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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The censure hearings against Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa chairman Kevin Dupuis ended Monday with a meeting of the Reservation Business Committee. In a meeting open to band members in person and online, the RBC voted 3-2 that the accused chairman answered the questions to the council’s satisfaction. There will be no further proceedings, stated the band’s chief judge, Henry Buffalo, who was the presiding official for the hearing. Fond du Lac secretary/treasurer Ferdinand Martineau originally made the motion to censure Dupuis at...
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Reservation Business Committee will hold a hearing at at 9 a.m. Monday, April 25, in the Otter Creek Convention Center at the Black Bear Casino Resort, to address the written censure issued to chairman Kevin R. Dupuis Sr. by the Minnesota Tribal Executive Committee. Fond du Lac secretary/treasurer Ferdinand Martineau made the original motion at the January TEC meeting to censure Dupuis for violating a reservation ordinance that prohibits weapons in tribal public buildings. The Band’s chief j...
A few miles west of Cloquet, in the heart of the Fond du Lac Reservation, sits the Cloquet Forestry Center. Owned by the University of Minnesota, the woodland site has been the primary research and education forest for the university since 1909. It is the oldest experimental forest under continuous operation by a university in the United States, according to Al Alm, professor emeritus and former CFC director. That could change in the not so distant future, as university officials have been...
In a work session with Cloquet city council members Tuesday, members of the Cloquet broadband committee shared their personal and professional experiences with internet access in Cloquet, with a common conclusion: It’s not good enough. Their recommendation? Take the $300,000 the city has committed from America Rescue Plan Act funds and use that for an engineering study to identify a fiber system and costs for roughly $20,000, and use additional funds to secure and match larger grants that target broadband access. All four committee members s...
One of the two Cloquet women who had children taken from their custody in January appears ready to take her case to trial. Nicole Ammesmaki had what is called an admit/deny hearing Tuesday and her attorney stated that her client denies the court’s reasoning for taking her five children out of her home. The hearing also served to clear up questions Carlton County Sixth District judge Rebekka Stumme had regarding the complicated case. Ammesmaki, who by all accounts has cooperated fully with steps required to regain custody, also faces criminal c...
Ivy Vainio's large-scale photo prints of Anishinaabe elders grace our multicolored brick wall at the Pine Knot News office, a striking introduction to a portrait exhibit which opens today, April 8, with an artists reception 5-7 p.m. at the Pine Knot Gallery at 122 Ave. C in Cloquet's West End. One set of Vainio's photos depicts elders participating in cultural events. Virgil Sohm shares an Anishinaabe hand drum song, photographed at the Kiwenz Ojibwe language camp. Another captures the late Ron...
Do you live or vacation near a lake or stream? Is your shoreline eroding more and more each year? Would you like to beautify your yard with showstopping flower blooms and grasses while protecting water quality and attracting turtles, frogs, songbirds and beneficial pollinators like bees and butterflies? Whether you've lived on a lake or stream for a year or 50 years, we encourage you to think about what we call your "buffer zone." This area between your backyard and the lake is very important....
Carlton County officials didn't waste any time with the latest round of financing for the new justice center. The call for a sale of $27.5 million in bonds took only 12 days from presentation to final approval at Monday's county board meeting. PFM, the company the county uses to organize bond sales, had earlier advised that borrowing money would cost more soon due to pressure from the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to dampen higher inflation rates and uncertainty about how the U.S....
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources are seeking public comments on their recommendation to remove an impairment designation from the St. Louis River Area of Concern for Degraded Fish and Wildlife Populations Beneficial Use. There will also be aan open house discussion on April 14. The U.S. and Canada identified the St. Louis River as one of 42 Great Lakes Areas of Concern (AOC) in 1987 as the result of...
A social media message between four teenage boys from Cloquet and Esko that was filled with derogatory statements about Native Americans left many students, parents and district staff reeling in shock last week. It also put Cloquet and Esko on the list of schools around the state that are dealing with what feels like a wave of overt racism, including students making monkey noises at Black basketball players and other students flashing a known white supremacy sign. In the case of the local students, it was a Snapchat thread Thursday afternoon,...
Enrolled members of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa will vote for Reservation Business Council District II (Sawyer) candidates in a primary election scheduled for April 5. Candidates include Daniel G. LaPrairie, Michael J. Diver, Brad (Raff) Blacketter, Bruce M. Savage (incumbent) and Naomi Northrup. Polls will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. April 5 at the Sawyer Community Center, 3243 Moorhead Road in Sawyer. The election is open to members who have resided in District II for at least 30 days preceding the election. Because...
The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has released details of more groundwater leaks caused by the construction of the Line 3 oil pipeline last year. The DNR has completed its investigation of three sites where crews installing the pipeline breached underground aquifers, causing uncontrolled - and unauthorized - flows of groundwater. State regulators previously identified one of the three locations, near Enbridge's Clearbrook terminal. In January 2021, crews installing the replacement...
