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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As children, we'd pile into our family car and head north from Minneapolis on Highway 65 for Cromwell to visit my grandfather. After 30 miles or so, leaving the suburbs behind, my father began to scout the roadsides. Braking firmly, to my mother and brothers' groans, he'd pull over, call for his roomy hat, and head for the roadside chokecherry tree. I chose to scramble after him. That was my introduction to berry picking. As my mother later quipped, "you've been bit by the berry bug and you'll n...
It was a balmy evening, perfect for sitting outside and listening to high-energy jazz. We'd brought our lawn chairs and positioned them near the front of the tent, to the left of the stage. We were about to be treated to marvelous live music, the first in months at Carlton's Oldenburg House. In their response to Covid-19 concerns, owners Emily Fuerste and Glenn Swanson converted their periodic jazz and dining nights to "Cookin' at the O Outdoors." We purchased delicious sandwiches at Paul's...
Tired of staying home and not hosting friends and family for meals, music evenings and overnights, my husband and I provisioned our small motorhome and set out for a week in the Northwoods. We'd never been to Voyageurs National Park, so we headed directly north, swimming every day a major goal. We stopped at McCarthy Beach State Park. A bit disappointing. The lake is shallow and was almost uncomfortably warm. It was crowded, and most people seemed content to float on puffed-up plastic and play...
Cromwell-Wright Superintendent/Principal Nathan Libbon reflected recently on his team’s response to the order to close schools and educate from afar this past spring. To me, it sounded incredibly creative, a plunging into the unknown and doing the best you can. Libbon and his team put in many extra hours and tons of creativity in delivering instruction, food, and graduation to a community of at-home students and their parents. “At first it seemed surreal,” Libbon said. “But it became real during...
“It was the second week of April,” recalled Amber Collman, a senior at Cromwell-Wright High School. They had only a couple of days to decamp and prepare for remote schooling, time that their teachers spent scrambling to adjust to remote instruction and learning. Amber was a member of the girls basketball team that had its season cut short after reaching the semifinals of the state basketball tournament. She figured then that distance learning was imminent. “That was a shock,” she recalle...
Why are African Americans so often the victims of police killings? A history of enslavement, violence-enforced exploitation and often killing labor, followed by decades of industrial exploitation and residential segregation are succinct explanations, though not enough. It’s difficult to face and accept that our country was built on enslavement and brutal field work, enforced with beatings, lynchings, imprisonment, and death. And that our nation’s economic prowess emerged from the work that ens...
For the next two months, the Pine Knot Gallery will exhibit Julia Jaakola's watercolors, with an opening and in-person (socially distanced) reception on Thursday, July 9. How did Julia become an artist? "I always had a lot of time on my hands," she said, explaining that her family moved a lot when she was growing up. "I drew pictures to pass the time. My teachers encouraged me, and I loved all the art supplies." After graduating from Cloquet High School, where she spent many hours in Dewey Johns...
I’ve been so sad since George Floyd’s murder. It’s sad and enraging. I keep wondering how it could have been different. For years, my son has been teaching me about police brutality against black Americans from his vantage point as a resident and businessperson in Brooklyn. And all the others. Philando Castile’s murder, a Minnesota black man who simply reached for his wallet when a traffic cop asked him for his driver’s license. Justine Damond, who called to report the possible assault o...
In this pandemic, artists are among the most financially vulnerable. At the last full Census count, 65 percent of writers, 57 percent of visual artists, 41 percent of musicians and singers, and 36 percent of performing artists reported being self-employed. For decades, economists' research has revealed that artists' incomes are far lower than that of other workers with comparable levels of education. Arrowhead Regional Arts Council's executive director Drew Digby reports that artists in our...
Walking south and west from home, over moraines left by the last glacier, I follow the chainsaw sound, pausing to watch a chestnut-sided warbler. Veering off trail, I find my brother Steve peeling popple and, not far beyond, my husband downing a huge one. For a third week in May, Rod, at 80 years old, is out making firewood for winter home heating and year-round saunas. "I've harvested and peeled popple since I was 10 years old," Rod says. People often ask him why he's still at it - just to...
May is a spectacular month for birding in our part of Minnesota. Not just in numbers, but variety, artistry and antics. In April, the early birds touch down for a visit on their way north: snow buntings, pine siskins and fox sparrows among them. And sandhill cranes, yellow-bellied sapsuckers, and trumpeter swans, some remaining. May welcomes the colorful warblers, ruby-throated hummingbirds, diving snipe and speed-demon swallows swooping over water for insects we cannot see. On mornings not...
Delynn Marie (Morrow) Loeb, 76, of Los Gatos, California, and formerly of Pengilly, Cloquet, and Owatonna, passed away May 18, 2020. Our merciful God was truly on her side as she passed suddenly, saving her from further descent into Alzheimer's. She joined her husband of 52 years, Don "The Boss" Loeb, just two days before his birthday. We assume that she arrived early to plan his party, which has always been her nature. Rest assured she met her savior and reunited with Don. Del was born August...
Through interviews, we’ve been learning about Carlton County’s small-business challenges with COVID-19 social distancing requirements and mandatory shutdowns of many kinds of businesses. Here’s a look back at the last decade of small business experiences in Carlton County, charting the impact of the Great Recession that resulted in many (especially small) businesses folding. I focus on food preparation jobs — especially hard-hit under COVID-19 distancing restrictions — and how this sector fared...
