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Range Shrine Circus opens this Friday
UPDATE: The circus is this weekend in Hibbing! Click on the poster below to find the pre-sale ticket locations, ranging from Grand Rapids in the west and Virginia in the east. The 31st Range Shrine Circus will take place Friday, May 2 through Sunday, May 4, 2014 at the Hibbing Memorial Building arena. This beloved…
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FARGO REVIEW: Raising the stakes
The FX series “Fargo,” inspired by the 1996 Coen Brothers film, is based in northern Minnesota. As northern Minnesota’s leading pop culture, news, entertainment, iron mining and invasive species blog, MinnesotaBrown is here to review the show through Minnesota eyes. Now, to this week’s episode: Evil schemes thicken right before they fall apart, and as…
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Civil War treasure from Trampled by Turtles
Trampled by Turtles is poised to roll out a new album “Wild Animals” on July 15, but before then I have to point out this 2012 recording of Trampled by Turtles singing “The Night They Drove Ol’ Dixie Down,” a classic by The Band penned by Robbie Robertson. This was a found treasure for me,…
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Sammy’s Pizza turns 60
Sammy’s Pizza, the place that introduced an entire generation and region to the glorious kinda-sorta Italian food known as the pizza, turns 60 this year. WDIO put together this nice report: Founded in Nashwauk before moving to Hibbing, Sammy’s remains the most iconic pizza place on the Iron Range, if only because of its longevity…
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Shared Iron Range high school plan falling apart
A major effort to build a shared high school for three Iron Range school districts is on the ropes after two of the three affected community school boards backed out of the plan in separate votes last night. Virginia and Eveleth-Gilbert school boards voted to end their involvement in the co-location of a new school…
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Mesabi Daily News adds voice to broadband support
It’s always a treat when the Mesabi Daily News is this right. Saturday, Bill Hanna and the gang offered a strong endorsement of high speed internet funding, calling into question the same frustrating observations of local lawmakers’ views that I wrote about last week. The Mesabi Daily News added some good points to the discussion: And what about the…
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Husk of Nashwauk gas station finally to be razed
More than eight years after the fire that charred and closed a downtown Nashwauk gas station, city officials expect the building to be razed this Wednesday, April 30. The owner of the building has fought for those years to keep the city from doing so, but never presented a plan or funds to repair the…
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Joining the Star Tribune blog team
Today, I’ll be joining the state’s largest newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as a blogger. I’ll be posting on the Strib’s “Your Voices” blog once or twice a week with some of my greatest hits from here at MinnesotaBrown and occasional original pieces written for a statewide audience. I’ll have a standing blog page called the…
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Antlers for fighting; ain’t easy being a baby bird
I live in a forest. Growing up just outside the red-stained cities of the Iron Range I never considered that I’d one day live even further away from stoplights and pizza delivery than I already did. But here I am in the woods of Itasca County. The deer stroll by out front, more like neighbors…
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You don’t play trees like that
“You don’t play trees like that” is part of my 2014 winter/spring sanity project. I will post original cartoons about modern life in northern Minnesota every Friday until the snow melts. Related posts: No related posts.
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BREAKING: Congressman to live-tweet UPS ride-along
Fresh across the wires, U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) will be live-tweeting a ride-along with a UPS driver in Duluth, Minnesota, this morning. How could you not check in on this? His campaign indicates that Nolan paid for his college education working as a UPS driver back in the day. UPDATE: Oh, this is happening.…
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Northern Minnesota’s 3rd snowiest winter on record
With last night’s snow, Duluth, Minnesota, has now posted its third-snowiest winter on record. Several media outlets are reporting the news. While we didn’t break the records for “overall” cold, we also broke the record for number of consecutive days below zero back in January and February. Related posts: No related posts.
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Nolan calls for U.S., Iron Range steel in pipelines
U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan (D-MN8) is calling for steel used in the construction of proposed transnational oil and gas pipelines to be made in America, with American iron ore. Nolan discussed his proposed bill with the Mesabi Daily News yesterday in an interview published today. We don’t know the political status of the bill, but…
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Range lawmakers cool to broadband bill
As Katie G. Nelson reports for the Mesabi Daily News, Hibbing Tribune and Grand Rapids Herald-Review, Iron Range lawmakers are taking a decidedly unenthusiastic stance on a bill that would fund new broadband infrastructure in Minnesota. On one hand, there is acknowledgement that $25 million is not enough to extend broadband to unserved regions of…
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ABC’s Elizabeth Vargas visits Range for arson story
Though I failed to say anything about it when it was happening, the talk of the Iron Range some time ago was the Babbitt fire chief who was caught setting fires. I didn’t say anything because it was kind of a sad story (the guy has some problems), not one befitting of my normal snark…