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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This year's Mojakka Cook-off featured 15 varieties of soup and the largest crowd since the Carlton County Historical Society became beneficiary of the annual fundraiser at Cloquet's NorthEastern Hotel and Saloon. Attendees honored both St. Patrick's Day on Sunday, and St. Urho's Day, which was the day before. The made-in-America Finnish holiday celebrates the fictional St. Urho ridding Finland of a scourge of grasshoppers, and the NorthEastern was selling purple and green beer in honor of both h...
Some came for the entertainment, while others came to wander and shop locally. No matter why they came, thousands of people attended last weekend's Cloquet Area Home, Business and Sports Show at Black Bear Casino Resort. The annual free event expanded this year, with more booths and a wider range of businesses featuring everything from pickup trucks, pontoons and docks to seamless gutters, shoes and kitchenware. A wide range of local services and businesses filled the Otter Creek event center....
The annual meeting for residents of Thomson Township ended Tuesday with a standing ovation for clerk-treasurer Rhonda Peleski, who is retiring at the end of the month. Jason Paulson, a former township supervisor and current resident, made the motion to thank Peleski for her nearly 31 years of work for the township. "On behalf of Thomson Township citizens, I'd like to thank Rhonda Peleski for your decades of service to this community," Paulson said, requesting the motion be entered into the...
It’s been nearly nine years, but two more blocks of Eighth Street — from Prospect to Sahlman Avenue — are getting a much-needed overhaul this summer. Cloquet city councilors unanimously approved the reconstruction of the pothole-ridden street, along with replacing water, sanitary sewer and storm sewer infrastructure at a total estimated cost of $1.5 million. Construction is expected to begin in May or June and be completed in September. The majority of the costs will be paid through state aid dollars, which come with requirements that set t...
Hopes for a Cloquet girls basketball trip to state were dashed March 7, when No. 2 seed Cloquet fell to the No. 1 seed Rock Ridge, 58-41, in the Section 7AAA final. It was the second time this season the Lumberjacks played the new cooperative high school formed by joining Eveleth-Gilbert and Virginia, and the second time Cloquet lost. It was a much closer game most of the night than the final score indicated. Lumberjacks head coach Heather Young said they were prepared to face a really good...
Cloquet's Aidan Ripp is a 2024 national champion four times over, winning every Nordic ski race he competed in last week during the U.S. Collegiate Skiing Nationals championships. Held March 5-9 at Mount Van Hoevenberg in Lake Placid, New York, more than 150 Nordic skiers from colleges around the country competed in four events across five days. From the opening race, Ripp set a pace that was unmatched by anyone in the USCSA, winning the opening 7.5-kilometer skate race by over 44 seconds, and...
Three Cloquet skiers took Leap Day to a whole new level, hurling themselves off a 64-meter ski jump in Anchorage, Alaska Thursday, Feb. 29 as part of the 2024 ski jumping and Nordic combined Junior Nationals championships. Joel Linden and brothers Isaiah and Simon Langer competed in Nordic combined, a discipline which combines ski jumping and Nordic skiing. All three learned the sport through the Cloquet Ski Club, which makes its home at Pine Valley Recreation Area. Having ski jumps and such an...
She just couldn't take it anymore. Life at home was not good. "The family dynamic was not safe," said Cat, a high school senior. Her friends could see it, a few encouraged her to move out. "They could see the decline in my mental health, how I was behaving, and even my overall appearance," said the high school senior. Cat did not share any details of her home life and the Pine Knot is not using her given name in order to preserve her privacy. "I just reached a point where my mental health...
The Minnesota Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Sheldon Thompson to reverse his murder convictions and grant him a new trial. Thompson, of Cloquet and Fond du Lac, was accused and found guilty of brutally killing his pregnant girlfriend, Jackie Defoe, their unborn child, and 20-month-old Kevin Lee Shabaiash Jr. in March 2020. He was found guilty by a Carlton County jury of eight counts of murder in June 2022. Five of the eight counts were first-degree murder charges, which came with an automatic sentence of life in prison. Assistant...
A lack of snow didn't hamper the Scouts Saturday, as troops from around the Northland converged on the Cloquet Forestry Center for the annual Beargrease Derby, formerly known as the Klondike Derby. Normally held on snow-covered trails, it is an outdoor winter skills event. Each station around a 3K loop of trail is named for a stop along the actual Beargrease marathon route. Scouts made their way to each stop Saturday, working together to master or solve whatever task they were given at that...
Two former Cloquet residents were arrested in Arkansas last week for allegedly leaving seven cats behind - with no source of water or food - when they moved away from Cloquet late last year. Four cats were dead by the time someone entered the apartment 18 days later. A fifth cat died the same day and two cats have survived. Karlee Lynn Strum, 32, and Dominic James Welch, 26, were extradited to Minnesota this week from the White County jail in Searcy, Arkansas. They are each accused of 21 animal...
The Cloquet city council laid the groundwork for a number of new or ongoing initiatives Tuesday, including plans for future transportation and housing projects. Councilors and Mayor Roger Maki unanimously passed a resolution supporting the “multimodal” use of Highway 33 between Big Lake Road and Cloquet Avenue, with a letter outlining the city’s viewpoint shared with the Minnesota Department of Transportation. MnDOT is looking at rebuilding that stretch of the state highway in 2028 and held a public information meeting in Cloquet on Feb. 1. The...
