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Trite ships loiter in Duluth harbor, remain awesome
Tall ships dock at the harbor of Duluth, Minnesota! The tall ships are wooden sailing vessels with towering masts and an old timey feel. They are not pirate ships; rather, they hearken a bygone day when ships like these often sunk in poor weather, and/or facilitated the harpooning of whales. Many ships like these are…
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Thursday night free Range music show adds to St. Louis Co. fair fun next door
The Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm is presenting another free Thursday night music show in its “Art in the Park” series tonight. This week’s performance coincides with the St. Louis County Fair, which makes for a whole heap of entertainment options in the central Iron Range. Thursday, July 29, Minnesota Discovery Center hosts acoustic musician…
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This is a post about carp
So let’s say, hypothetically, that there’s this species of carp, see. It’s from Asia, see. Asian carp. And unlike regular carp, Asian carp is very aggressive, generally wiping out all other species of fish it encounters by consuming up to 40 pounds of domestic fish a day. This carp can walk great distances, swim backwards,…
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"Five best days of summer" kick start Wednesday on the Iron Range
The St. Louis County Fair (NORTH!) runs Wednesday through Sunday at the fairgrounds in Chisholm, across Highway 169 from the city, next to the Minnesota Discovery Center (nee Ironworld). Just follow the giant chicken. Dubbed “The five greatest days of summer” by fair organizers, this is another of those classic Iron Range summer events where…
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COLUMN: Iron Range 1969
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, July 25, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Thanks to Bill Lah for connecting me with the report mentioned in this column. Iron Range 1969By Aaron J. Brown (Chorus) Back in Summer of ’69 Man we were killin’ time.We were young and restless.We needed to unwind.I…
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We’re going underground again (in theory)
The Star Tribune reports on a big financing break for copper mining on the eastern Iron Range. This is not Polymet, but rather a newly formed company, (Twin Metals Minnesota LLC, if you need the name) that believes it can mine underground and produce 40,000 tons of copper a day. All this tells me is…
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Squirrels, again!
Now that the Hibbing Public Utilities Commission settled its labor problems, union and management forces turn their steely eyes to the real enemy: Squirrels. Two electrocuted-squirrel-oriented power outages have hit Hibbing in just two days. I try to clip and and save all the newspaper reports of squirrel-induced power outages. There are quite a few.…
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Range Thursday night music series rolls on
“Art in the Park,” the free Iron Range summer concert series, continues this Thursday night in Chisholm at the Minnesota Discovery Center. Find out more on Facebook or in their press release: Minnesota Discovery Center’s Art in the Park series continues Thursday, July 22, with Northland Broadway Youth Players rehearsing “Superior Treasure” from 5-6 p.m.,…
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Understanding the (parameters of the discussion of the) true nature of the universe, featuring dark matter Powerpoint
Fans of this blog know that I’m a sucker for underground mines and dark matter. It’s like peanut butter and chocolate. Here’s the press release for an upcoming event related to both at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. Get to the bottom of Soudan lab experiments On Wednesday, July 21 and Thursday, August 5,…
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The new Duluth & the big problem for northern Minnesota
Minnesota Business Magazine covers “The New Duluth” in its July cover story. The story focuses on Duluth, Minnesota’s successes and challenges as it fights to expand beyond its shipping and manufacturing economic base. It’s a good story for Duluth, particularly its first term mayor Don Ness, but more importantly it outlines the big problem. Excuse…
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Art in the Park returns Thursday
Art in the Park continues tonight, July 15, at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. They’re building a great northern Minnesota music event, despite the challenges of operating a cultural center and historical site in the midst of a recession, which I detailed early in the week. The event runs from 5-9 p.m. and will…
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The trials, tribulations of Range papers, mine salvage operations
A couple of interesting items to point out from Business North this week. This Beth Bily story from explains the “growing pains” of Magnetation, the new company producing iron ore products from salvaged iron ore dumps piled up years ago. The company continues to expand, but the story shows how close it came to collapsing…
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Free local music Thursday nights an early hit at big, familiar Chisholm venue
“Art in the Park,” the Thursday night free local music event at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm is a hit, according to sources at the center. More than 350 people attended last week’s event, filling the new main parking lot, and now that people are finding out about it this might become the cool…
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Thank you, Britt!
Thanks to the Britt Community Historical Society and all the wonderful people I met last night at the group’s annual dinner held in the Sandy Town Hall. I was honored to give the keynote speech and share more of my theories about Range past, present and future, the roots of which are in my book…
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COLUMN: Age may be inevitable, but the future is ageless
This is my weekly column for the Sunday, July 11, 2010 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Age may be inevitable, but the future is agelessBy Aaron J. Brown I’ve been a parent for just over five years but I’ve finally reached the parent stage where you’re expected to sit some place with the other…