Yet,’ but iconic Zimmy’s Restaurant in Hibbing closes
Today my friends Linda Stroback and Bob Hocking announced that they would be closing Zimmy’s Restaurant tonight until further notice. A year of tough economic conditions in downtown Hibbing and back taxes is forcing the closure, with the hope of the restaurant restructuring and reopening in the near future. Linda described the company’s woes in…
-
No really, science agrees that it’s cold this year
On Dec. 4, I wrote about the above scene outside my office at Hibbing Community College in my post “Insider Tips on How to Dress for Cold.” At the time I thought I was merely waxing poetic about the first of the “really cold” weather we experience every year in northern Minnesota. What I didn’t…
-
Up to $12 million owed at Essar site
Northland NewsCenter jumps in with its own report about the work stoppage and financing issues at Essar Steel’s construction site near Nashwauk, Minnesota. The headline: Up to $12 million is owed Iron Range contractors for work already completed at Essar’s planned taconite mine. Oh, and I’m in this one, saying pretty much the things I…
-
Contractor files lien on Essar; millions unpaid
More details about the shaky financial situation at the Essar Steel construction site near Nashwauk, Minnesota are coming to light: Nobody is working at the Nashwauk site now. Millions are owed to construction contractors and laborers. At least one contractor has filed a lien on the project. Essar says it hopes to have its financing…