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Duluth gains sharp new arts venue, promise of another
After several years and $18 million in renovation, downtown Duluth’s NorShor Theater reopened this week with a local production of “Mamma Mia,” the ABBA musical. That show is sold out for two weeks. And while ABBA is great, most folks in the Zenith City are just excited for the addition of a dazzling new downtown…
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West Side Story: the high stakes Mesabi mining show
A proposed new mine near the western Mesabi Iron Range town of Nashwauk has proven to be a challenge to explain. Every time I go to write one piece, something new pops up, changing the story. I don’t even know what to call it. This thing is a folk story now. So let’s start from…
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Enrollment decline poses new challenge to state colleges
Trying to read trends is difficult. You have to figure out what’s part of a normal cycle and what might be indicative of change. And then, if it is real change, you have to determine what’s causing the change. Is it inevitable or malleable? Are you causing it or is it something else? That’s the…
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Mesabi Iron Range takes action on mountain bike trails
Last week brought a very busy Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board meeting. In addition to discussions of reform and school funding, the board also green-lighted the commissioner’s plan to fund three mountain bike trails on the Mesabi Iron Range. The almost $5 million grant package helps volunteer-based organizations and Giants Ridge develop three distinct…
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Top features of new ‘millennial hotel’ coming to Duluth
Duluth may soon get another new hotel, this one targeting a “millennial” clientele with cheaper, smaller rooms and large shared spaces. “Cheaper, smaller rooms” might sound like “Motel 6,” and “large shared spaces” might sound like “an abandoned warehouse,” but this is different. For instance, the hotel is called Tru by Hilton. “Tru by Hilton”…
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IRRRB backs off plan for private trust
On Wednesday, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board agreed with Commissioner Mark Phillips that plans to create a private trust for a large agency fund aren’t ready yet. The agency will take the idea back to the drawing board. I wrote about the challenges of balancing the public interest with politics just yesterday. John…
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Getting politics out of IRRRB? Not so easy
With another legislative session approaching, we see new attention paid to the ever changing Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (IRRRB). The IRRRB now finds itself enveloped in the recently renamed Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation. Earlier this week, a southern Minnesota Republican raised concerns about the creation of a new trust…
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New model of journalism won’t happen on Facebook
Lately I’ve been contemplating the difference between how I felt about being on Facebook after signing up a decade ago and how I feel logging on now. It’s a world of difference. In a way, this change explains the reason Facebook is abandoning efforts to curate journalism, and why that probably won’t work either. Looking…
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This Week in Vikings Playoff Anxiety, Vol. 2 Miracle Edition
When I began this series I had no firm belief it would be a series at all. Generations of bad luck, boneheaded plays and inexplicable mental collapse conditioned me for the seemingly inevitable disappointment of any Minnesota Vikings trip to the playoffs. Indeed, that was the joke. And while I certainly wanted the Vikings to…
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L.L. Bean ‘Bootmobile’ headed to the Iron Range
Growing up in the rural environs just off the Mesabi iron formation, I became accustomed to the machinations of the bookmobile. Well, now Iron Range residents can expect a new arrival: the Bootmobile. L.L. Bean, purveyor of fine boots and outdoor clothing and accessories, turned a pickup truck into a giant boot. Now they tour…
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On the Cuyuna Range, the culmination of a plan
Last fall I had to go to Brainerd for a speaking engagement. My fellow presenter and I were chatting on the way down. We decided it might be fun to drive through Crosby and Ironton instead of bypassing them the way many motorists have for decades. Why? Well, there’s stuff going on in Crosby now.…
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‘Making It Up North’ features Great Northern Radio Show
This year WDSE-WIRT Channel 8, the PBS station in Duluth, announced a new show. Karen Sunderman hosts and Steve Ash films the program called “Making It Up North.” They profile creative people across Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin. I was honored that they chose to highlight my Great Northern Radio Show in one of their early…
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This Week in Minnesota Vikings Playoff Anxiety
Picture, if you well, an envelope. It might have come in the mail. It might have been hand delivered by a Great Horned Owl. That is irrelevant. Inside the envelope is an answer to a question that has endured many generations. Will you forever be trapped in a repeating hell, or will you be eternally…
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Remembering Bill Ojala, radical conscience of the Iron Range
Bill Ojala, a former Iron Range legislator and later gadfly social justice activist, died last Saturday at the age of 92. John Lundy of the Duluth News Tribune penned a good obituary (“‘A true son of the Iron Range’: Lawyer, politician Bill Ojala dies at 92“) in yesterday’s paper. Ojala, descended from Finnish-American immigrants on…
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Iron innovation most vital mining challenge for Mesabi Range
I know, there’s plenty we could talk about regarding controversial copper-nickel mining projects in Northern Minnesota. PolyMet has a draft permit to mine. Ely’s Twin Metals got a symbolic boost from the Trump Administration. Persistent and largely meaningless slap fights between mining advocates and skeptics color the pages of the local press. But the truth…