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Campaign season means signs are all around us
Someone just posted a campaign sign down the road. Well, there goes the neighborhood. This sentiment now spreads across Northern Minnesota’s tumultuous political environment. A political cycle defined by white hot rage now enters a new phase: paranoia that the other side is messing with your signs. I’ve worked in journalism and I’ve managed political…
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Cliffs wins Nashwauk land case, deals blow to Mesabi Metallics
To paraphrase “The Simpsons” Episode #222: Everything’s coming up Lourenco Goncalves. It’s been a very good week for Goncalves and Cleveland-Cliffs. The company declared strong earnings. Netting $165 million in the second quarter, Cliffs is selling iron ore pellets at $112 per ton. That’s a dramatic increase from the doldrums of 2015 and 2016. Industry…
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Good money versus bad money in Range development
It’s been dizzying to follow developments in the Mesabi Metallics iron ore project near Nashwauk this week. Last week we learned that billionaire Tom Clarke and his Chippewa Capital Partners won back state mineral leases for the former Butler Taconite property. But that came with the news that Clarke’s other company ERP Iron Ore, which…
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Another chance for western Mesabi mine
Billionaire Tom Clarke and his Chippewa Capital Partners will have a chance to finish the $2 billion Mesabi Metallics iron mine and pig iron plant at the former Butler Taconite plant in Nashwauk. On Wednesday, Gov. Mark Dayton announced that the state will restore mineral leases withheld from the project after the bankruptcy of its…
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Build steel bridges, not steel cages
We’ve outlived our immigrant ancestors. Imprints of hungrier times remain etched on our communities, but they are easy to ignore. The fight for workplace safety and fair pay. The demand for free public education. The streets and amenities built to last beyond the mines on the edge of town. The shared humanity of the many…
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History echoes through Iron Range politics
In 1887, the Merritt Brothers and a crew led by Capt. J.A. Nichols discovered rich hematite ore under 14 feet of mud near the future townsite of Mountain Iron. After three years of wading through stinking mosquito swamps, alternating with hellish winter conditions, these men turned hope of discovering the Mesabi Range into reality. Almost…
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Bankruptcy petition mires Iron Range mine project
Creditors filed a petition last week to force Tom Clarke’s ERP Iron Ore into Chapter 7 bankruptcy. Meanwhile, Minnesota Power shut off electricity to the former Magnetation property. Clarke told the Duluth News Tribune that ERP would pay back most creditors this week and work out a solution to the impasse with Minnesota Power. ERP…
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How position politics stymies our legislature
I’m going to explain why the Minnesota legislature ends in a flaming pile of tractor scrapings every year, but first you have to watch this vintage footage of a 1980s bicycle sprint. The first minute or so will suffice. Bicycle sprinting is a unique sport. The overall time doesn’t count. The only thing that matters…
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In Ely, canoe rides 26.2 miles on YOU
I’ve never run a marathon. Further, I’ve talked to enough runners to know that I’m a good year from being able to do so without requiring medical attention or adult diapers. And I’m fine with that. I don’t want to run a marathon. Nevertheless, I’m always intrigued by the psychology of those who do. In…
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New order unfolds in Minnesota’s 8th District
On Saturday, Republicans endorsed St. Louis County commissioner Pete Stauber for Congress in Minnesota’s Eighth District. Unlike the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party’s 10-ballot non-endorsement last month, Stauber won his blessing in a single-ballot coronation. Stauber does not expect to face a meaningful primary challenge. His DFL opponents, on the other hand, face a potentially bruising four-candidate contest…
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Empire Mine backers pitch future project to Cliffs
Workers and local leaders in Northern Michigan want Cleveland-Cliffs to locate its next value-added iron plant in the U.P. rather than here on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range. A community group in Marquette began organizing efforts to woo the mining company to its historic home in Michigan. This brings another twist to the ongoing saga over what…
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Busting trusts in the 21st Century
When Hibbing mayor Victor Power took the stage at a Minneapolis Labor Day rally in 1915, he lambasted the powerful steel trust for its abuses of working people. Every person in the sprawling crowd knew he was talking about U.S. Steel. Then the world’s largest corporation, the massive reach of U.S. Steel controlled the wages…
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A billion reasons why PolyMet debate misses the point
“Look here, now!” the North-Going Zax said, “I say! You are blocking my path. You are right in my way. I’m a North-Going Zax and I always go north. Get out of my way, now, and let me go forth!” “Who’s in whose way?” snapped the South-Going Zax. “I always go south, making south-going tracks.…
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Ulysses S. Grant: the forgotten emancipator
My great-great-great grandfather Peter Crist lost an eye fighting for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in the Army of the Potomac. Crist would stand just a few miles from the Appomattox Courthouse when Robert E. Lee surrendered to Grant, ending the U.S. Civil War. After the surrender, my maternal ancestor would guard the White House on…
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When crisis meets crisis, opportunity becomes clearer
Sometimes it gets hard to keep track of all the crises. At the state level or even regionally here in Northern Minnesota, we’ve got plenty of worries to choose from. Any one of them could keep us thrashing in bed all night. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Let’s review. Employment Crisis “Double…