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Our world needs resilience, from climate to everything else
Climate change is real. This upsets some people because they know and are worried. It disturbs those whose politics prevents this acknowledgment, too. But the data is clear. It’s happening. Considerable effort has been expended to create a strange dynamic of denial, which only exists in nations with powerful oil interests. But I can observe…
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Duluth shipping trends hint at economic challenges and opportunities
The Port of Duluth is a remarkable part of our lives in northern Minnesota. The people who settled here over the centuries hold many different cultural traditions, but they all share a connection to the far western terminus of the Great Lakes. Those lakes are the aorta of the continent. As much as I geek…
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Talking ‘sauna diplomacy’ with the Finnish ambassador
This week I interviewed the Finnish ambassador to the United States, Leena-Kaisa Mikkola. She’s speaking at FinnFest in Duluth this weekend. The soft-focus nostalgia of the Finnish-American experience on the Iron Range tends to dominate a lot of my history conversations. So, in today’s column, I was glad to explore something less theoretical: Finland today. …
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Preorder ‘On an Inland Sea’ from Belt Publishing
We must never lose our amazement over the fact that Duluth, Minnesota, is an international port. Dead center of the continent, thousands of miles from any saltwater, and we see ships roll in from Europe, Africa and beyond. Northern Minnesota may not touch the ocean, but we have always lived along the inland seas of…
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The ‘shrooms and smelt shall set us free
It’s hard to find peace in a culture war. It’s designed not only to divide us, but to perpetually push us apart like two north magnets. Today, I write that it takes something common to bring us together. In Minnesota we have the woods, the water, and each other. Last weekend, I picked mushrooms in…
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How much capital is the public good worth?
My latest column for the Minnesota Star Tribune is out now. It pertains to one of the most important companies in the Northland: Minnesota Power. I never claimed to be an economist or an MBA. But I’ve listened to a lot of people of that description over the years and have come to the conclusion…
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Local Cold War connections remind that some wars never end
When the red flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics first snapped in the cold wind above St. Petersburg, Russia, the world changed. Though some 7,000 miles away from the Iron Range, this event altered life here more than most American towns. First of all, the Iron Range was, in 1917, a land of…
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100 years later, still waiting on the Prince of Wales
With rain pouring from gray autumn skies, about 10,000 men, women and children swarmed the Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha rail depot on West Fifth Avenue in Duluth. The unexpectedly massive crowd spilled across the tracks to greet the Prince of Wales. It was Sunday, Oct. 12, 1924 — 100 years ago today. Anticipation…
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How to cover politics in northern Minnesota, and other quandaries
One of my life’s most interesting relationships has been with the word, “journalism.” I’ve always considered myself a journalist, even after leaving daily newspapers 21 years ago. But the nature of that relationship changed with time and trends. In college during the late 1990s, our journalism professor bemoaned “citizen journalism,” a reference to the idea…
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Talking Biden, bridges, Duluth, flags and fame
I was on WCCO Radio early Monday morning talking about a host of northern Minnesota issues. President Biden was in town last Thursday touting more than $1 billion in funding to replace the Blatnik Bridge connecting Duluth and Superior. So was actor Timothée Chalamet, who visited Duluth and Hibbing to research Bob Dylan for an…
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The old roads still taken
Travelers from Duluth to the Iron Range learn the rhythm of concrete on Highway 53. Staccato thumps mark time and distance between homes and cabins, town and country, and the consequential journey of small town patients to Duluth’s big hospitals. I’ve known this road all my life, and yet it is only one version of…
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Northeastern Minnesota seat shuffle shows how it is when nobody knows your name
My latest column for the Minnesota Reformer is up today. Entitled “Shifting lines and changing times on the big lake they call Gitchi Gummi,” this piece explores redistricting outcomes here in northern Minnesota. Specifically I take a look at the expanding geography and unique political culture of the Eighth Congressional District. For instance, this observation:…
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Love, hate, and a year of Bob Dylan
EDITOR’S NOTE: I wrote another piece about Dylan’s 80th Birthday for the Minnesota Reformer a few days ago. That piece was designed for a broader audience, while I aimed this one at a more local readership for the Mesabi Tribune. It was a surprisingly fun exercise to approach the same subject with a different goal…
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To think or not to think
For all its horrors, the pandemic allowed many Americans to finally experience what teachers do for a living. It’s certainly useful for parents to know that teachers aren’t just babysitters. Rather, the work teachers do at all levels remains complex and important. However, the pandemic has also taught us where modern society falls short when…
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Iron Range becomes ‘living political meme’ in 2020 race
As I’ve written already, the Iron Range finds itself at the center of the 2020 campaign these days. This happened mostly because of the attention being paid to us by President Trump. But does Trump really have all the answers for the Range or is this just part of a symbolic gambit in his “turn…