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Star Tribune: Essar’s Iron Range project delayed a year
Dee DePass of the Star Tribune reports that Essar Steel Minnesota’s project in Nashwauk has experienced the financing delays local observers have long suspected. Essar is set back a year. Essar Steel Minnesota will delay the opening of its Nashwauk taconite plant until the second half of 2014, officials confirmed Thursday. The plant, 90 miles…
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A tale of two Marriage Equality Days
Today is the first day same-sex couples can legally marry in the state of Minnesota. For me, this is a happy day, particularly as I think of friends finally able to enjoy the legal benefits of long term committed relationships with the people they love. I spoke out against the anti-equality amendment last fall, and cheered…
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Blinking thing tells you when you can run stop sign
WDIO St. Louis County in northeastern Minnesota is considering a new blinking sign for rural intersections that would warn motorists when a vehicle is approaching from the crossing highway. They’ve been testing the sign already. WDIO has the story. He said about 25 percent of serious crashes in Saint Louis County happen at rural intersections…
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Range filmmaker featured on Buzzfeed for indie film tips
Promotional still from “Pollywogs.” Last month I shared the story of Hibbing native Karl Jacob’s independent film “Pollywogs” making its debut at the LA Film Festival. The movie was filmed on the Iron Range. Jacob recently published an article on BuzzFeed entitled “10 Easy(ish) Steps To Making The Indie Movie of Your Dreams.” The list…
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Hibbing native jazz singer Evingson featured on NPR
Jazz singer Connie Evingson was featured on last week’s “Weekend Edition” on NPR, giving a charming interview about her music and upbringing on Minnesota’s Iron Range. Evingson was raised just down the street from Bob Dylan’s boyhood home in Hibbing, Minnesota. She’s played a number of shows on the Iron Range over the years. The…
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Tall Ships depart from Duluth, Minnesota
Tall Ships at Bayfront Park, Duluth, MN The Tall Ships Festival ends today with the tall masted ships set to depart from the Port of Duluth, Minnesota, this morning. It was a mostly cold and wet Tall Ships weekend, though yesterday was nicer. My family and I made the two-hour trip down to Duluth on Friday.…
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Freshman Iron Range lawmaker hit on mining claims
I’ve been writing how this summer is building toward a contention boiling point on the nonferrous mineral mining issue. We’re waiting for PolyMet to release its updated EIS after the EPA rejected its last one. Over in Wisconsin we’ve seen much more sharp-edged protesting and company overreaction to local mining debates than we have seen here…
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It’s official: July frost advisory issued for northern MN
MNZ010&012-018-019-290930-/ O.NEW.KDLH.FR.Y.0003.130729T0700Z-130729T1200Z/KOOCHICHING- NORTHERN ST. LOUIS-NORTHERN COOK/NORTHERN LAKE-NORTHERN ITASCA- CNTL ST. LOUIS-INCLUDING THE CITIES OF.INTERNATL FALLS. ELY.ISABELLA.BIGFORK.HIBBING327 PM CDT SUN JUL 28 2013 .FROST ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 2 AM TO 7 AM CDT MONDAY. NO SHIT THIS IS A REAL THING. THE NATL WEATHER SVC IN DULUTH HAS ISSUED A FROST ADVISORY WHICH IS IN…
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Nerds among us
This is my Sunday column for the July 28, 2013 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. A version of this piece aired yesterday on Northern Community Radio’s “Between You and Me.” PROGRAM NOTE: you can hear the latest Grand Rapids episode of my Great Northern Radio Show today (Sunday) from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.…
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Generation driven to find reality amid false fronts
Last week, Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com, announced he was leaving his partnership with the New York Times to take his unique brand of data-driven journalism to the goliath sports network ESPN. He’ll still be covering national elections with poll analysis, a real boon to sister network ABC, but the bulk of his number crunching will…
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Looking inside the numbers of MN-8
Taking a look inside the demographics of northern Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District shows a few things, mostly that it’s older than your average MN district. Take some time to check this out. Good nerdy times. (h/t Rachel E. Stassen-Berger, Star Tribune) Related posts: No related posts.
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OMG, you guys, what can we do to put ourselves on the map?
Ed Schipul, Creative Commons license Jay Walljasper had a feature on Minnpost yesterday, expressing concern that the Twin Cities (don’t call them that) of Minneapolis and St. Paul (too many syllables) don’t have a firm national identity other than that they’re cold in the winter. Walljasper continued his series today. Despite scads of stats showing…
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From the many, one mighty river to the sea
Slate shared this graphic of the tributaries of the Mississippi River. Here in northern Minnesota we’re well aware the river officially starts here, over in Clearwater County, flowing small and gentle through nearby towns like Grand Rapids and Brainerd. But if North America has one true river, it is this one. I also enjoy seeing…
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Northern MN ‘showboat’ tradition on Mighty Miss this weekend
You can still catch one of the coolest theater traditions of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, with this weekend’s closing performances of the Mississippi Melodie Showboat. Hometown Focus ran a lovely feature on the annual riverside music tradition in this northern town. You might recall that the boat sank last year. But don’t worry, they’ve got…
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This controversy is getting unBEARable
This is German bear propaganda. Source During the last Great Northern Radio Show we did a sketch that John Ramos wrote about bears. Specifically it was about a bear who, realizing that there was a web cam in her den, started hosting a television program. It was a parody, of course, of the famous live…