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Veterans Day: honor what vets did, but also why
Every year I attend the Keewatin American Legion annual Veterans Day Spaghetti Feed with my grandfather, a Korean War-era Air Force vet and 50-year member of the post. I am a rather poor member of the Sons of the Legion, a condition of my attendance at this venerated custom. It’s come to be an important…
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A view from Minnesota’s deer hunting season
For a picture of a crisp, quiet deer hunting season opener, you can do no better than Sam Cook of the Duluth News Tribune joining some Northern Community Radio friends of mine – Randy McCarty and John Latimar – in the woods outside Grand Rapids. This passage seems to capture Cook’s unique ability to capture…
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Range town mergers could protect jobs, services
One of the under-reported outcomes of last Tuesday’s off-year local elections was the overwhelming vote by the northern Minnesota communities of Carlton and Thomson to merge. In local media, this was portrayed as the simple matter of tiny Thomson’s overworked mayor and staff. In practice, however, these towns are providing a blueprint for many small…
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IRRRB OKs loans creating jobs, for a price
On Thursday the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board approved loan packages for two Iron Range business projects to create almost 150 new jobs. The first, which I mentioned yesterday, was a $5.9 million loan for Delta Airlines to expand its Chisholm ticket reservation center, a move that the company says will add 107 jobs…
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Delta reservation center in Chisholm to add 107 jobs
Delta airlines is proposing to remodel and expand its Delta reservation center in Chisholm that would add 107 new jobs at the facility. They’ll be approaching the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation for a loan package at today’s meeting in Eveleth. When Delta bought Northwest many thought the Chisholm ticket reservation facility wouldn’t make the…
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Hampton Inn plans Hibbing hotel
It was announced at the Wednesday Hibbing Economic Development Authority meeting that Hampton Inn and Suites plans to develop the former Ogle’s Foods lot into a new Hibbing hotel. The Hibbing Daily Tribune reports and will have more in tomorrow’s paper. Plans could involve construction beginning as soon as December. This is a bit of good…
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Confessions of Ely: Post Secret + Northern Exposure
The other day I saw a Facebook community show in my feed out of nowhere, something from “friends” of “friends.” “Confessions of Ely” is like many online confessional projects (Post Secret, e.g.). The difference: Confessions of Ely is all about the people and sometimes bizarre, sometimes banal, always oddly fascinating activities of the people of…
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Bellwether school vote in Hibbing Tuesday
Tomorrow a smattering of elections will take place around Minnesota. An interesting one I’m following is the school vote in Hibbing, up here on the Mesabi Iron Range. The school vote in Hibbing is over whether to renew a 10-year school bond operating levy that expires this year. Simple enough, perhaps, but the vote comes…
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Essar plans for Iron Range pellets in 2017
This month another flurry of activity kicked up on the site of Essar Steel Minnesota’s new taconite plant near Nashwauk, Minnesota. But questions remain as to how quickly Essar plans to integrate the Nashwauk plant into its North American steel operations. This long-awaited, heavily state-subsidized, “might-make-steel-someday-but-probably-not” project has been a major curiosity for residents of…
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Range newspaper resurrects 26-year-old boner joke
In 1987, the same year the Minnesota Twins won the World Series, a huge iron and copper statue of an iron miner was installed outside the Mesabi Iron Range city of Chisholm. He stands there still, the third tallest free standing statue in the country. It is the stuff of folk journalism lore that legendary Iron…
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Governor urges caution on Northern Minnesota mining
Today the three largest newspapers on the Iron Range published another edition of their “MINE” special section. Like “MINE,” “MINE II” is a collection of stories about northern Minnesota mining, stressing its positive impact on communities. Normally I would just let this stand, but I did see something really interesting: Gov. Mark Dayton declared his…
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The Big Year? Birder discombobulated in bog
In the 2011 film “The Big Year,” Owen Wilson, Steve Martin and Jack Black star as birders (!) trying to break the record for most birds seen in one year. I’ve talked about this film before because it mentions the Sax-Zim Bog a few times, known internationally as a major bird-watching mecca. As I mentioned…
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Tamarack tinge to autumn’s last act
I don’t know why, but every year I briefly forget the way tamarack trees change color in the fall. “Oh, wait. That’s right!” Tamaracks are larches, one of the few coniferous trees which change color and shed their needles every year. Perhaps that’s why it’s always a surprise when the tamarack’s dark green needles turn…
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Ely guide who bushwhacked Quetico, BWCA tells tale
Jason Zabokrtsky emerged from an 80-plus-mile “bushwhack” of Quetico and the BWCA over the weekend. He’ll be doing a live chat with Minnesota Public Radio this morning describing his experience and taking questions. The Ely guide and outfitter Zabokrtsky closed his field journal with this statement: I am grateful for the spirit of adventure that…
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MPR International Falls series shows Paper Town woes
Holy moly, how have I been missing this fantastic series from MPR’s Ground Level about the struggles facing International Falls, Minnesota, after Boise Cascade announced a big layoff and sale this year. From the layoffs, to economic development in a one-industry town, to geographic remoteness, so many of these issues relate to communities throughout northern…