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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How does one rank the top stories from an entire year? Are calculations made in terms of long-term health, dollars spent, numbers of people affected? What about long-term historical effects, or maybe Facebook clicks? No matter what metric you choose, 2019 was an eventful year in Carlton County, with elected and appointed officials making changes, kids smoking again and building moves that will stand for generations to come. Rather than ranking our top stories of 2019, we chose to place them in...
Fond du Lac Band chairman Kevin DuPuis and tribal council member Roger Smith were in Washington last week to witness President Donald Trump sign an executive order creating a national task force to address the crisis of missing and murdered indigenous women. DuPuis spoke after the Nov. 26 signing, emphasizing that his own family has been part of the statistics. "Our women are the ones who raise our children," he said. "Our women are the ones who take care of our village. Our women are the ones...
As proposed 2020 tax statements arrived in mailboxes this week, some Carlton County residents were shocked to find out just how much their property tax bill is likely to increase next year. Thanks to a triple whammy of decreasing utility company valuations, increasing local taxes and higher assessed values for most residential properties, some homeowners could see their taxes payable in 2020 increase by as much as 30 percent. Residents of Perch Lake, Silver Brook, Twin Lakes and Sawyer...
Two pieces of great news came out of Monday’s Cloquet school board meeting: 1.The school district tax levy will increase by less than half a percent; 2.The district is part of a consortium of mostly Carlton County school districts that was awarded a $1.5 million grant ($750,000 each year for the next two years) to expand and explore the career and technical education programs in the area. Other school districts in the group include Barnum, Carlton, Cromwell-Wright, Esko, McGregor, Moose Lake, Willow River and Wrenshall. All of the districts a...
More than 100 years ago, a member of the Fond du Lac band pitched six innings for the Chicago White Sox … the same year he was deemed “unqualified” to play for the Cloquet baseball team. His name was William Cadreau. The right-handed pitcher is listed in the 1889 Census Roll of the Fond du Lac Band of Chippewa, a 1-year old boy born to Antoine Cadreau and Louisa Naganab on Sept. 2, 1888, in Cloquet. William’s lineage appears to show he is the grandson of Chief Naganab of Fond du Lac, who sig...
Interim Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College president Stephanie Hammitt got the job. She is FDLTCC president after serving as interim president for nearly 18 months. “Stephanie Hammitt has performed admirably as interim president,” said Devinder Malhotra, chancellor of Minnesota State. Malhotra said Hammitt is navigating the college through re-accreditation and the initial accreditation of the associate of science nursing program. “She has earned overwhelmingly positive support from key p...
Development on Big Lake, the future of the sanitary district, cooperative zoning and boat enforcement all entered the discussion at an Oct. 28 meeting between the Fond Du Lac Reservation Business Committee members and officials from Carlton County. The county was represented by Commissioners Dick Brenner and Tom Proulx, zoning and environmental services administrator Heather Cunningham, zoning inspector Dave Hurst, and county coordinator Dennis Genereau. The agenda of the meeting and observations were presented at the Carlton County board meeti...
I grew up reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House on the Prairie" series in Japan. For me, a young girl growing up in a small country surrounded by oceans, the series was a window into a pioneer family's life on a vast continent I had never seen before. I was particularly fond of all the sensory details (from blowing up the hog's bladder like a little balloon to making molasses candies on the snow) as well as the feistiness of Laura's character, a quality we shared. The "Little House"...
Frances Marie (Gurneau) Ziebarth, 90, passed away peacefully Oct. 13, 2019 at Baptist Memorial Hospice in Memphis, Tennessee after a short illness. Fran, known as “Dolly” by many in her family, was born in Cloquet, Minnesota on Nov. 11, 1928, the first child of Frank and Sadie Gurneau. She was a proud Elder of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. Fran married Ken Ziebarth, a longtime high school teacher and counselor, during a snowstorm on Nov. 20, 1948. Their marriage welcomed six...
Fond du Lac Band member Vern Northrup began photographing during his work as a Bureau of Indian Affairs wildland fire operations specialist working on Native lands across the U.S. “When I was a firefighter,” he reflected during a conversation with me last week, “we carried everything on our backs. Real cameras were heavy, so we would buy disposable cameras to document our work and its challenges. I fought fire for 26-27 years. I managed fires, managed aircraft, engines and crews, inclu...
Last week was a tough one for many with the passing of Mike Olson, Clarence Smith Jr., Eugenia Lisson, Lee Lippo, June Kingsley and, most recently, Larry Hamren. Larry, 76, of Wright passed away Sunday, Oct. 20. A funeral service was held Oct. 25 in Greentown, Indiana. A service and burial will follow at a later date, possibly Nov. 17, at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Wright. Donations for Lakeside Cemetery upkeep can be sent to the Lakeside Cemetery Association c/o Pam and Bob Rahja, 1445 Hart...
The man allegedly responsible for the shooting Friday that shut down many of the buildings at the heart of the Fond du Lac Reservation was charged in Sixth District Carlton County Court Monday. Shelby Gene Boswell, 28, of Hugo, Minnesota is accused of shooting and injuring another man, 45-year-old Broderick Boshay Robinson of Minneapolis, in the back of the head at a funeral Friday in the Head Start gymnasium. Boswell faces charges of both first- and second-degree assault, being a felon in...
