A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news
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Moving beyond high school to a lifetime of work is not easy. In high school, most things are dished up for you. You have some choice over subjects you study. You may have worked part-time, and you chose which extracurricular activities you engaged in. But whether you go on to college or enter the workforce directly, you face daunting choices and tradeoffs. If you go to college, what will you specialize in and how much debt are you willing to take on? If you go directly into the workforce, what...
In late May, Emily Swanson of Carlton’s Oldenburg House and I journeyed to Jackson, Miss., for a week of deep and lively conversations on how arts and culture transform our communities. Hundreds joined the two back-to-back conferences. One convened a decade’s worth of ArtPlace America’s grantees and admirers. The second, the Rural Summit, pulled together rural development folks from across the country. We competed to win workshop slots pondering how arts home-comers or newcomers, like us, can u...
In the years I lived in cities, I was rarely invited to a high school graduation party. Now living fulltime in Cromwell, friends and neighbors are making up for that. After Cromwell-Wright's graduation on Friday, May 24, the parties commenced. Some parents rented spaces like our Cromwell Pavilion or the Sno-Gophers Club. Others gussied up their garages, homes and lawns for festivities. Always, the parties offer scrumptious food, from the very healthy - such as blueberries, yogurt, carrots, and...
This past fall, cross-country skiers performing trail maintenance in Carlton County's Fond du Lac State Forest came upon a mess. Loggers earlier in the year had obliterated our sturdy ski trail marker. A tenth of a mile of trash wood smothered our trail. We asked the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources forestry office in Cloquet to require the logging company to remove the trash wood. We were told the contract was closed. It took several of us on two daylong trips to restore a makeshift...
Teaching K-12 art is a continually creative act. You must imagine projects for kids of various ages, acquire materials on a tight budget, and help as many as 30 kids per classroom fashion distinctive artworks. For Kris Nelson, the newest featured artist at the Pine Knot gallery, a classroom project morphed into a second career. After completing her art degree at the University of Minnesota, Nelson taught in Robbinsdale and Forest Lake schools, then Carlton, followed by 21 years at Wrenshall. A...
"April is the cruelest month," T. S. Elliot penned in his masterpiece, "Four Quartets." When I moved back to Minnesota in 1999, my brother warned me that November, March and April were the worst for outdoors lovers. But I've found my consolations: ice skating and trail clearing in November and spring cross-country skiing in March and April. April is the month that great birding commences. Northwestern Carlton County hosts wonderful viewing sites during April waterfowl and May warbler and...
In this, the second Cash Blackbear mystery, Marcie Rendon serves up her Native woman protagonist's experiences as an older student in a largely white college. In probing the sudden disappearance of a woman student, she introduces us to the seamier side of recruitment into prostitution. This story, like her first, "Murder on the Red River," unfolds from within the farm fields of northwestern Minnesota and North Dakota, where Cash earns her income by driving sugar beets to the processing plant....
It's not that easy to learn another language when you are well past your schooling. For five years, I've watched my husband, Rod Walli, learn Finnish, his parents' first language. Motivated by the desire to speak with non-English-speaking cousins of his generation in Finland, he plunged into every route he could find. Down the road from us, at our Villa Vista-Cardinal Court for elders, he convened a Finnish language table, learning from those who had spoken it as children at home. More...
The Pine Knot is delighted to be exhibiting Dr. Lloyd Backus' watercolors in our downtown Cloquet gallery through April. I recently sat down with Lloyd, surrounded by his paintings. Lloyd was family physician for my Uncle Sidney, Aunt Laurel and cousins Martha, RuthAnn, Jana and David Markusen, helping them through births and a series of health challenges. The retired doctor has lived a fascinating life so far. Backus was born in China. His father was a medical missionary, working on behalf of...
It's been many years since I've been surrounded by students in their daytime setting, the high school. And I've only sporadically accompanied singers on the piano. In high school, I'd play the national anthem and school song at assemblies. But that was low-level compared to supporting soloists - nine of them - at the annual Minnesota State High School League Music Contest held earlier this month at the University of Minnesota Duluth. It was a challenging role. Any mistake will be obvious both...
Early this year, we had problematic elections in State Senate District 11. In Carlton County alone, 400 voters’ ballots mailed to the courthouse were not received by the primary election deadline. And more than 100 mail and absentee ballots arrived too late for the Feb. 5 general election. These special elections were required because Governor Walz appointed the district’s senator, Tony Lourey, as Minnesota’s Commissioner of Human Services. Our election officials — auditor Paul Gassert in the...
Claims that Central American refugees are coming northward seeking jobs, not sanctuary, are misleading. Those refugees face political, economic, religious, and criminal terror that drives them, mostly women and children, to walk thousands of miles to apply for asylum in the United States. They, too, are making, an arduous journey, looking for a life to rebuild in a safe, free environment. They, too, never wanted to leave their homes but were given little choice. Like Eastern European Jews, many...
Here’s a predicament that touches most of us at one time or another: What happens when you’re too sick to go to work? Or a family member is so sick that they need your care? Among industrialized nations, only the U.S., Canada and Japan do not mandate universal access to paid sick leave. Some employers in these countries voluntarily offer it as a fringe benefit. In the U.S., according to economists’ studies, about 65 percent of employers provide it voluntarily to full-time workers. But less than...