While arguments continue to be made in the custody cases involving 10 Cloquet children, Sixth District Carlton County judge Rebekah Stumme made her feelings clearly known Tuesday when it comes to how representatives for the adoptive mothers and those who want the children kept out of their homes are interacting in front of her court. “Put away the knives,” Stumme said at the end of a hearing concerning petitioner Danielle Martineau — a relative who wants children removed from Dawn Ammesmaki’s care. The judge said she was dismayed by the ten...
The Minnesota Chippewa Tribal Executive Committee voted 7-5 Monday to censure Kevin Dupuis Sr., chairperson of the Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee. Other than the disapproval implied by the censure, the vote came with no consequences from the committee. There seemed to be consensus among many of those voting both ways that the issue would be better addressed by Fond du Lac band members. The tribal committee, or TEC, comprises the chairperson and secretary/treasurer of each of the six...
As the snow gets a bit soggy around the edges, thoughts of spring aren't far from the minds of Wrenshall area farmers, and many have been planning for the coming season by attending conferences and symposiums. My husband, Janaki Fisher-Merritt of the Food Farm, signed up for the virtual option of last month's organic vegetable production conference run by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and presented remotely to the Quebec ministry of agriculture. We had a few representatives from...
A hearing on a motion to censure the chairperson of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is set for Monday, based on allegations he knowingly violated a reservation ordinance that prohibits weapons in the tribal business center. Fond du Lac secretary/treasurer Ferdinand Martineau made the motion to censure Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee chair Kevin Dupuis Sr. at the Jan. 28 meeting of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribal Executive Committee meeting. The Tribal Executive Committee comprises the chairperson and secretary/treasurer...
Testimony continued last week in a contentious local child custody case that sparked weeks of protests last month. There are five children in each of two homes, most of them either adopted or otherwise in the permanent custody of the two caregivers, Nicole and Dawn Ammesmaki, who are sisters. Both the women and all of the children in the related cases are Native American, which makes the case even more complicated, because of additional protections in the Indian Child Welfare Act. In a more than 2-hour hearing on Wednesday, Feb. 16, Sixth...
More testimony was offered Tuesday in the child custody case that led to protests in January outside the homes of two women accused of abuse. Sixth District Carlton County judge Rebekka Stumme split the custody cases involving 10 children, five in each home, on Tuesday to avoid confusion in what has become a complicated case involving families in Cloquet and on the Fond du Lac reservation. There have been sharp disagreements among child welfare professionals about the safety of the children after videos and photos showing alleged abuse...
Burton J. Shotley, 90, of Cloquet, passed away Feb. 1, 2022, at Evergreen Knoll. He was born Sept. 9, 1931, in Cloquet, the son of Peter and Josephine (Jesse) Shotley. Burt was married to Claudette Schoen on Aug. 1, 1953. He served in the Army National Guard and worked as a firefighter for the fire department in Cloquet. Burt was also a member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Burt was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Claudette; son, David Shotley; brother, Leon...
The Fond du Lac Resource Management & Tribal Court building has been renamed the John A. Smith Memorial Building, honoring a retired conservation officer who died at age 69 on Dec. 25. Smith served in many prominent capacities, including interim police chief for FDL and District III Reservation Business Committee representative. Being a conservation officer was his calling, however. Working for FDL for 47 years, Smith was the chief conservation officer protecting resources both on and off the...
The two women accused by protestors of abusing children in their care fought back in Sixth District Carlton County court Tuesday. More than 100 people observed the online hearing, which ultimately continued the removal of 10 children from their Cloquet homes as allegations of abuse on the part of their caretakers are being investigated. The investigation and legal actions came about after photos and video of the alleged abuse were circulated widely on Facebook earlier this month, and protesters...
Protests and social media posts alleging abuse of up to 10 Native American children at two local foster care homes have been seen and heard. Fond du Lac Band attorney Scott Buchanan filed a petition for an emergency protective care hearing for two of the children last week. More than 60 people attended the Zoom hearing for that case on Tuesday, with Sixth District Carlton County judge Rebekka Stumme presiding over a virtual courtroom. In the end, Stumme ordered that a total of nine children be...
Candidate filings for the Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee positions of secretary/treasurer and Committeeperson District II (Sawyer) opened Jan. 14 and will close at 4:30 p.m. Jan. 24. Band members may file with the secretary/treasurer’s office. Primary elections will be April 5, with the general election on June 14....
I wonder what would happen if hundreds of strangers suddenly got stranded in Cloquet. Maybe a huge blizzard hits while we’re hosting a big hockey tournament? Or tragedy strikes on a summer Sunday afternoon, when seemingly a million people are passing through town on their way home from the weekend. I guess it’s pretty unlikely, but it could happen. There was indeed such a scene after 9/11, when 38 planes were suddenly grounded in Gander, Newfoundland, leaving almost 7,000 passengers str...
Photos and video showing the alleged child abuse of at least two Native American children in foster care set off a Facebook firestorm last week that has ballooned into a series of protests that organizers say will continue in Carlton County until the children are deemed safe. One video shows a toddler being spanked repeatedly. Another shows a boy between the ages of 5 and 10 years old wearing only what looks like a diaper while he's being hit in the back with a spatula. The same boy is pictured...
