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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Once again, Cloquet will celebrate Labor Day with a parade. It's a tradition that's continued more than 105 years here, starting in 1917. The holiday was created in the late 19th century to recognize the many contributions workers have made to America's strength, prosperity, and well-being, according to the Labor Department. "It's a staple in our community," said Labor Day celebration president Chad Tuura. "Labor unions are still strong in this area. We're part of this community." Monday's...
The Big Drum has a new home. Friday morning, members of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and guests gathered for the opening of a new ceremonial hall, Gimanidoowichigemin Gwaaba'iganing, in Sawyer. It was built specifically to house the Big Drum. The drum is named Nimishomis, which translates to "my grandfather." The hall is new, but the drum and the songs and ceremonies that surround it are very old. Band member and Sawyer resident Vern Northrup said his great-great-grandfather...
Nichole Diver is running for Cloquet School Board as a write-in candidate, joining Melissa Siltanen Juntunen and LeAnn M. Butler in a race that will feature three open seats. As a write-in, Diver won't be listed on the ballot in November, while Juntunen and Butler will because they filed in advance of the election deadline. That means voters will need to remember Diver's name when they go to the polls or mail in a ballot. That shouldn't be an issue. Born and raised here, she is an enrolled Fond...
For the second time in 14 months, the board of commissioners for the Cloquet/Carlton Housing & Redevelopment Authority fired its executive director. Trisha Osborn, formerly Trisha Morgando, was terminated effective July 26. The Pine Knot News learned of Osborn’s dismissal earlier this month. In response to a public data request, attorney Donald Erickson shared the dismissal letter and another letter denying the appeal of her dismissal. Erickson is a labor and employment law specialist with Fryberger Law Firm in Duluth who was hired by the Cloqu...
With school set to start Wednesday, Sept. 4 in Cloquet, superintendent Michael Cary shared good and bad news with the board on Monday. The good news? The district is almost fully staffed, with the exception of a couple of last-minute resignations. Also, 22nd Street should be open to traffic from Washington Avenue to Doddridge Avenue by the start of school, although workers will be striping and doing other work between 9 a.m. and 2 p.m. on school days for a while. The bad news? The district could face a six-digit shortfall this year, following...
On Friday, from a galaxy far, far away, the original Star Wars movie will return to Cloquet, this time with the dialogue dubbed in Ojibwe. "Anangong Miigaading," aka "Star Wars: A New Hope" will show for one week at Cloquet's Premiere Theatres. There will be English subtitles with the movie, for non-Ojibwe speakers or those who aren't fluent. The movie will run for a week, starting Aug. 30, with showings at 2, 4:40, and 7:30 p.m. daily. The story of the newly dubbed 1977 movie is one of...
Did you know? -The Carlton County Justice Center will house the Sheriff's Office, the jail, 911 dispatch center, probation, courtrooms, court administration, the Carlton County Attorney's Office and public defender offices. -The total size of the project is 112,276 square feet located on a 28-acre county-owned wooded site next to the existing County Transportation Building off County Road 61. -The Sheriff's Office includes administrative offices for administration, detectives, patrol officers,...
Graffiti with white supremacist messaging appeared on and along paved pedestrian trails in Cloquet and Carlton earlier this week. "White Man Zone" was painted on the walls of the underpass on the north side of the pedestrian bridge over the St. Louis River in Cloquet. Farther down the wall was the Nazi SS Lightning Bolts symbol, commonly used in the white supremacy movement. Repeatedly, in both Cloquet and along the Willard Munger State Trail in Carlton, someone scrawled the website address for...
A 21-year-old driver, who struck and killed a pedestrian in Moose Lake in March, is now facing additional charges after blood tests revealed the presence of four drugs in his system. Brent James Keranen, of Pengilly, Minnesota, waived his right to an omnibus hearing Monday morning in a remote hearing held with Sixth District Carlton County judge Rebekka Stumme. Keranen’s attorney, David Keegan, requested a settlement conference versus a jury trial, an indication they’re looking for a plea deal. According to the criminal complaint, Keranen adm...
Cloquet city officials and Consolidated Telephone Company (CTC) celebrated the CTC Woods to Waters Broadband Initiative and its arrival in rural Cloquet. The $4.9 million local grant will fund what are considered last-mile projects connecting some of the most rural and/or underserved residential areas of central and northeastern Minnesota. In Cloquet specifically, the project will improve service in the northern part of the city. Crews burying fiber optic cable have been visible along Minnesota...
What is normally a five-minute rubber-stamp meeting of Thomson Township residents turned into a near-revolt Tuesday, when citizens pushed back hard on actions by the township's elected officials. First up on the agenda for the reconvened annual meeting? An error in the township's proposed levy for 2025 after township officials failed to include payments to cover a $400,000 certificate of indebtedness to purchase equipment executed March 29, just over two weeks after the annual meeting when...
Work on the Interstate 35 Atkinson Bridge (pictured) continues, and so do detours on Carlton County Road 61, which passes under the bridge about 3 miles south of Highway 210. Traffic on County Road 61 is being detoured to County Road 4 to County Road 5. This traffic configuration was expected to last through late August. Costs for the project were estimated at $4.15 million and will improve the load carrying capacity of the bridge and life of the highway. Carlton County also announced the...
