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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"My first thought is: We don't deserve an incredible community like this. But then I take a deep breath and realize we are so so grateful to have such an incredible unit of friends, family, and community behind us who see us and love us. And we are eternally grateful." Those were the words to the community from Emily Boulanger this past week. Her temporary home, a bus converted into a camper, was gutted Thursday night by a fire on property in rural Cloquet that she and fiancee Liam May own. An...
With no comment from the public or school board members, a 2025 levy increase was approved in Wrenshall Tuesday in a Truth in Taxation hearing before the regular school board meeting. Superintendent Jeff Pesta called the budgeting in the district the past four years a solid path for the district. Next year’s levy is “staying close to home,” he said, and the better news is that the district’s fund balance is increasing: $506,000 in 2023 to $800,000 in 2024, Pesta said. Better financial shape means the district can look for ways to improve...
Residents along a proposed bike and pedestrian trail were eagerly waiting for more information at two open houses this week explaining the project announced last month by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. The branches from Carlton's Munger Trail to Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College and Black Bear Casino Resort would create 3.8 miles of connection to the popular trail that runs from Duluth to Hinckley. There were two open house sessions planned for Thursday at the college....
They’ve been doing it all along, and now they want to take an extra step and bring some vibrancy to Carlton and its environs. Emily and Glenn Swanson from the city’s historic Oldenburg House have hosted numerous arts events at the bed and breakfast — concerts featuring national and international artists, poets, and delightful events with a host of local artists like the Honey Bee Festival a few years ago. They’ve also worked on the West End Flourish, taking art to Cloquet’s historic district in an effort to bring some revitalization. Oldenburg...
Tuesday’s wet and windy weather blew many things around, including a piece of paper with handwriting on it. It went splat, flat onto the front window of the Pine Knot. Or perhaps we should say “hoofwriting.” Apparently, the notorious loose sheep, known by many as Brad, was making his way back to Carlton County after quite the odyssey. After so much adventure, it seems he felt obligated to get it all down for the record. He was first spotted up the North Shore in the Two Harbors area a few weeks...
Tied at 143 votes each after the Nov. 5 municipal election, challenger Jeff Bloom’s name was drawn at Wrenshall City Hall Tuesday, meaning that he will likely replace incumbent Gary Butala, who requested a recount after the drawing. That will be done by Carlton County, and is within either candidate’s rights, considering the knotted vote totals. The recount will take place at 9 a.m. Dec. 2 at the county transportation building. Butala said there are some questions about 50 ballots that were not counted. All voting for the city is done by mai...
The 7-year-old was obviously confused Wednesday morning. Her school voted for Harris, why didn't the country? "I want a woman president." She pondered her school chum who had voted for the other guy. "But we are still friends." She asked rhetorically if the votes at her school had counted in the wider world. "I know, you have to be 18." I wondered if what she was spouting post-election was precocious or just how yet another person in the world can get so inundated with politics in the current st...
It was another close race for Minnesota House District 11A Tuesday, with the incumbent Rep. Jeff Dotseth (R-Kettle River) edging repeat DFL challenger Pete Radosevich by 664 votes, 51.1 percent to 48.4 percent of 23,840 votes cast in all of Carlton County and parts of Pine and St. Louis counties. In 2022, Dotseth won by 454. “I am a firm believer in the power of prayer,” Dotseth wrote in a statement to the Pine Knot Wednesday. “I’d like to thank my lord and savior Jesus Christ, my wife and my family, as well as all the members of team Dotseth...
A card arrived at the Cloquet post office as war loomed in the early 1940s. It was asking postmasters from across the country to consider signing up for military service. Clarence Scheibe was 40 years old. "He said, 'Oh well,' and signed it," his daughter Maggie Scheibe said this fall. It was just a few weeks after the Richard I. Bong Veterans Historical Center in Superior announced its latest exhibit, "Post Office in the Pacific," featuring Scheibe and his work in the Army in keeping the flow...
It can be difficult to know just what might inspire a teenager these days, but Brenda Knudsen may have found something in October. The trails on Pincushion Mountain offer spectacular views of the harbor at Grand Marais and the expanse of Lake Superior. As Knudsen prepared her Carlton/Wrenshall girls cross country teams for the Oct. 10 Polar League Conference meet on those trails, she told them she'd jump into the lake if they won. "It was freezing," the coach said this week, looking back on a...
Despite finishing in the middle of the pack in last year's Section 7AA cross country meet, Cloquet boys team coach Chandra Allen had an inkling that things could only get better for the Lumberjacks. They were losing just one senior to graduation. "We knew after last season," she said of the 2024 prospects. The hunch was indeed correct, as this year's team won the section meet in Hibbing on Oct. 24. The team will now travel to St. Paul Saturday for the Minnesota State High School Class AA Cross...
Donna Shaw pushes her wheeled walker down the middle of Duluth Tattoo Company, headed for Jenna Walton's station. The artist inked an 83-year-old recently, so the 85-year-old Donna isn't much of a surprise on this Thursday in West Duluth. Donna is cool as a deep fall day, cracking wise here and there. This is old hat for her. "Wherever they couldn't find a wrinkle," she says of the tattoo she got five years ago. The angel holding a heart on her forearm matches the ones her daughter, Deb...
