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IRRRB to discuss $26 million biochemical project in Mt. Iron
Friday, the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board will meet to discuss new projects and public works spending. A number of interesting items will be on the docket. Topping the list is a proposal to loan $18 million as part of a state and Iron Range package of $26 million to a company called Sweetwater Energy. Sweetwater is…
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Governor Dayton tours mines to inform his PolyMet decision
I’ve already expounded upon challenges facing the iron mining industry on the Mesabi today, but state political news is focusing on the much louder though more theoretical debate over nonferrous mining in Northeastern Minnesota. Well, that debate is finally starting to get real. Gov. Mark Dayton visited the Gilt Edge Mine in South Dakota yesterday and…
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Another highway debate shows power tilting toward mines
By now, most of you are pretty familiar with the massive Highway 53 project between Virginia and Eveleth on Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. That $240 million re-route of the Iron Range’s most important north-south highway will build two new bridges, included the state’s tallest, to accommodate a 1960s-era agreement with the mines to move the highway…
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Pro-Horton song warns of Duluth’s potholed heroinscape
We haven’t discussed the Duluth Mayor’s race in a while, partly because city council president Emily Larson is so widely expected to rout boxing trainer and drug counselor Chuck Horton next Tuesday. But Horton’s supporters aren’t letting up, as evidenced by the most jaw-dropping local political media I’ve experienced in a very long time: Behold,…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 3, ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’
The third episode of “Fargo” Season 2, entitled “The Myth of Sisyphus,” aired last night on FX. What follows is a Minnesota-centric review that contains spoilers. This year, “Fargo” takes us to Southwestern Minnesota in 1979, the same year I was born on the other side of the state. A small town family crime syndicate based…
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Book serves Range food favorites to new generation
Every member of the Cherry High School band knew from Day 1 there would come a time where we would spend the entire night in the school cafeteria making pasties for the big annual fundraiser. It was as sure as the sunset or a freshman missing the high notes. When pasty night came, every kid…
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Great Northern ‘goin’ up the country’ for Nov. 7 barn show
The blog will be entering another “hot idle” for the same reason as last time. I’ve got a show to write. On Saturday, Nov. 7, my Great Northern Radio Show will broadcast live from Larson’s Barn outside McGregor, Minnesota. The show airs 5-7 p.m. on Northern Community Radio and its northern translators. To be clear, we…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 2, ‘Before the Law’
The second episode of “Fargo” Season 2, entitled “Before the Law,” aired last night on FX. What follows is a Minnesota-centric review that contains spoilers. This year, “Fargo” takes us to Southwestern Minnesota in 1979, the same year I was born on the other side of the state. A small town family crime syndicate based…
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Don Ness, Teague Alexy take book tour to Iron Range
On Wednesday, Oct. 21, Duluth mayor Don Ness and musician Teague Alexy will bring their shared book tour across the Mesabi Iron Range. Ness’s book is “Hillsider: Snapshots of a Curious Political Journey,” a self-published creative memoir combining essays, stories and photographs by the popular outgoing mayor of the Zenith City. Alexy’s book is “The New Folklore:…
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Heads of state named ‘Justin’ nearing reality
UPDATE: Justin Trudeau and the Liberals won a majority government in Monday’s election. It was an unexpected rout. I’ve long foreseen a world in which heads of state — including one day a U.S. President — might be named “Justin.” Lots of kids are named Justin now. And once the Justins take over, then come…
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Creative space the next frontier for libraries?
This is a follow-up on my Oct. 11 column “Thinkers, tinkers, and 3-D printers,” which explores 3-D printing and efforts to support local innovation and ideas in Iron Range economic development. After that piece went to print, I learned more about how maker spaces are becoming the vogue. For one thing, I was not aware that Duluth,…
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Range War: Essar, Cliffs clash shows Mesabi at crossroads
~ ~ ~ Speculation can be ignored, but one must reckon with concrete. Here along Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range one finds many messy versions of the truth surrounding Essar Minnesota’s new taconite mine under construction near Nashwauk. While controversial, actual activity at Essar shows that new mining will happen on the grounds of the…
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Cliffs CEO threatens to close mine
UPDATE: Cliffs Natural Resources spent most of Monday trying to walk back Goncalves’s comments about closing an Iron Range mine. ### Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources, is threatening to close one of Cliffs’ Iron Range mines in the event Essar Steel opens its new mine near Nashwauk. This is Bill Hanna’s front page story of today’s…
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FARGO REVIEW: Episode 1, ‘Waiting for Dutch’
The success of the first season of “Fargo” on FX was one of the best surprises of television last year. The 10-episode short-run series was ambitious, daring, heartfelt and yet still true to the spirit of the original acclaimed movie (without being too derivative). After the early reviews of the second season, which debuted last night,…
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Veda Ponikvar: America’s Iron Lady
Veda Ponikvar, founder and publisher of two Chisholm newspapers, esteemed American civilian military leader, and arguably the most powerful person in Iron Range politics of the latter 20th Century, died Tuesday in Chisholm at the age of 96. One could remark that Ponikvar was the most consequential women in the male-dominated industrial history of the Iron Range.…