As increasing numbers of our neighbors are laid off or staying home with children, they find it harder to make ends meet. Nonprofits such as the Tri-Community Food Shelf are helping mightily to compensate. Year-round, on Friday afternoons from 3 to 5:30 p.m., the food shelf, serving Wright, Tamarack and Cromwell, offers boxes of food for all who come to their quarters on the northeast corner of highways 210 and 73. The organization was started by the late Art and Bea Jauss of Tamarack and...
Tracey Goranson's "Hair It Is!" is the longest-living commercial business on Cromwell's Main Street. Tracey offers haircuts, perms, color, eyebrow waxing and a tanning booth to men, women and children of all ages. She's built a loyal clientele of locals and cabin people. It's a wonderful career for Tracey, who loves working a mile from home and being her own boss. Once "stay at home" restrictions began, the Minnesota Board of Cosmetology sent Tracey updates, including the notice to close...
I set out to ask small businesses in Carlton County how they are faring under social distancing practices. I found amazing spirit, concerns, and accommodation on the part of employers, suppliers, customers, and workers. Among those deeply challenged are those working with food. It's not surprising that those engaged with growing, harvesting, processing, distributing, selling and preparing food face formidable challenges at present. Many café and restaurant owners have had to shutter their doors...
Since the coronavirus emerged, we've become acutely aware of our own social spaces - where we live, how close or far our families and neighbors are, how we move across local and regional space, the venues we visit and their features. Whether we live in dense urban, suburban, small-town or rural locales, we're learning how remarkably sociable are our day-to-day pathways. And how isolated we can feel when honoring stay-at-home and distancing strictures. On the internet, a broad and international...
Since elderly people are most vulnerable to coronavirus, their living quarters and quality of care matter greatly in protecting them from it. It's quite a challenge for the managers and staff at area nursing and assisted living complexes. In Cromwell, the Villa Vista nursing care, assisted living and apartment complex houses residents across a wide age range. Staff and administrators there are responding to the coronavirus by following emerging protocols, advice from medical professionals, and...
Hoping, dear readers, that you are finding it a kind of strange gift to be shut out of most social events and gathering holes. At first, I discovered the joys of just staying home, cleaning out the corners of our home where detritus had piled up and whittling down the pile of deferred correspondence. But, watching the birds avidly dining at our feeders, I got restless. "Why don't we get out on our snowshoes?" I suggested to my husband Rod. So far we've gone four days in a row. We started by...
Buses loaded with high schoolers disgorged their passengers and teachers in front of the Univeristy of Minnesota Duluth's Weber Music Hall. Eager and nervous, the students retrieved their instruments from trailers in tow. Youth from Carlton and St. Louis counties streamed the halls, finding practice and performance rooms. Piling coats onto desks in temporary homerooms, the students warmed up their voices, horns and woodwinds. Pianists limbered up fingers and paired off with singers in tiny and...
What a week. News of the coronavirus has altered our pathways, habits, spending and sociability. Just last Thursday evening, we were hosting visitors to The Knot Gallery, serving food and drink and trying to remember to bump elbows rather than shake hands or hug. By Tuesday, everyone was madly imagining living without K-12 schools, restaurants, bars, sports and church services. Some of us worried about food and medical supplies - would the shelves be empty? Celebrating St. Patrick's Day at a...
During March and April, The Knot gallery in the Pine Knot News office is exhibiting the work of Sue Brown Chapin. Sue employs unique watercolor techniques to give her works depth and sometimes an ethereal quality. On March 12, as part of the Carlton County spring art roundabout, you can meet Sue and enjoy a wide range of her paintings 5-8 p.m. at The Knot gallery. A talk with the artist will begin about 6 p.m. with time for questions to follow. Born and raised in Carlton, Sue learned to paint...
Our city of Cromwell, nestled along the east-west BNSF rails, has its challenges. Sandwiched between two lakes that empty west toward the Mississippi, Cromwell's water table is high, creating periodic street and park flooding. Our main street is Minnesota Highway 210, with a single four-way stop sign where north-south Highway 73 intersects. It is in need of serious traffic calming, as trucks and cars of all sizes ignore the 30-mph signs and sometimes glide through the intersection. Once a...
I enjoyed Holly Henry's Pine Knot News articles on Jan. 17 on healthful living. They were well-researched and had good tips for everything from what we eat to exercise. Here are some cooking tips to complement that eternal subject: we are what we eat. Years ago, living in Berkeley, California, I learned about new, healthful initiatives at the Berkeley Co-op and Berkeley Bowl, featuring fresh fruits and vegetables. Both supermarkets offered classes on growing your own food and cooking it. A frien...
We've just finished a heady year of two-month exhibits by Carlton County artists in our refurbished Pine Knot offices on Avenue C in Cloquet. It's been quite a whirl. Altogether, we hosted works by seven artists. We've enjoyed working with them to hang their creations, hosted receptions for each show, and written about them in our weekly newspaper. We began 2019 with Ken Hanson's marvelous three-dimensional paintings of Jay Cooke landscapes on two-dimensional canvas. We hosted Lloyd Backus'...
