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Sports Ball Food for Humans
It’s Football Sunday in America. By now you should be making final arrangements for the perfect Super Bowl party, including cold beverages and delicious appetizers. But what if all this slipped your mind? What if you don’t follow football? What if you don’t have friends? What if you don’t eat food? What if, just maybe,…
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Area chickens unsuccessful
Late last year, northern Minnesota’s internet elite united for one purpose: get a free Super Bowl ad for a local chicken farm. We voted and voted and voted in the online poll put on by Intuit, who was springing to buy the expensive ad for a small business that uses its software. Our northern Minnesota…
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Nation’s cold spot celebrates Laskiainen sliding festival
Northern Minnesota has drawn national headlines all month for its subzero Martian cold and hip hotspot catering cross-promotion. This weekend it will be the site of a beloved northern Minnesota Iron Range tradition: The Laskiainen Finnish sliding festival in Palo. Laskiainen is a midwinter custom that came over with the Finnish immigrants who were among…
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Chisholm musher wins Beargrease Sled Dog race
Nathan Schroeder, an Iron Range musher from Chisholm, Minnesota, won the 2014 Beargrease Sled Dog race today, crossing the finish line early this afternoon in Duluth. This is the second straight year Schroeder has won the Beargrease Sled Dog race, which is a qualifier for the most famous sled dog race in America, the Iditarod…
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Warm up with this picture of a jet truck
When you’re on media mailing lists it’s sometimes fun to see the combinations of things that arrive any given day. For instance, Monday I got a press release from Gov. Mark Dayton’s office about emergency assistance for those who can’t afford heat amid the ongoing propane price surge. Then, later, I got this press release…
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Stewart Mills reports fundraising haul in MN-8
Stewart Mills, the Republican challenger in Minnesota’s 8th Congressional District, announced yesterday he raised $205,000 in the fourth quarter of 2013, bringing his totals from last year to about $450,000. That’s a respectable haul for a first time candidate, indicating that Mills will at least be able to afford a competitive challenge if circumstances allow.…
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PolyMet EIS forum LIVE on MinnesotaBrown, via Uptake
The final PolyMet EIS forum will take place this evening at the RiverCentre in St. Paul, Minnesota. This is the last of three forums exploring the Environmental Impact Statement released late last year by several regulating agencies as they determine whether to grant mining permits. As most know, PolyMet has proposed a new nonferrous mineral…
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Minnesota Super Bowl bid seeks big game in 2018
This morning Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton announced his state’s bid to lure the 2018 Super Bowl to Minneapolis, after the inaugural season of the Vikings new yet-to-be-unnamed stadium. You can read all about the Minnesota Super Bowl bid at the bottom of this post. MPR’s Tim Nelson also has a story. I’m not the first…
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Eveleth-Gilbert joins shared Iron Range school talks
After a meeting last Thursday, Eveleth-Gilbert schools have agreed to join districts in Virginia and Mountain Iron-Buhl in talking about a shared Iron Range school on the east central Mesabi Iron Range. We discussed the Virginia/MI-B cooperation concept last week. The first public hearing on this shared high school issue will take place tomorrow night…
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School’s out for winter … school’s out forever?
Schools across Minnesota cancelled classes today amid blizzard conditions and severe wind chills. Here on northern Minnesota’s Iron Range we didn’t get much snow, but wind chill readings approaching -60 degrees (F) were enough to force most public schools to close for the day. We’ve now reached a point in late January where most public…
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PolyMet hearings highlight our misdirected passion
The purpose of the meeting was to parse the language of a 2,000-page tome of geology, hydrology, chemistry and economics. That’s a tough sell. Even offered free donuts, average humans would duck a meeting of that description. But this particular meeting on Jan. 16, 2014 — first of three hearings for the PolyMet Mining environmental…
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Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon woofs back to life
The 2014 John Beargrease Sled Dog Marathon starts Sunday in Duluth, Minnesota, kicking off a grueling test of endurance for dogs and people alike. The race runs 384 miles and is expected to wrap up sometime on Wednesday, Jan. 29. This year you can follow the mushers and their teams using GPS, a first for…
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REPORT: Another possible PolyMet EIS delay
Marshall Helmberger reported in the Timberjay this week and on Northern Community Radio this morning that hydrologists have discovered an error in part of the PolyMet EIS (Environmental Impact Study) (link: subscription only until next week). The Star Tribune also picked up on the story. The error causes some serious flaws in the projection model used to assess most…
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Virginia and Mt. Iron-Buhl mull combined high school
Two school districts on the east central Mesabi Iron Range are considering a landmark deal to build a shared high school. School officials in Virginia and Mt. Iron-Buhl are planning two public hearings on the idea next week. The first is Tuesday, Jan. 28, at Parkview in Virginia at 6 p.m.; the second is Wednesday, Jan.…
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Team Norway curling uniforms set blasters on stun
All month I’ve been talking about the underdog U.S. Curling team with northern Minnesota roots in advance of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia. Well, if those guys are the scrappy underdogs, we now have a picture of one of their elite adversaries. Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Ulsrud Rink, aka Team Norway. Team…