-
Great Lakes ships cut their way out of Duluth port
March in northern Minnesota is a season where spring is observed not necessarily in warmth, flowers and rain like in other places, but it other rhythmic patterns. For instance, this weekend they began chopping some big ships out of the icy prison of the Port of Duluth so they can begin the 2014 Great Lakes…
-
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,…
-
Port of Duluth to be blessed today as spring nears
This afternoon in Duluth, Minnesota, brings the annual blessing of the port, a ceremony conducted before the opening of the shipping season. This is an additional reminder that though it does not feel like spring in northern Minnesota, it truly and technically is. From the Duluth Seaway Port Authority on behalf of the Twin Ports…
-
Mesaba Concert Association gets you 15 shows for $35
When we talk about building a vibrant, diversified, creative future for the Iron Range we can’t discount the things we’ve already got going for us. For decades, the Mesaba Concert Association, and their counterparts in Virginia and Ely, have brought quality professional musical entertainment to the Iron Range. They keep the cost to the audience…
-
‘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 mining boss wins dancing competition
It’s not every day that an Iron Range mining company sends me a YouTube video showing their company president dancing to a Ray Charles song from “The Blues Brothers” as he and a professional dancer win the Reif Center’s “Dancing with Our Stars” competition. In fact, this is the first time that has happened. Might…
-
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…
-
Meantime at the Essar Steel construction site…
“Meantime at the Essar Steel construction site” is part of my 2014 winter/spring sanity project. I will post original cartoons about modern life in northern Minnesota every Friday until the snow melts. Related posts: No related posts.
-
Iron Range papers among 34 sold to Adams Publishing
The largest circulation newspapers on northern Minnesota’s Iron Range have been sold along with 34 others to Minneapolis-based Adams Publishing Group. The purchase includes 34 newspapers in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio and the Chesapeake Bay region. Business North reports on the sale, and this article appeared in all the affected newspapers, including the (Virginia, Minn.) Mesabi…
-
Saturday rigatoni feed to help my aunt beat cancer
My aunt Cheryl Johnson from Keewatin is the kind of person who quietly takes care of everyone around her and never expects or receives much in return. Though she never married, she is the person her five sisters and many, many nieces and nephews have counted on for last minute care, rides, help and support.…
-
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…
-
No ice for you! Lake Superior ice begins to recede
John Myers at the Duluth News Tribune reports that Lake Superior ice cover is at about 91 percent, down from 95 percent last month. This means that the hard winter of 2014 almost, but ultimately did not produce the rare total ice-over of the world’s largest freshwater lake. Though it may take several weeks and…
-
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…
-
Great Northern Radio Show in Virginia, MN on 3/22
My next Great Northern Radio Show will broadcast live from Mesabi Range College in Virginia, Minnesota, at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, 2014. Our traveling radio variety show doesn’t have a home theater; so being on the Iron Range is as close to home as we get. For this and several other reasons, I’m…