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 Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Enbridge are moving forward with the planned removal of deactivated sections of Line 3 and Line 4 from the Fond du Lac Reservation beginning this month. The project removes deactivated sections of pipe and restores the land to its natural state, making it more accessible to tribal members. Native-owned union contractor Gordon Construction is leading the work along with a team largely made up of Native and tribally owned subcontractors. Enbridge said in a news release that it expects removal...
Essentia Health isn't the only health care provider currently in the process of constructing a warehouse in Carlton County. While not nearly as sprawling as the 163,000-square-foot hospital warehouse in Esko, the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa is building a warehouse at the corner of Airport and Jolicouer roads. The 100-by-60-foot warehouse will serve the Band's nearby Min No Aya Win Human Services Center, and its assorted clinics, which provide medical, dental, behavioral health,...
Welcome to the final newspaper of 2023. For the first time in our five-year history, the Pine Knot News will be closed for a week, taking off the final week of the year, meaning there will be a two-week gap until the publishing of the Jan. 5 edition. Creating a newspaper every week is a labor of love for all of us at the Pine Knot News, but it’s labor all the same. We could use the breather, but not before we tell you how much we appreciate your readership and support. In the five years since we printed our first edition in October 2018, we’ve...
Remote Carlton County land west of Cloquet will be used to hold wild elk during the establishment of a herd, beginning as soon as 2026, following a vote by the county board Tuesday. “They’re not asking for permission to bring elk here, they’re asking for us to sign a lease on a particular parcel,” commissioner Marv Bodie said, directing the board to stay on task during another meeting that featured a wide-ranging discussion on efforts by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Min...
Carlton County earned one of six outstanding achievement awards for exhibiting excellence and innovation at the annual conference for Minnesota's 87 counties earlier this month. Carlton County was celebrated for establishing a formal agreement with the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa. "In 2023, Carlton County, (the) Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and Arrowhead Regional Corrections completed a 12-page agreement that guides agreed-upon best practices, protocols and...
Elwin Joseph Benton, 85, passed away peacefully Dec. 2, 2023, in his home in Cloquet. He was born in Cloquet on Nov. 22, 1938, to Joseph and Marie (Diver) Benton. He grew up in Cloquet and Duluth, where he attended Cathedral High School. At age 17, Elwin joined the U.S. Navy. He was honorably discharged before his 21st birthday, and traveled the country before joining the U.S. Army, serving until 1967. Upon returning to Duluth, he earned degrees in sociology and psychology at the University of M...
Thirty-two homesteads in Progress Township are set to receive notice by mail of a pending Carlton County board vote regarding an elk reintroduction pen proposed to be located there. Saying they wanted to collect public input by those most closely affected, county commissioners unanimously tabled a vote Monday that would have addressed the pen. Instead, commissioners agreed to alert residents of the possibility and give them time to appear at the next board meeting, 4 p.m. Dec. 12 at the Carlton County Transportation Building. “I just want the p...
Shut your eyes, picture it's the Fourth of July or Labor Day in Cloquet. It's parade time. The veterans have passed by, now here comes the music. You recognize the familiar trailer, with its red, white and blue decorations. It's the Cloquet Community Band. Cloquet has a decorated city band history dating back to at least the early 1900s. Even before World War I, according to "A Hometown Album: Cloquet's Centennial Story," Cloquet boasted "a first class city band and the local Finnish population...
A rebranded and expanded regional program hopes to help Northeastern Minnesota entrepreneurs who are Black, Indigenous, military veterans, or women. The Driving Access to Wealth & Networks (DAWN) program at Northspan Group, Inc., a Duluth-based nonprofit, is set to receive $2 million over the next four years from the U.S. Department of Commerce. That money is meant to help budding business leaders who hail from historically underserved communities - or, as more than one speaker at a kickoff...
A Carlton County board meeting flared hot Tuesday, when commissioner Tom Proulx and county staff squared off over the use of contracted social work. Despite a 4-1 vote affirming the use of contracted social workers to address a surge in disability services and long-term elder care cases, the preceding debate stirred tensions at a time of union contract negotiations. Proulx first squared off with public health and human services director David Lee over the issue. “What would happen if we said no?” asked Proulx. “I would have to come back and a...
John Francis "Bucky" "Skin" Peacock, 67, of Cloquet died on Sunday, Oct. 1, 2023. He was born on Sept. 11, 1956, to Robert and Elizabeth (Morrissette) Peacock in Cloquet. John was a plumber by trade and worked with various companies throughout his life. He was a proud member of the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and a veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps. He loved camping and fishing at the river and his trips to Las Vegas. John was preceded in death by his parents; brothers George and...
Once a member of the first class of students to graduate from the Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College campus in Cloquet, Roxanne DeLille went on to u niversity in Duluth and later committed five years to the tribal college at the request of its founding president, the late Jack Briggs. "Twenty-five years later, closer to 30, I'm still here," DeLille said. As dean of indigenous and academic affairs, DeLille described herself as a big-picture person who likes to dream big. For that, she was...
The newest president of Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College already knows the college from the inside out, working in numerous positions since she was hired as a part-time counselor nearly 30 years ago. Anita Hanson is the fifth president of the college, and the second woman to lead the college, a partnership between tribe and state. Hanson replaces FDLTCC's first woman president, Stephanie Hammitt, who passed away unexpectedly in November after leading the college officially since 2018....
