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Trampled by Turtles (@tbtduluth), Actual Wolf (@actualwolf) at Reif Center tonight
Tonight, Christina and I will be attending the Trampled by Turtles concert at the Reif Center in Grand Rapids. The Turtles are making their 10th anniversary tour around Minnesota, hitting venues where they got their start. Grand Rapids is the hometown of bassist Tim Saxhaug. Opening for TBT is Actual Wolf, whose frontman Eric Pollard…
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Haunting Lynx showdown deserves your internet attention
A Tofte, Minnesota, couple took some video of two lynx facing off on a rural road. Seeing a lynx (a woodland feline predator) is a rare treat in itself. Seeing two of them yowl at each other, well, really you should treat yourself and spend some time with this: (h/t Duluth News Tribune) Related posts:…
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Duluth adds ‘cool train’ to milieu of arriving transportation antiquities
Milwaukee Road 261 This Saturday at about 3 p.m. the Milwaukee Road 261 stream engine will pull into Duluth with about 500 passengers and a heaping load of history. The Duluth News-Tribune reports that the train’s appearance for “National Train Day” might well be regarded by railroad enthusiasts with the same fervor as this summer’s…
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The rise and fall and (?) of regions like ours
This Willie Davis article at The Daily Yonder is must-read if you follow my coverage of the rural industrial corridor of Minnesota’s Iron Range. Davis looks to Kentucky’s coal mining country and its efforts to find economic and cultural footing amid the decline of coal mining. It begins like this: Not long ago, there was…
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Great opportunity, major test for Iron Range schools
This is my Sunday column for the May 5, 2013 edition of the Hibbing Daily Tribune. Great opportunity, major test for Iron Range schoolsBy Aaron J. Brown At a glance, there’s nothing special about the Iron Range. Old houses built for workers. Streets stained red from the ore that brought the town to life, and…
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Rethinking the water debate in northern MN
The most serious environmental issue in northern Minnesota’s nonferrous mining debate is water. (And yes, the environment is not the only part of that story). Though opinions on how projects like PolyMet or Twin Metals will affect the ground water of northern Minnesota vary at this time, you can’t ignore the fact that one of…
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Major layoff announced at International Falls paper mill
Boise Cascade is laying off 265 workers, about a third of its workforce, at its paper mill in International Falls, Minnesota. Boise will close two lines to focus on more successful products before the end of the year, according to this story at WDIO. International Falls is a paper town and this will have a…
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Unfortunate sign malfunction implies Unitarian damnation
Two weeks ago, the highway sign for the Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Unitarian Universalist Chapel on Highway 169 broke. Two weeks later, this is still what passing motorists see. Apparently MNDOT’s sign department has been infiltrated by hard-line Baptists. And the Unitarians are too nice to say anything. A divine statement? Well, I suppose we just…
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The Summer of ’16: ‘We’ve been robbed long enough’
An August 19, 1916 editorial cartoon in “Solidarity” entitled “Someone Has Got to Get Out of the Way.” By far my favorite piece of Iron Range historical art. Hey, it’s May Day! I wrote earlier about the Mesabi Range Strike of 1907. I referenced, but did not explain the larger strike that came later in…
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The Mesabi Iron Range Strike of 1907
For Twin Cities readers you may wish to catch the documentary “The Mesabi Iron Range Strike of 1907” tonight at 7:30 on KFAI. Produced by Britt Aamodt, this piece explores the seminal moment that workers organized in the mines of the Iron Range. Unsuccessful, the first great strike of the Iron Range led to the…
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#springmapmadness pushes me over electoral threshold
Massachusetts, Delaware and South Dakota BREAKING: At 10:48 a.m. on Tuesday, April 30, 2013, the United States Postal Service delivered to me the state maps of Kansas and Connecticut, bringing my collected total to 281 electoral votes and the Presidency of the United States.* My Spring Map Madness campaign continues. Follow me on Twitter or…
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Hibbing, Duluth team up to honor famous son Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan’s northern Minnesota heritage is in no doubt, but invariably there are squabbles over who really gets to claim Dylan. He was born in Duluth, where he lived until he was six. The family then moved to his mother’s Iron Range hometown of Hibbing where he was raised and graduated high school. So technically,…
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Obama to name Charlotte mayor to transportation, not Oberstar
President Obama is expected to announce Charlotte, N.C., mayor Anthony Foxx to be the next Secretary of Transportation, according to the Charlotte Observer. Obama was considering several names, among them former U.S. Rep and House Transportation Chair Jim Oberstar (D-MN), a longtime northern Minnesota political figure and national transportation expert. Oberstar was considered a long…
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Duluth’s Homegrown Music Festival opens today
Today brings the start of the Duluth Homegrown Music Festival, a week-long music extravaganza displaying the deep and growing music scene of northern Minnesota. Tomorrow night brings Trampled by Turtles, but really, you can find great music every night and day. If I were the kind of person who went to things, this is the…
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Paul Metsa to headline Range show May 3
Musician Paul Metsa, a singer and songwriter originally from Virginia, Minnesota, on the Iron Range, will perform Friday, May 3rd at The Loft @ Lyric Center for the Arts on Chestnut Street. The opening act is the The Hutter Bunch beginning at 6:30 p.m. Tickets are $10 at the door. The press release: Paul Metsa,…