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Summer 2018 brings color to Range communities
I drive through Nashwauk, Minnesota, most days. It’s a nice little town, but a little worn down. That’s not unusual for the cities of the western Mesabi Iron Range. These boom towns bloomed in a white pine wilderness a century ago, each at the mouth of a specific iron mine. Now that mining is more…
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Iron Range downtown revitalization projects on tap
You can’t legislate beauty. But you can clean a place up and take some pride in your community. You can also deploy public art as a way to change attitudes and outlooks. That’s the logic behind a small but growing movement to revitalize Mesabi Iron Range communities. The IRRRB announced their 2018 Downtown and Business…
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The horrible, solvable problem of hunger
A mother flees an abusive husband with her four children. She hasn’t worked in a long time and her parents live out of state. She’s leaving the shelter soon, but isn’t on her feet yet. An retired contractor wracked with a bad back can’t pick up jobs anymore. He is alone. One day he finds…
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Shuster Rink wins historic men’s curling gold for U.S.
Redemption makes the best stories. The hardest thing in life is to be knocked down and come back better than before. It doesn’t matter if it’s navigating relationships, recovering from injury, overcoming failure, or sliding a 40-pound stone across the ice. The U.S. Men’s Curling team, led by Chisholm native John Shuster, won the gold…
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Curling team with Northern MN ties vies for Olympic medal
Bad luck? A curse? Whatever you want to call it, U.S. men’s curling team skip John Shuster struggled in his last two Olympics. As part of America’s first medal-winning curling team — a bronze in 2006 — Shuster led the last two teams to ignoble collapses in 2010 and 2014. Until now. After a poor…
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Resiliency: the skill we all need to survive
Every living thing around us knows resilience. The snow-speckled maple out our window went dormant for the long cold winter, ready to release sap and resume life come spring. The chickadee stands on thin, nearly bloodless legs, all so these spritely little birds may flit among the branches no matter how cold the air. The…
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Mesabi Iron Range takes action on mountain bike trails
Last week brought a very busy Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board meeting. In addition to discussions of reform and school funding, the board also green-lighted the commissioner’s plan to fund three mountain bike trails on the Mesabi Iron Range. The almost $5 million grant package helps volunteer-based organizations and Giants Ridge develop three distinct…
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‘Blue-Collar Battleground’ opens at Chisholm museum
Job creation. Job training. Worker shortage. Part time work. Stagnant wages. Higher productivity. Health care. Retirement savings. These words filter through our news like water down a pipe, presenting clear evidence that the “labor history” of America is hardly finished. Rather, we’re living in the continuation of an unresolved labor movement. This Thursday, Dec. 7,…
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Young Range professionals seek to ‘Be the Change’
The Iron Range young professionals organization ReGen will launch a month of “Be the Change” events in October. The kickoff is Thursday, Oct. 5 at the Minnesota Discovery Center in Chisholm. That program features the Theater of Public Policy, a comedy act that blends good natured local and Minnesota political humor. Here’s how ReGen describes…
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Moving mountains for an Iron Range future
Soon the Hull Rust Mine View in historic North Hibbing will be closed for good, set to reopen next year at a new location to the east. Shortly thereafter Hibbing Taconite will blow to bits the very mountain of taconite on which the viewing stand sits to send the iron ore on its way to…
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No place like our place
Regular readers know that I push for economic diversification and independence on the Mesabi Iron Range. For too long we on the Mesabi have allowed our lives to be defined by outside forces. The most obvious external influences are mining companies. They’re the reason our towns exist but also the reason we live in a…
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Nourishing new roots on the Iron Range
I found myself pacing through an Iron Range cemetery the other day, looking for a particular stiff. On my grim patrol I realized that the graveyard was laid out according to national origin. Eastern Europeans and Italians, Swedes and Norwegians, Germans and Irish could all be found in separate sections, at least until the 1940s…
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Survey to spur high speed internet across Iron Range
I have fiber optic internet service direct to my home in rural Itasca County. Why? Enough of my neighbors filled out a survey and kept pressure on local leaders to get our area added to broadband expansion projects by Paul Bunyan Communication. Residents of the east central Iron Range will now have the same opportunity.…
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Iron Range hope more vital than nostalgia
On the Mesabi Iron Range, our society rests upon the achievements of this region’s fading youth. We speak of our ancestors’ hungry demand for better working conditions and pay. We memorialize their desire to build schools and small towns to elevate humans from the morass. Yes, we call this history and print it on our…
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Reina del Cid headlines July 6 concert in Chisholm
The Minnesota Discovery Center summer concert series continues Thursday, July 6, at 6 p.m. with Minneapolis-based singer/songwriter Reina del Cid and her band. This is one of my favorite Minnesota music acts. They’ve been on my Great Northern Radio Show twice, always a hit with the audience. Reina del Cid sings with a light, playful…