It’s been a year since roughly 40 residents packed Thomson Town Hall to comment on two proposed township ordinances regarding private roads and driveways. Many speakers provided constructive criticism, while others outright rejected the attempt to set standards for shared private roads and driveways. Although township attorney David Pritchett told people they would fine-tune the ordinances and hold another meeting in a while, there have been no meeting notices or new draft ordinances posted on the website. Nor have any of the people that v...
Despite a bad winter for practice and competition, three Cloquet ski jumpers are headed to Alaska next week to compete in the 2024 ski jumping and Nordic combined Junior National Championships. Isaiah Langer, 14, Simon Langer, 12, and Joel Linden, 14, all qualified to compete in Nordic combined in the 16-and-younger-age group, a sport that combines ski jumping and Nordic skiing. The competition in Anchorage Feb. 27 to March 2 will be Isaiah's second Junior Nationals. Last year's event was actual...
Close to 100 people gathered Tuesday to talk about the future of a place they all love, the Cloquet Forestry Center. Although University of Minnesota representatives presented the transfer of the Cloquet Forestry Center to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa as a mostly done deal - with only the details left to be negotiated - that didn't stop people from sharing their opinions on the proposal. And that was the intent, said Karen Diver, former Fond du Lac tribal chairwoman and now...
In an effort to quell a vaping epidemic in Cloquet high school and middle school bathrooms, the Cloquet school board voted unanimously Monday to purchase a vaping detection system at a total cost of $21,699. The school district is purchasing 14 devices for the high school, 10 for the middle school and seven for the Cloquet Area Alternative Education Program at Garfield. “We’ve been trying for a number of years to see if we could address the vaping issue,” superintendent Michael Cary told the board, advocating for the purchase. “Our princip...
For the first time in a while, the weather at the Minnesota State High School Alpine Skiing State meet was fabulous. That made Tuesday even better for the Lumberjacks girls alpine ski team, the first Cloquet-Esko-Carlton team to make it to State in 30 years. "For such a poor weather season, the weather yesterday was one of the best at the state meet we've seen in many years," CEC head coach Ryan Zimny said. "There was good visibility, snow surface, and temperature. The girls had fun and had a...
It’s been a year since the University of Minnesota made public its administration’s plans to likely give the 3,400-acre Cloquet Forestry Center to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Other than a presentation to the university’s Board of Regents by former U of M President Joan Gabel in February 2023, it’s been radio silence since then. Until now. On Monday, university officials announced they’re holding a public listening session 3-4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13 at the Cloquet Forestry...
Cloquet City Councilors know where the Wood City Riders stand on potential plans for Minnesota Highway 33, after an hour-long presentation by club president Chris Rokke. They appeared to agree with Rokke on at least one point: that any highway modifications need to include some kind of multi-use trail or trails for pedestrians, bicyclists, ATVs and snowmobiles on the west side of the highway, particularly between Perkins and Pinehurst Park, where a steep hill leaves little space for anyone...
Following the Cloquet City Council meeting Tuesday, a few of us were standing around talking about the Highway 33 public meeting last week. And one of the complaints — among many — was the lack of public notice about the meeting. How are we supposed to know, one person asked. “We had it in the newspaper,” I told her. She doesn’t get the paper. Granted, we didn’t run a giant story, but the notice was there on Page 3 of the Jan. 26 issue, with all the details a person would need to attend the...
The Lumberjacks girls alpine ski team raced its way to State this week, taking second place during Tuesday's Section 7 meet. Head coach Ryan Zimny wasn't surprised - it's the best girls team he's had in 20 years as a coach, he said, proud that the girls performed "exactly as they should." "It's always a mental battle at Sections where the nerves are the main competition," Zimny said. "It's such a balancing act walking the line between going too hard and crashing, and playing it too conservativel...
Autopsy results are now public for Raymond Arthur Julian, the 67-year-old Kettle River man who died by suicide in state prison on Dec. 20. According to the report released by the Midwest Medical Examiner’s Office on Jan. 25, Julian died of multiple blunt force injuries caused by a “jump from height.” The report gave no other details on the fall. Aaron Swanum, Minnesota Department of Corrections spokesperson, previously confirmed that Julian entered Minnesota Correctional Facility-St. Cloud on Dec. 20 and died the same day by suicide. Julia...
A Cloquet man is now serving prison time after pleading guilty to eight charges related to child pornography. Edward Christian, 76, was sentenced in November to 15 years in prison for seven charges of possession of pornographic work of a minor under age 14, and one count of using a minor under 14 years old for sexual performance. Sentences for each charge varied from 24 months to 180 months. The sentences will be served concurrently. If they had been served consecutively, Christian would have faced more than 61 years in prison. According to the...
Cloquet High School bathrooms could soon be home to vape detectors if school administrators have their way. In response to questions about bathrooms and a state law requiring that schools provide space for gender-neutral, single-user restroom and locker room facilities, superintendent Michael Cary said he’s gotten no complaints about making the former faculty bathrooms available to all. It was the most simple solution at every school, since the single stall bathrooms were already essentially gen...
Over the years, Cloquet resident Clarence Badger has told stories of playing basketball at the old Civic Center where the fire station now sits. He shared photos of his uncles returning from World War II and partying in the Cromwell bars with happy friends. Of Pinehurst Park in the 1940s and '50s, he wrote: "The building that I used most was the large one where we would roller skate one or two days a week in a huge building that sat near what the tennis courts are today. The Wilsons would come...
