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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What a difference a year makes. Last December, nearly two dozen upset Thomson Township residents attended the Cloquet Area Fire District truth-in-taxation hearing, many of them to address the board about a more than 300-percent increase in their proposed ambulance taxes. This month’s fire district truth-in-taxation hearing saw only four audience members, with only one — former CAFD board member Eric Rish — from Thomson Township. While Rish used the Dec. 8 meeting to ask several questions about how other communities supplement coverage of ambul...
Fond du Lac Band registrar Annette Himango knew the stakes. "This is going to be big," Himango said. "The impact is going to be huge." On Tuesday, the fruits of her labor and that of many others from the Fond du Lac and Bois Forte bands of Chippewa were revealed in the form of specialized license plates aimed at raising awareness of missing and murdered Indigenous women and relatives. The ceremony to unveil the plates at Black Bear Casino in Carlton featured a host of speakers, and folks in the...
The Northland Foundation announced this month the individuals and projects being awarded Maada’ookiing grants. Maada’ookiing (“the distribution” in Ojibwe) is a foundation program designed to strengthen relationships within the indigenous community, build partnerships with Native nations, and offer support for community members to expand capacity in northeast Minnesota. A grant opportunity is being offered three times per year, awarding up to $2,500 per grant for tribal citizens, descendants, or those having kinship ties or affiliation to indi...
The National Weather Service office in Duluth has upgraded its Winter Storm Warning to a Blizzard Warning for all of Carlton County, southern St. Louis County and areas along the western shore of Lake Superior all the way to the Canadian border. the warning is in effect from 6 p.m. tonight (Tuesday, Dec. 13) until 6 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 15. Here is the warning posted at 1:39 p.m. today: ...BLIZZARD WARNING IN EFFECT FROM 6 PM THIS EVENING TO 6 PM CST THURSDAY... * WHAT...Blizzard conditions expected. Total snow accumulations of 10 to 17 inches,...
Staff and students at Churchill Elementary capped off their Blue Ribbon awards season with a party in the gymnasium, complete with drumming and a brass band, special guests, a funny heartwarming movie and hundreds of blue and white pom-poms. The celebration began in September, when U.S. Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona announced the 2022 National Blue Ribbon schools. Churchill was one of 297 schools in the country - and only eight in Minnesota - to make the list. The Cloquet school was the...
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College lost one of its strongest supporters Monday, when its president, Stephanie Hammitt, died of cancer. Hammitt, 60, spent much of her career at the Cloquet college before officially becoming the first female president in January 2020. At that time, more than one person - including Minnesota Commissioner of Higher Education Dennis Olson and former FDLTCC president Larry Anderson - declared Hammitt the "perfect" person to lead the nation's only combined...
Money is being made available to boost staffing for licensed child care programs in Carlton County and the region as northeast Minnesota continues to be mired in a major shortage of child care openings. The Northland Foundation announced Wednesday that it has received $300,000 in funding and can provide eligible programs grants of $1,500 to $12,000 for spending on staff recruitment and retention strategies. Data released in June from First Children’s Finance, an advocacy group for improving child care opportunities, showed that northeast Minnes...
Stephanie Gail Hammitt, 60, of Cloquet, died peacefully Monday, Nov. 14, 2022, at her home. She was born on Oct. 22, 1962, to Peter and Priscilla (Roy) Defoe in Minneapolis. She was raised in Cloquet, attending Leech Elementary, Cloquet middle, and Cloquet high schools. During her childhood, she was an active member of the school band. Her clarinet talents were on display in the Indian Honor Band that brought her to perform at an NFL game in Washington, D.C. She graduated from high school in...
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College lost one of its strongest supporters Monday, when FDLTCC president Stephanie Hammitt died of cancer. Hammitt, age 60, spent much of her career at the Cloquet college before officially becoming the first female president in January 2020. At that time, more than one person - including Minnesota Commissioner of Higher Education Dennis Olson and former FDLTCC president Larry Anderson - declared Hammitt the "perfect" person to lead the nation's only combined...
Films focus on migration of people to and from Cloquet While researching a theme for seven short films he'll debut next week in Cloquet, Augustin Ganley drew inspiration from a French word, "cloque," defined as blister. The word features dual meanings, both the kind you get from walking in new shoes, and, when adjusted to cloqué, an irregularly raised pattern in fabric design. "We have histories that are woven together here that are an irregular or uneven pattern," the 35-year-old Ganley said....
The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, the Department of Natural Resources and the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa announced an enforcement action this week against Enbridge Energy for water quality violations during Line 3 pipeline construction. Those include accidental releases of drilling mud at a dozen locations, and two other aquifer breaches at LaSalle Creek in Hubbard County and near the Fond du Lac Reservation. They also include discharges of stormwater from construction... 
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Gathering last week capped cemetery saga that began in 2017 The tribal chairman of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa called for new protections for Native American burial grounds during a community gathering last week. Speaking alongside the St. Louis River, near a site where burial grounds were disturbed by a state highway project in 2017, Kevin Dupuis was joined by a crowd of more than 125 mostly Indigenous people in the Fond du Lac neighborhood in Duluth on Friday, Sept. 30....
The Cloquet City Council took up the topic of food trucks at its meeting Tuesday at City Hall, wondering if it should amend an ordinance to allow the cultural phenomenon better access to city park events. Councilor Kerry Kolodge raised the issue after having heard from a food truck operator who was denied access to a large bike race last month at the Pine Valley recreation area. The city currently doesn’t allow food trucks at parks unless it’s a city-sponsored event, such as the Fourth of Jul...