It broke the bank and nearly broke my spirit. The other day, hankering for some good old chili on a brisk, er, hot, fall day, me and the kid went to the store. My mind just happened to be on point, so, with a working list in my head, I made a few other purchases beyond the soup recipe I also keep in my brain. I knew it would be a mistake. There were paper products and batteries involved, along with the need to find mid-morning school snacks for the kid for the next few weeks. For the first time in my life, I spent more than $200 on a single...
Rep. Jeff Dotseth this week denied allegations brought to light in a Minnesota Star Tribune story Monday detailing his “extremely difficult divorce” case 15 years ago. Divorce proceedings in 2008 included affidavits obtained by the Minneapolis-based newspaper. Dotseth’s former wife and her son described repeated physical assaults and abuse since the early 1990s from the man who today represents Carlton County in the Minnesota State Legislature and is seeking a second term in the Nov. 5 election. Dotseth was arrested in 2008 after his wife...
Family and friends of Peter Martin continue their efforts to find their missing loved one. But as months have gone by, the number of those who gather on Sundays to search areas on the Fond du Lac reservation has dwindled. This week, looking for more tips and keeping the public aware that Martin remains a missing person case, those friends and family organized a walk along Big Lake Road west of Cloquet, where banners can be found with his picture, stating "Bring Peter Home." Kayla Jackson was...
For a spring and summer season marked by rain, maybe a bit too much at times, it seems it didn't affect the area weekend celebrations much. Monday was no exception as the annual 11 a.m. Labor Day parade began on a sun-drenched Cloquet Avenue in Cloquet. There were throngs of people along the main drag and throngs of people in the parade as politicians, unions and businesses made their final pitches for the season in 70-degree weather. For kids, with school looming this week, it was a chance for...
I magine teenagers in Esko classrooms staring blithely, wantonly, perhaps a bit of drool forming at the corner of the mouth. But it’s not a window daydream accompanied by mesmerizing clouds forming into creatures or a squirrel running up a tree limb. They are fixed on those pouches. Filled with those tiny devices we all are so tethered to. This summer, the Esko school district decided to do something about phones in school, part of a movement across the country to reduce distractions during the school day. Now, when an Esko teen enters a c...
Cecelia Anderson and Ron Johnson were humbled and surprised to be honored as the latest recipients of the Calton County Outstanding Senior award. They celebrated the honor at the county fair in Barnum last Friday. "It's amazing," Anderson said. "It's a great honor," Johnson said. That the two received notice for their work volunteering was no surprise to those on the receiving end of their work. Anderson calls bingo games at Inter-Faith Care Center in Carlton. She said she takes pride in...
It was a perfect breezy, not-too-hot Saturday for a parade, and kid and adult fun in Northridge Park during the fifth day of Esko Fun Days last week. County Highway 61 and Canosia Road was lined with people, especially kids eager for some candy. A walk down those streets after the parade showed that there was more than enough candy tossed, the streets remained littered with untouched packages of sweet stuff. It was food and inflatables, and the popular dunk tank in the park after the parade....
Kent Syverson’s mind was blown when Mount St. Helens blew its top in 1980. The famous eruption of the long-dormant volcano in Washington scratched a geology itch in the Barnum student’s brain. “I was always interested in rocks and the outdoors,” he said this month. The historic event led to a 4-H project on volcanoes, which eventually won ribbons at the local Carlton County Fair and then the Minnesota State Fair. Today, Syverson is a well-traveled geology professor at the University of Wisconsin...
I’m jazzed about an event coming to a Cloquet church this month. It’s just what we need in these fractured political times. Our Savior’s Lutheran Church will be the venue for a “Respectful Conversation” about this political season, sponsored by the Minnesota Council of Churches, at 6 p.m. on Aug. 28. It’s designed to allow space for people to explore their feelings about candidates and issues minus the “my way or the highway” responses. A church is a good place to hold such a conversation. People tend to drop their defenses, and perhaps most ve...
“We know that Mr. Hansen abused every child in his orbit.” Those were the words from Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruth Shnider Tuesday as she spoke to a judge in federal court in Duluth about the proper sentence for Stephan Hansen, the 30-year-old former foster parent and Carlton resident who was found, and who admitted, to be in possession of more than 1,600 exploitative and pornographic pictures or videos of children. After a plea deal made last fall, Hansen was facing a 15- to 30-year prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell hea...
The challenge has vexed Jason Amundsen for a few years. He’s brought in engineering students from the University of Minnesota Duluth and St. Thomas University in St. Paul. He’s hired one of them full-time to tackle the problem. At Farm LoLa in Wrenshall, the mission is capturing water from the air — in a sense, making the concept of the indoor humidifier work outside. Amundsen said the world is starving, and he wants to find a way to better water crops. He cites endangered citrus crops in Texas...
The berries provided the red and blue, while clouds were the white on the Fourth of July at the berry fields at Farm LoLa in rural Wrenshall. Farm manager Brett Amundson works the busy stand in the middle of the honeyberry fields. Lucie Amundsen helped a curious young customer. The farm is among many in Carlton County bursting with berries this month, with blueberries next. By the afternoon on July 4, the strawberries had been picked out. Call ahead if you want to go out to area farms, because...
Unrelenting rainfall this past spring has culminated in historic flooding across the state, especially during the first weekend of official summer last week. Carlton County was not spared, but while water levels were high and rapidly moving water posed a risk, the area was spared any major damage. The St. Louis River in Scanlon crested at just more than 11 feet Monday, and slowly receded as the week went on. Carlton County Emergency Management director Marlyn Halvorson said close monitoring...