The local tribal reservation experienced evacuations of two buildings Sept. 7, when the Mino-Aya-Win human services building and Tagwii Recovery Center were locked and staff “safely evacuated,” a Facebook post said. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa also closed community centers in Cloquet, Brookston and Sawyer “out of an abundance of caution and for the safety of our community’s children and staff.” The Band did not respond to inquiries from the Pine Knot News about the nature of the disturbances, or why the Band was able to s...
The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa announced last week some guidelines for members harvesting wild rice. “(R)espect the gift we have been given,” the Band’s Wild Rice Committee said in a news release Aug. 31. “Please avoid areas of green rice, knock with respect, and to think of those who come after you as those who came before you did.” The wild rice harvest began on Saturday. Other harvesting notes include: • Ricing will be allowed every day. • For the first week harvest hours are 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.; for the second week harvest goes...
As someone who works across Minnesota helping communities harness the benefits of clean energy, I am thoroughly impressed by northeast Minnesota community clean energy efforts. The region is home to various meaningful clean energy related projects. Among others, projects led by the Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa come to mind. The Fond du Lac Band has constructed an award-winning resource management building, a 1-megawatt solar field, a biomass district heat system, Tesla 8 vehicle charging stations, a Forest Carbon Sequestration...
Ricard Reino Puumala, 88, died peacefully Aug. 19, 2023, at Inter-Faith Care Center in Carlton. He was born July 23, 1935, in Chicago to Reino and Marie Bepko Puumala, both doctors. Growing up in Cloquet, he was active in debate, thespians, band (trombone) and orchestra (violin), and Boy Scouts, achieving the rank of Eagle Scout. He graduated from Cloquet High School in 1952 as a National Merit Scholar, then went on to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis for his undergraduate and medical...
Lee Ann Nicholson, 74 passed away peacefully on July 30, 2023 in St. Paul. She was born in Cloquet Dec. 22, 1948, to Everett and Lorraine Bassett. She attended Cloquet High School followed by Minneapolis Business College. She married Morrie Nicholson on Dec. 30, 1967 in Rapid City, South Dakota. She quickly became a mother to two daughters whom she primarily stayed at home caring for before starting her working years. The family lived briefly in South St. Paul before settling into their Cottage...
The Northland Foundation based in Duluth awarded 36 grants totaling over $1 million this past spring, including $150,000 to Carlton County “to help support the implementation of a sustainable, coordinated community response that will improve outcomes for victims and their children and disrupt generational violence.” Social issues and cultural initiatives were a large part of the foundation’s grant cycle. Northland covers seven counties: Aitkin, Carlton, Cook, Itasca, Koochiching, Lake, and St. Louis, and five Native nations, including Fond...
With recreational cannabis now legal in the state of Minnesota, local cities can choose to regulate its sale in a variety of ways, Cloquet planner/zoning administrator Al Cottingham told the Cloquet City Council on Aug. 1. “Conceivably we won’t see [cannabis dispensaries] in the public areas until late (2024 or in 2025), however, we have some neighbors to the west that I’m not sure what may or may not happen,” Cottingham said, referring to the Fond du Lac Reservation and noting that the Red Lake Band opened a public dispensary the same day tha...
Walker Orenstein MinnPost.org Talon Metals has submitted its plan for an underground nickel and copper mine in Aitkin County to Minnesota regulators, launching the environmental review of a project that could become a domestic source of metals for electric vehicles but which has also drawn skepticism from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe. While the submission is just the first phase of what could be a lengthy process, it's nevertheless a milestone for Talon and what it calls the Tamarack Nickel... 
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Last winter was one most folks won't soon forget, with record snowfalls common and collapsed roofs and fallen treelines forever impacted. Even now, the city of Carlton is dealing with the aftermath. The city-owned arena, Four Seasons Sports Complex, is the subject of a pending insurance claim, having suffered exterior damage from the ice and snow. The damage is obvious to passersby, as the arena side facing Highway 210 features a long crumpled strip of steel siding. "The ice and snow buildup...
Native Americans serve in the U.S. military at five times the national average, according to the United Service Organizations. Pride in that service was on display throughout the Fond du Lac Veterans Powwow last weekend, with military uniforms and camouflage interspersed with a dazzling display of traditional regalia worn by 476 dancers competing in the powwow. Drummers pounded out the Veterans Song, while flags from every military branch, eagle staffs from various reservations, and families...
The Carlton County Board of Commissioners breezed through its first meeting of July in 24 minutes Tuesday. But it managed to get work done, raising the threshold for project labor agreements while also announcing its intent to work more closely with the local tribe on matters that impact both jurisdictions. Regarding project labor agreements, county engineer JinYeene Neumann explained the decision to raise the threshold triggering a project labor agreement from $175,000 to $250,000 on county-led construction. A committee had met throughout the...
I recently received a copy of a letter from Brian Buhr, Dean of the University of Minnesota’s College of Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resource Sciences that provided an update on the Cloquet Forestry Center. A technical working group has been formed and charged with “compiling information related to the UMN’s current and potential future activities at Cloquet Forestry Center to inform the scope around a memorandum of understanding as the land is transferred to [the Fond du Lac Band]. This will provide clear options for a transition model to o...