The abrupt death of my husband’s brother, Milt Walli, left both of us and our extended families wet-eyed for much of the week. Milt’s son Michael found him on Wednesday morning, dead on the basement floor, most likely from a misstep and bad fall. Fielding Michael’s call, Rod went immediately to the South Finn Road family farm where Milt lived alone. He helped Michael through the visit of the coroner, placing Milt in a body bag for an autopsy, and calling his brother, sisters and the rest of hi...
The café in Wright had survived several rounds of ownership, most recently as Minetties Diner. It remained for years the only restaurant in Wright, a gathering place for weekly coffee groups, thousands of games of cribbage, snowmobilers, summer visitors, and folks who'd prefer to not cook dinner. Last week, it burned to the ground. Delivering our latest issue of Pine Knot News to Minetties on Thursday, Jan. 31, driver Joe Waldorf was astonished and sent a phone photo to the editor. It happened...
To be a can-do attitude and solid people skills. Cromwell’s Mayor, Sharon Zelazny, has risen to the challenge, and she loves her job and her staff. Sharon and her husband Bill built a house on Cromwell Lake as their retirement dream home. In the fall of 2016 she made a last-minute decision to run for Cromwell mayor. Her husband and then city clerk LuAnn Freiermuth encouraged her. She won handily, and two years later was enthusiastically re-elected. Cromwell, with a small spatial footprint, is a...
Last week, at Augsburg College, six exceptional Native women artists spoke about their work. Moderator Ananya Chatterjee, University of Minnesota dance professor, posed questions, the audience also. Here are some powerful takeaways. Ananya first asked what the global women's movement could learn through a centering of Native feminist values. Rosy Simas, Seneca dance artist, responded: "We are matrilineal. I've always wished for more focus on giving voice to women in our community." Rhiana...
Starting this week, the Cloquet Public Library is offering its Winter Reading Program to encourage people of all ages to read. Librarians have been asking area leaders to recommend five books for their “Leaders are Readers” promotion on Facebook. As a Pine Knot Board member, I am contributing my five choices, and I’m adding in here my husband’s current reading as well! The books I’m recommending span the genres. Some are vintage and some quite recent. I’m currently reading and loving Mich...
I’m flying back from New York on New Year’s Day. Two years ago, I was prepping for a trip to D.C. to join the Women’s March. How discouraged and angry many of us were that a majority vote for the first and highly qualified woman president fell to the flaws in our mostly excellent democratic system! After two years of suffering endless blows and embarrassments perpetrated by our newly elected president, I’m hopeful again. Did I say this is an opinion column? Yes, it is. I’ve always valued de...
The days shorten. The clouds deliver snow, ice, rain. On some mornings, Venus shines in the dawn sky. On other mornings, she hides. We spend more time indoors: in schools, churches, homes or community centers. And often, the kitchens, halls and walls are ringing with song. Singing is the only art form where your body is the instrument. Mine is aging and cranky. It demands at least 20 minutes to warm up. But it’s worth it. Many churches host choirs. It’s why musicians are more widely spread in...
Earlier this month, at the Magnolia Salon at Carlton's Oldenburg House, Annie Dugan presented challenging ideas on how art intersects with agriculture. She first showed a hilarious video of young farm kids riding various remarkable vehicles across farm fields and hillocks, and into ponds! Having fun. Dugan began with this quote from St. Francis of Assisi: "He who works with his hands is a laborer. He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman. He who works with his hands and his head...
How do community members with a "can do" attitude organize to make their town a better place? This past Sunday, the Cromwell Area Community Club gathered for its annual dinner and meeting. Of course, being a volunteer organization of high-energy people, we filled our plates with warm, homemade dishes. Lots of sausage, meatballs, beans, pickles, and hotdishes, followed by raisin pudding with caramel sauce and ice cream and more than I can recount! First, though, we talked through our agenda....
Living at this latitude, we know how to dress for winter. Layers of woolens, an exterior casing of snow pants, heavy jacket, reliable boots with ample socks, a generous hat, a scarf to wrap around the neck, and gloves with inner warmth and outer resistance to the wet. But when we're out there hunting, on the snowmobile or ski trail, or flying across the lake on ice skates, are we prepared for the worst? All kinds of setbacks are imaginable on the winter trails and lakes. Not to be alarmist, but...
Last week, I spent a day at University of Colorado’s College of Arts and Media. I’d been invited by their dean, Larry Kaptain, to present my work on artists’ careers. Since 2002, I’ve been studying artists’ careers and contributions to community, using Minnesota as my laboratory. We met informally with the college’s provost, who posed lots of intriguing questions about how an arts and media school can serve its larger community. How can they position their students for careers in a rapidly cha...
It's Halloween. I'm on my third flight to Zurich, Switzerland. What an expanse of beautiful land and water we've soared over! The fall blaze of orange, red, and chestnut leaves encircling the Duluth airport. That cantankerous Lake Superior, whose winds and moods you can guess from wave patterns below. Still reddish from the Nemadji River Basin muds brought down in weeks of rain. We flew to Minneapolis and then east through the night, crossing six time zones. Now we're headed east again from Amst...
