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MinnesotaBrown wakes up from California Dream
It’s been quiet the last few days here at MinnesotaBrown. It’s not that there isn’t anything to write about. Election 2018. Steelworker negotiations. The continuing saga of Northern Minnesota’s rough water landing in the future. But I had the opportunity to travel to San Francisco last weekend to conduct an interview for my book project…
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Mapping new world, new climate
We learn in history class about the search for the fabled Northwest Passage. This coveted sea route between the East Indies and Europe promised untold riches to explorers and traders of the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries. They searched the Great Lakes, cut inland through Lake Vermilion, forging West. Always these aquatic prospectors crashed headlong…
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Lake Superior generates cold wind, clean beer
Duluth brags about its local beer. Maybe too much. But brewers and scientists alike suggest that Lake Superior water really does aid the process of beermaking. Dan Kraker recently filed a story on this topic for Minnesota Public Radio. He talks to several local brewers who swear by the pure water available to them in…
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LIVE: First major debate in Minnesota’s 8th District
This morning the three candidates in Minnesota’s Eighth Congressional District face off in their first major debate. Democrat Joe Radinovich, Republican Pete Stauber and independent Ray “Skip” Sandman will talk issues. This brings welcome relief from a campaign marked by negative ads and low name identification. At 10 a.m., the Duluth Chamber of Commerce and…
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Crowd questions Mesabi Metallics in tense meeting
Hundreds packed the Nashwauk Township Community Center Monday night to ask questions of Gov. Mark Dayton, state officials and the CEO of Mesabi Metallics. The governor called the town hall meeting after months of local criticism. A proposal to build a new mine on the site of the long defunct Butler Taconite site once carried…
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DNR confirms Zebra mussels in Pokegama Lake chain
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources confirmed Monday it found invasive zebra mussels in the Blandin Reservoir along the Mississippi River near Grand Rapids. That means that several waters connected to the reservoir now enter the infested waters designation. They include: Lake Pokegama Jay Gould Lake Little Jay Gould Lake the Mississippi River from Lake…
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Iconic ship slips past Duluth bridge
The retired iron ore ship William A. Irvin has been docked near Canal Park in downtown Duluth so long that it’s become part of the permanent landscape. Perhaps that’s why so many people stayed up practically overnight Friday into Saturday morning to see the immobilized ship move once again. This YouTube video by photographer Dennis…
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Real hope for rural broadband on the Iron Range
Growing up I always lived just outside the towns of the Iron Range. Back roads. Cracked pavement and dirt roads. My family ran small businesses. Some lasted a while. Some not so much. Such is the nature of small business. The ‘80s were bad. They were for a lot of people. School changed my life.…
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Governor, Mesabi Metallics to hold Nashwauk forum
On a sunny July day in 2016, Gov. Mark Dayton and a gaggle of mining officials took questions inside the Nashwauk Township Community Center about the former Butler Taconite plant just a few miles down the road. Now, just over two years later, Dayton will hold a similar event, only this production boasts a whole…
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Great Northern Radio Show at Hibbing HS auditorium
I’m spinning headlong into an intense couple of months of work projects. I’m teaching full time and continue working on my book. Now I have something new to announce: An exciting Nov. 17 Great Northern Radio Show broadcast at the Hibbing High School auditorium. We’ve played Hibbing a couple times, but never this ornate 1,800-seat…
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Some questions matter more in mining debate
I follow sports. I like to watch baseball and football in particular. Some of my friends are far more into sports than I am. Others don’t care about sports at all. For the first group, I sometimes fall disappointingly short in conversation. I just can’t recall the same statistics and analysis to explain why the…
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Cliffs vows ore for Hibbing Taconite, plans for Nashwauk
Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves still wants to mine iron ore near Nashwauk. He vows that Hibbing Taconite will always have enough ore from his company, if they need it. Further he says Northshore Mining continues to make progress with direct-reduced iron products. Finally, he predicts smooth contract negotiations between his company and the United Steelworkers.…
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Trade war rattles even sturdiest American trucks
Understanding trade policy can be overwhelming. Tariffs. Trade deficits. NAFTA. Currency wars. But pickup trucks offer explicit clarity on how trade policy hits people where they live. Take the popular Ford F-150. It’s the top selling truck in America. You can find a F-150 in almost any parking lot on Minnesota’s Iron Range. This is…
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Essar rejoins Nashwauk project; ArcelorMittal looms large
The complex tale of an incomplete iron ore mine on the western Mesabi Iron Range took several new turns this week. Each twist reinforces a central truth. Distant, powerful corporate forces act on impulses far removed from Northern Minnesota’s hopes and dreams. Mesabi Metallics still holds state mining leases on land outside Nashwauk. This was…
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Minnesota’s Iron Range region can feed itself
Minnesota’s Iron Range region is known for mining. But that’s only one of the resources provided in the Dakota legend of the Big Man Hills, or Sleeping Giant. Another has provided food far longer: the soil beneath our feet. Minnesota’s three major iron ranges hold a bad reputation for farming, due to the high iron…