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National TV Taco Night in Taconite?
It’s entirely possible I learned about “taconite,” the iron laden rock processed into pellets to make steel, before I grasped the notion of “taco night,” a night in which one eats tacos. And I’m probably not the only kid from Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range who can say that. My family never served Mexican food and I…
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Un da’ Raynch: Revisiting Iron Range’s unique dialect
This time of year many people who grew up on the Iron Range come home to see family, friends and the summer splendor of Northern Minnesota. For these prodigal children, just a few minutes at the cafe, gas station or local street dance quickly reminds them that this isn’t the King’s English; it’s Iron Range…
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‘Fargo’ coming back in September (and so are my reviews)
UPDATE: The full Fargo Season 2 trailer is here! Last year, I stumbled into writing a popular series of blog posts about the FX series “Fargo,” based on the famous Coen Brothers film of the same name. My posts started with a tongue-in-cheek review of the accuracy of the Minnesota details in the show, only to…
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The haircut heard ’round the Eighth
Stewart Mills, the 2014 GOP nominee in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District, hasn’t announced officially whether he plans to run for the office again in 2016. But his famous hair seems to be leaning that way. Mills, scion of the well-known Fleet Farm family, lost to Democratic U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan by a little over one percentage…
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Steelworkers negotiations underway in Pittsburgh
After a spring and early summer in which Iron Range mine owners tightened belts, idled workers and sought relief from taxes and environmental regulations, now we come to a new phase of the region’s simmering crisis. This week in Pittsburgh, the United Steelworkers, the union that represents most Iron Range miners, opened negotiations with ArcelorMittal…
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Smoke Week
Here in Northern Minnesota, we’ve been dealing with a thick haze of smoke from Canadian wildfires for more than a week. Just this week the smoke finally dipped further south, blanketing the Twin Cities and Southern Minnesota. Yesterday, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency recorded air quality indexes as high as 200 in the Twin Cities,…
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Researcher to revisit Iron Range dialect
Though probably not surprising to visitors and natives alike, the Iron Range region of Northern Minnesota is home to its own researched and defined dialect. I‘ve written about this before, but the topic takes on new relevance as linguist Dr. Sara Schmelzer Loss of Oklahoma State University (and a Hibbing native) returns to her hometown…
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‘Everything just fits together naturally’
When settlers came to Northern Minnesota they found timber so tall and plentiful that they built Chicago with it. When Chicago burned down they built it again. New prospectors found iron ore so rich they could shovel it straight into eastern blast furnaces to make the steel that built a growing nation, supplying two world…
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Lessons from a decade of parenting (I’ve learned nothing)
“What size shirt does George wear?” my mom asked a few days before my son’s birthday. “I don’t know,” I said. “Kinda big. He’s bigger than Doug (his twin brother). But not taller. Doug is taller. They’re both kinda tall. They wear shirts. Sometimes I pay for the shirts, but not always. I don’t know…
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Nolan running again in 2016; no opponent yet
In a fiery speech at his annual barbecue fundraiser, U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) announced he would seek another term in Congress in 2016. Nolan represents Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District, a large region that includes Northeastern and Central Minnesota. MN-8 has been considered a swing district since 2010, when Rep. Jim Oberstar was surprisingly defeated…
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Northern Lights Music Festival brings classics back to Range
The Northern Lights Music Festival is returning to the Iron Range this summer with its annual classical music and opera tour across the region. Last summer, I spoke with Veda Zupancic, the accomplished musician and director from Aurora who founded the event. This year, the Northern Lights festival kicks off today and includes events that run through July 20.…
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Chris Pratt was born on the Iron Range
Last week, I joined the legions of Summer 2015 movie-goers to see “Jurassic World” starring everyman action hero Chris Pratt. I also delighted in a little known connection between this film and the Iron Range of Northern Minnesota. And no, it’s not this: Guy who unsuccessfully weaponized velociraptors in #JurassicWorld looks like MN Senate leader Tom Bakk…
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Summer of trials and tribulations on the Iron Range
The last few months of Iron Range politics and economics have been discouraging. That’s as polite as I can be in describing what’s happened: the repetitive, lazy assumptions of local media, the underreported stories of inside dealings, the overstatement of future economic growth from new kinds of mining and the understatement of the tremendous market pressures…
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Range business, gov’t leaders call for summit
In Sunday’s paper, the Mesabi Daily News published a story about the fact that Minnesota Power (Allete) executive Al Hodnick, former State Sen. Doug Johnson and IRRRB Commissioner Mark Phillips were joining to call for an Iron Range economic summit. From the Bill Hanna story: Hodnik wants an Iron Range economic summit soon to provide…
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All about that bass
He didn’t go fishing often. He lived near a lake, so that wasn’t the issue. He owned a fishing pole, so that wasn’t it either. He just realized that when grandpa took the kids fishing, he could watch old movies and no one would bother him. So he didn’t go fishing often. One day, the…