A shooting during a funeral in the Fond du Lac reservation community center gymnasium today left one victim with a gunshot wound to the head and the suspect in custody. Immediately after the shooting was reported at approximately 9:46 a.m. Friday, Oct. 18, the entire tribal campus was placed in lockdown for at least two hours. Interim Cloquet police chief Derek Randall said initial reports indicate that other people at the funeral "grabbed the suspect" and held him until law enforcement arrived...
Carlton County auditor/treasurer Kathy Korteum told the Carlton County board of commissioners that the estimated cost of the presidential primary has basically quadrupled. “We must be prepared for the new presidential primary occurring in March,” the auditor said, explaining that the statewide cost of the primary was first estimated in 2016 to be around $3 million, but now the figure has risen to $12 million. Counties will be reimbursed by the state for any costs associated with the primary election. This will be the first time in recent his...
The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the Office of the State Archaeologist — in consultation with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa — have notified the Minnesota Department of Transportation that grave recovery efforts at the historic Mission Creek cemetery in Duluth’s Fond du Lac neighborhood have been completed. The project started after May 2017, when MnDOT uncovered burial remains in the historic cemetery while excavating to replace the Mission Creek Bridge. Since that time, project partners and contractors have worke...
We’re pleased to see the Cloquet library expansion moving forward, and have some suggestions. First, we note that the library is a regional treasure: no one checks your ID when you come in and when you check out; your Arrowhead library card is all you need. Except for some support from the Arrowhead Library System, the library is run and financed by the taxpayers in Cloquet. The city has reached out to neighboring communities whose citizens frequent the library, to help financially, but most already contribute to the Arrowhead Library System an...
Community Memorial Hospital and Raiter Clinic are joining forces, with the goal of keeping independent local health care thriving in the Cloquet area. The merger came as a surprise for many, some who assumed that the two entities were already operating together. The two have a long history of collaboration, said Raiter Clinic administrator Craig Ward. "This partnership is a natural fit for the community," Ward said. Dr. Jim Rogers, a Raiter Clinic physician, sees it as a positive move for...
Historic Minnesota events that took place this coming week. Sept. 28 1935 Joan Growe is born in Minneapolis. She would serve as Minnesota’s secretary of state from 1975 to 1998, the first woman elected to statewide office without first having been appointed. A member of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, she would champion voter and election reform, including such programs as vote by mail and motor voter registration. Sept. 29 1837 Dakota leaders sign a treaty in Washington selling their lands east of the Mississippi River for about $500,000 i...
Two buses filled with state legislators wound their way through the Northland earlier this month. Members of the House Capital Investment Committee visited Carlton first on Sept. 17, then continued to the Northeast Regional Corrections Center and Duluth, where they spent the night before heading up to Two Harbors, Silver Bay and beyond the next day. In Carlton, the legislative visitors were gifted with their own bottle of less-than-perfect water. "Derek Wolf [city of Carlton public works...
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is stepping into the legal battle surrounding the proposed PolyMet copper-nickel mine. According to a press release from the Fond du Lac Reservation Business Committee, on Sept. 10, the Band filed a lawsuit in Minnesota federal district court against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The lawsuit is significant to the Band because the proposed mine will be located in the Ceded Territory where the Fond du Lac Band retains treaty rights to hunt, fish...
Cheers to multi-use pathways. The concrete pathway along the south side of Washington Avenue will help encourage kids to walk, and ride bikes and skateboards to both the Cloquet middle and high schools. The pathway along Big Lake Road connecting the tribal center to Fond du Lac Gas and Grocery will also encourage people to walk or bike rather than drive for short errands and simply for exercise. Most of us need to walk more, and walking on the roadway is not safe, especially on busy roadways like the two mentioned. (By the way, these trails...
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa flag now flies in the Cloquet city council chambers, a reminder to those who do business there that the borders of the Fond du Lac Reservation and Cloquet overlap and the two entities cannot thrive separately. Charlie Smith, or "Nenaaw" in Anishinaabe, offered tobacco to everyone in the room, as well as to the drum itself, after the Cedar Creek drum group finished two songs and the flag was placed behind the council dais. They presented the flag so...
The Minnesota Public Utilities Commission approved the Enbridge Energy Line 4 project on Aug. 22, a move the pipeline company applauded as its Line 3 pipeline continues to move at a snail’s pace through the state approval process and the courts. As part of the agreement between the pipeline company and the Band regarding the Line 3 oil pipeline replacement project, Enbridge plans to relocate a portion of the Line 4 pipeline that currently crosses the reservation. Enbridge’s Line 4 oil pipeline ...
The Cloquet school board met Monday, Aug. 26 to address the last-minute details that every school faces before the start of school, from the approval of new staff and recognition of others, to talk of classroom sizes and teacher training. But Monday's meeting was a little different, as it started with two drum songs by the Cedar Creek drum group and a ceremony with the Fond du Lac Honor Guard before the school board formally accepted the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa flag as a part...
A crowd of about 50 people gathered Aug. 14 to celebrate the start of something new: the Fond du Lac Cultural Language and Learning Center. Although it's a vacant lot now, by March 2020 the site will be home to a new building for Anishinaabe language and cultural health programs. Many members of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and other local officials and construction industry representatives gathered near Tribal Center on a plot of land off Big Lake Road, eager to learn more...