Area students descend upon Cloquet Forestry Center Some of the first morning frosts of the season didn't put a chill on the enthusiasm of local fifth-graders participating in the Conservation Education Days at the University of Minnesota's Cloquet Forestry Center last week. More than 500 students from eight Carlton County school districts spent a full day learning outside their usual classrooms at the educational event focused on natural science topics Sept. 28-29. The annual event for...
October is national Domestic Violence Awareness Month, and the Fond du Lac Band’s Social Services department is hosting a domestic violence vigil 5:30-7 p.m. Oct. 17. The event is being held at the Band’s Cloquet Community Center located at 1720 Big Lake Road. The vigil will honor victims and survivors of domestic violence. There will be a round dance, pipe ceremony, speakers and refreshments. If you are experiencing domestic violence, contact the crisis hotline at 218-348-1817....
As countries, cities and groups from around the world mark Climate Week 2022, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa hosted state agency leaders to share actions the Band is taking to address climate change. The tour, held on Day 2 of Climate Week, included a visit to the Reservation's resource management center and the solar energy site. Leaders from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Board of Water and Soil Resources, and the departments of Natural Resources, Employment and...
If you come into contact with people working in and around natural resources in Minnesota you may hear the term TEK. It's a popular buzzword, which, confusingly, has little to do with technology. It's the acronym for Traditional Ecological Knowledge, an umbrella term for information about the natural world collected by countless generations of Indigenous people. Through observation and life experience, they gained knowledge - what plants were good to make teas to soothe a sore throat, what bark... Website
For many of us, the opportunity to tell people how much we admire them or recognize their accomplishments slips away when that person passes from this life. Ozhaawashkogiizhigokwe Janis Fairbanks found herself in this predicament after the death of her brother, Abajiins-ba Ralph Charles Fairbanks, in 2020. "I didn't know the impact he had on people until I saw the collection of beadwork that was returned to me about 16 months after Ralph passed away," Janis said. Ralph, a member of the Fond du...
Pine Knot editor Jana Peterson spied these pinkish-white Indian Pipe flowers along a trail at the Cloquet Forestry Center last week. Also sometimes called a "ghost flower" or "corpse flower," the Indian Pipe can grow in the darkest forests because it has no chlorophyll and doesn't depend on photosynthesis. Not a fungus, it is a parasitic plant that survives by using nutrients from decaying plant matter and other plants, according to gardeningknowhow.com and other websites. This relative of the...
The harvest of wild rice on Fond du Lac Reservation lakes will be prohibited this year. The Band made the announcement last week. “Growing conditions were highly unfavorable this year and the decision was made to rest the on-reservation wild rice lakes for the season,” the announcement said. The Band encouraged members to utilize their treaty rights to harvest wild rice elsewhere in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Using a valid tribal identification card, members may harvest within Minnesota outside of the existing boundaries of the Fond du Lac, Whi...
THUMBS UP to the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa for making the hard, but seemingly necessary decision to prohibit wild rice harvesting on reservation lakes this season. The Band described growing conditions as “highly unfavorable” in deciding to “rest” the on-reservation wild rice lakes for the season. The plan, as one Band member told the Pine Knot, is to let the rice fall to seed and hope that the harvest bounces back in 2023. Ricing has deep cultural and historical significance, and it’s a wonderful fall treat for all of us. Ev...
Leonard Charles DeFoe Jr., 69, of Cloquet passed away Monday, Aug. 29, 2022. He was born Oct. 6, 1952, to Leonard Charles DeFoe Sr. and Edith Peterson in Cloquet. He was a proud member of the Fond du Lac band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Leonard served in the U.S. Army. He enjoyed going to the casino, playing his slot machines and having good conversations with friends. Leonard, a boxer himself, enjoyed boxing on TV and attending live events. He also kept up on all current affairs worldwide and...
Suzanne “Suzi” Ellen Monahan, 75, of Cloquet died at home peacefully in her sleep Monday, Aug. 22, 2022. She was born Feb. 9, 1947, in Minneapolis to Anthony and Margaret “Peggy” (Iverson) Maciewski. Suzi graduated from AlBrook High School and attended Duluth Vocational Technical College, where she studied nursing. She then worked at St. Mary’s Hospital in Duluth. After her nursing career, she went on to do secretarial work in different fields. She was a proud member of the Fond du Lac Band...
After close to 10 months of musical chairs, the Cloquet Area Fire District staff and board members celebrated a slew of promotions and other moves that have the district almost on stable ground in terms of staffing. CAFD chief Jesse Buhs said in many cases, a promotion led to a vacancy that was filled and created more vacancies behind it. A case in point, Buhs was appointed interim chief in December and officially got the job in March. A new assistant fire chief position was created, and former...
Just over a century ago, a work crew dug up the remains of nearly 200 Ojibwe people from a burial ground at the end of Wisconsin Point, a long peninsula that juts out into Lake Superior across the water from Duluth. Among the exhumed was Chief Osaugie, who signed two major treaties with the U.S. government in the mid-1800s. The remains were reburied in 1919 in a mass grave at St. Francis Cemetery on the mainland in Superior. The bodies were moved to clear the way for an iron ore dock and other infrastructure that U.S. Steel wanted to build. But... Website