Folks thinking that all the Carlton County fair judges are local folks sharing their expertise are only partially right. A lot of judges - every livestock judge, in fact - come from outside the county, said Ora Mord. Mord drove nearly 200 miles from Clearwater County (west of Bemidji) to judge dairy goats for Carlton County 4-H last week. "You cannot judge in your own county," Mord said. "That's because you know the animals, you know the kids and you know the people. We want to make it as...
Led by servers and children throwing rose petals, members of the Queen of Peace Catholic Church walked down Cloquet Avenue during a processional Sunday to celebrate the feast day of the church's namesake, Jesus's mother, Mary, aka Queen of Peace. Mary intercedes for us and prays for peace, said Father Nick Nelson. The Queen of Peace priest explained that a processional is a couple things. "It's kind of like a mini pilgrimage. Our life is a pilgrimage, with the end goal of heaven," Nelson said. "...
Over 555 people attended Saturday's Mud Bog event during Ma & Pa Kettle Days, more than three times the population of the small Carlton County town. For those who aren’t familiar with mudding sports, there’s more than one type of mud bog, although they all involve vehicles driving into a giant mud pit. “This particular mud bog is more of a ‘bounty hole’ style. You’re not really supposed to make it through,” explained mud bog committee member Eric Senarighi. A mud bog is very different from a mud...
The annual Wood City Worship Festival brought music, food, faith and a ton of people to Veterans Park Saturday, plus a whole lot of fun. Even after the "foam party" was over, Maryah Christenson, 5, and Suri Keller, 6, had fun rolling through a foot of foam, ending their playtime covered in tiny soap bubbles. Meanwhile Josiah Gallegos, age 2 of Cloquet, kept up with the high-energy Go Fish band, jumping all over the grass in front of the stage through the band's various kid-friendly tunes. It...
Cloquet's Brandi Fisher and her passengers are the latest winners of an advertiser gift certificate for proudly displaying a Pine Knot News bumper sticker on their car. Fisher selected a gift certificate from CreativEdge in Carlton, which offers a range of gift items and apparel, as well as issues of the Pine Knot News each week....
Ted Swenson knew his farm had passed the 100-year mark, he just didn't know it happened in 2011. A trip to the Carlton County Courthouse led to that discovery last year. Now Swenson's Dairy will be honored as Carlton County's latest Century Farm in a program starting at noon Friday at the Carlton County Fair. To qualify as a Century Farm, a farm must have been continuously run by a family for a century or more, be at least 50 acres in size and currently involved in farming. Now owned by Ted...
A Carlton County man was sentenced to more than 25 years in prison Friday for sexually abusing three young girls in his care. Jamie Alden Godbout, 35, dated their mother for nearly a decade and was part of the family, so much so that the girls’ grandmother actually testified on his behalf, asking for a reduced sentence. But Sixth District Carlton County Judge Amy Lukasavitz echoed the words of the one victim who testified Friday. “You were the adult, you were the person who was supposed to protect them,” said Lukasavitz, who sentenced him t...
Get ready to rock, Cloquet. The Social Animals are coming home to celebrate a new single and new owners at The Jack. Look for an edgier sound to rattle the hometown bar. Local bars, after all, were the band's bread and butter a few years ago. Made up of vocalist Dedric Clark, guitarist Tony Petersen, bass guitarist Roger Whittet and drummer Boyd Smith, three of four originally hail from Carlton County. Clark and Petersen are from Cloquet, Smith from Esko and Whittet grew up in Lino Lakes. Now,...
The Lake Superior waterline to Cloquet "failed in spectacular fashion" earlier this month, but underwater pipe repairs are underway in the St. Louis River east of Duluth's Riverside neighborhood. "We had a geyser in the river there the morning it came to light," said Cloquet public works director Caleb Peterson Wednesday afternoon. "It's been shut down for about a week and a half." Peterson explained that the waterline pumps water from Lake Superior to Sappi. It is not used for potable drinking...
There was a spectacular show in the night sky Sunday and early Monday morning across Carlton County as the Northern Lights appeared along with the Perseids meteor shower. This is from St. Louis River Road north of Cloquet....
Anyone interested in running for local school board, township office or most municipal mayor and city council seats has until the end of the day Tuesday, Aug. 13, to file an affidavit of candidacy and pay the minimal filing fee at the respective city, town or school office. Nate Sandman says it’s the best $2 you’ll ever spend. The Cloquet school board chair is wrapping up his eighth year on the board. He doesn’t plan to run again, but said anyone who cares about kids and is passionate about education should consider running. There were zero...
The annual Brickyard Days parade in Wrenshall took its time making its way down the main drag from the convenience store to the firehall, starting with all kinds of firetrucks and ending with three women on horseback, who stopped frequently to say hello to friends or visit children who wanted a closer look. There was no shortage of candy, nor of children to gather it into bags, pockets and even an upside down umbrella. The crowd migrated to the firehall for ice cream following the parade, which...
Thanks to the end of an almost two-year drought, water levels were high enough this year for Paddlemania to again feature the Fin Falls race course, which spans some of the best rapids on the lower St. Louis River through Jay Cooke State Park. “This race highlights some of the more gnarly rapids you have to navigate, including some Class 4 rapids,” race director Cliff Langley told the Pine Knot last week, explaining the water had been too low the past two years for that race course. Spe...
