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Wrapping up this run of the Great Northern Radio Show
Last Saturday I hosted the last edition of my Great Northern Radio Show before putting the show on an indefinite hiatus. I talked about my reasons for doing so in a recent column. You can hear the show here. It was a delightful evening of music, comedy and stories about Northern Minnesota. It proved an…
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Mayor Larson wins in Duluth while council sees changes
Mayor Emily Larson cruised to re-election over challenger David Nolle in Tuesday’s municipal elections. Larson won by more than 5,000 votes, about 63 percent to Nolle’s 36 percent. Larson heads an administration that has largely continued the progressive policies begun under former mayor Don Ness. She also inherited the challenges that have bedeviled Duluth for…
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Enter to win ride in giant pink mining truck
Here’s a fun item while I continue work on my book. The Hibbing Tourist Senior Center, operators of the famous and newly re-established North Hibbing Mine View, are running a contest with a very unique prize. You can enter a drawing to ride in a Hibbing Taconite production truck as it leaves the mine and…
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Stay loose, Twins; Lord knows Minnesotans can’t
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Season finale? Great Northern Radio Show broadcasts Nov. 9 at Hibbing
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Late but great, hear the most recent Great Northern Radio Show
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Nothing but open road on route to MN-8 DFL nod
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Northwest Wisconsin congressman Duffy to resign
Some news from the other side of the Twin Ports harbor. Politico reports that U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI7) will resign from Congress at the end of September. Duffy told supporters in a Facebook post that he was leaving to focus on his family, including a new baby with health complications. He writes: With much…
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Inspiring Mesabi Range running back featured on ESPN
Taquarius Wair dons the green and gold of the Mesabi Range Norseman football team. A freshman running back from Minneapolis, he joins many on his team in following dreams of playing college football to the Iron Range. But his story resembles no other. Burned in a terrible house fire when he was a small child,…
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Zebra mussels in Range mine pit raise questions
Northern Minnesota has been standing sentinel against zebra mussels for a number of years. We worry our freshwater lakes could be overrun by this invasive species. Typically, however, we imagine the pests arriving on the hulls of traveling boats and trailers. That doesn’t seem to explain why they showed up in an Iron Range mine…
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Festival of Sail enters Duluth harbor
Tens of thousands of people pile along the lakeshore as the 2019 Duluth Festival of Sail returns with vintage ships and an enormous rubber duck. Here’s some video from today’s parade of sails as vintage replica ships like the U.S.S. Niagara enter the Duluth-Superior Harbor: The family and I took in the Tall Ships festival…
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Emblematic of his era, Iron Range lawmaker Joe Begich dies
I met Joe Begich in the late 1990s, five years after he had retired from the state legislature. He was a senior statesman of sorts, an uncle at the Iron Range DFL reunion who could offer either useful context or long-winded tangents. Begich was, of course, a dedicated laborite and fierce Iron Range advocate. He…
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Explaining the hot idle
If you’re a regular reader of MinnesotaBrown.com you’ve probably noticed far fewer posts that usual this summer. This is what I sometimes call a “hot idle.” The term refers to what the mines do when they halt production of iron ore but keep their equipment “hot” and ready for a quick restart. It’s usually something…
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The power of getting together for the Iron Range Fourth of July week
Last week, Andrew Krueger at Minnesota Public Radio interviewed me about the Fourth of July tradition on the Iron Range. The piece aired last Saturday. Independence Day brings one of the most fun weeks on the Iron Range. I explain some of the origin story and cultural significance of this week’s activities in the interview.…
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Glencore to take majority stake of PolyMet project
The preliminary results of PolyMet’s stock dilution scheme are in. Glencore, the world’s largest mining company and a lightning rod for labor and environmental criticism, will soon hold more than 71 percent of the Northern Minnesota copper-nickel project. “We thank all of our shareholders for their interest in and support for this project, and are…