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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A stock water tank and a giant Coca-Cola bottle replica contained most of the one million pop can tabs Wright Elementary School students collected back in the late 1980s. The collection was to be recycled for cash, with the money donated to the Ronald McDonald House in Minneapolis, a place where families can stay while children receive medical treatment. An appreciative Ronald McDonald himself came to the tiny school on a snowy day in February and entertained the students for the afternoon. "Peo...
About 14 years ago, Kate Isles gave her partner in life and music, Bill Isles, some direction while they were driving in St. Cloud. "Don't go down by the bridge," Bill recalls Kate saying. "(And) I just bellowed out 'Stay up high on the ridge.'" And that was the innocuous lyrical beginning of what became the song "Flood Waters," released on an album the couple produced in 2011. It became an audience favorite for the musical duo from Duluth that has a cabin and studio on Hay Lake in Carlton...
With teams of experts reminding us daily of the defensive measures we must all take to fight off the coronavirus, we tend to think that's all we need to do. But now comes our moment to go on the offensive, to win the bigger war - a war not only for our physical health, but for our mental, emotional and even spiritual health - the war to maintain the bonds of our community, maybe even our humanity. When Desiree Pederson, owner of Necessities Salon in Cloquet, thought about the challenge to her...
Residents at Diamond Willow Assisted Living facilities in the region have been able to virtually and, sometimes, physically - divided by glass - connect with loved ones in recent months as the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Below: Pearl Kaspari visits with her son and daughter-in-law through a doorway. Right: Betty Krause visits with family members....
The Pine Knot inadvertently left out some of our Mother's Day art submissions last week. Here are three of those celebrating generations of mothers....
I am breaking the first rule of writers: "Write about what you know." Even though my husband and I have raised gardens for 50 years, my knowledge of the plant world remains quite incomplete. I come from a long line of gardeners, not Master Gardeners, mind you, but women who mastered gardening to feed their families and spruce up the yard with flowers if they had time or energy to spare. It was understood that I would carry on this gardening tradition when I married and had children. We bought...
They were singing and preaching from the rooftop Sunday at Journey Christian Church in Cloquet. It was the second drive-in church service where associate Pastor Fred Goldschmidt preached and the worship team played music while folks sang along and listened in the safety of their cars with radios tuned to the service. "It was a great service and the parking lot was full," said church member Walt Lindquist. "When Pastor would make an important point, people would honk their horns." The horns...
The Danish physicist Nils Bohr famously observed that “it is difficult to make predictions, especially about the future.” Never has that statement been truer than today. The COVID-19 pandemic has created deep uncertainties and anxieties, not only about our public health, but also about the future of our economic and political systems. So many variables are at work that even our best scientific minds cannot forecast the outcome of this contagion with certainty. We simply can’t predict how it will end, or when. With all due respect to the Nobel...
When I was kid, one of the fun things that might happen when the family was stuck in the house on a snowy day was a "theatrical production." These were usually a one-act play dreamed up by the kids who planned it all out, gathered the props and put on a show for Mom and Dad. The snow had brought life's big show to a grind-ing halt, so it fell to the kids to put on a little show. It may have been Plato, some 2,400 years ago, who first articulated that big, show-stopper problems often demanded...
Hope W. took on our Earth Day coloring page and pledged to pick up litter on her walk and bike rides. Thanks, Hope....
In March of this year, I turned 81. This is the first year that it was a very quiet and reserved celebration with my wife, as it has always been a time for my family and friends to come together and celebrate. On the bright side, staying home more this past month has given us time to clean and go through my office, which is full of family history. Our home has become a collection of memorabilia, filled with photos and diaries of my family history. The collection goes from the 1800s to the...
Last week's MNopedia spotlight on the late Jim Northrup - a well-known author and columnist - wrongly noted that Northrup was the first Native American graduate of Carlton High School in 1961. Pine Knot News subscriber Shirley (Cummings) Armon, a class of 1954 grad, pointed out the error and sent photos from the 1951 Carltonian yearbook to prove it. According to Armon, at least two prior Carlton grads were Native American: Shirley Barney graduated with honors in 1951, and Jack Kari graduated in...
A writing assignment was shared with the Pine Knot News by English teacher Jason Richardson. Cloquet High School student Allison Sickmann used a prompting quote about not thinking of what you don't have but instead of what you do have to work with. It's from Ernest Hemingway's "The Old Man and the Sea." She turned in the following abstract about her dad demonstrating this philosophy during the governor's stay-at-home order. "It's good writing. Timely," said Richardson. Situation Shifter The...
The arts have been an important refuge for folks during this global pandemic. For some it might be binge-watching a TV series or catching up on the bedstand stack of books, but in Wrenshall the community is getting creative with how they are taking in and producing a shared culture. Seniors in Jeanna Aldridge's class recreated famous works of art using only materials they had at home. Wrenshall's Tom Cawcutt Sr. has started a weekly live concert series from the comfort of his own home. Cawcutt...
From the history archives of the MNopedia project developed by the Minnesota Historical Society. James Warren Northrup was an award-winning Ojibwe author, columnist, playwright, poet, performer, political commentator, and Vietnam War veteran. He wrote extensively on combat life as a marine in the Vietnam War as well as daily life on the Fond du Lac Indian Reservation. The combination of these topics gives his works broad crossover appeal. At age 6, Northrup was sent, with his sister, to the...
I took the news of John Prine passing away last week a little hard. His music holds a special place in the mythology of the Food Farm. When telling the story of Jane and John founding the farm, we often turn to the lyrics to Prine’s “Spanish Pipedream.” “We blew up our TV, threw away our paper. Went to the country, built us a home.” They moved from Oregon to Holyoke in 1975 to start a farming community during the height of that decade’s back-to-the-land movement. Author and farmer Gene Logsdo...
Easter morning at dawn is the perfect time to write my long overdue column about Promised Land Farm eggs. The word Easter is thought to come from the German myth about Eostre, the goddess of the dawn. And eggs symbolize rebirth and renewal - new life bursting forth after a long winter - a perfect metaphor for the spring celebrations of Easter, Passover and Ramadan. Promised Land eggs are part of almost every breakfast here at Oldenburg House, with vegan guests wanting oatmeal being the rare...
Elmer Lindholm was buried in straw and in a coma inside a barn in France in 1918. He was one of the American troops sent to fight in World War I. For most of a week, Lindholm would be in the grip of the influenza that was spreading across the world and killing millions of people. The "Spanish" flu hit young people particularly hard. He was in his early 20s. Roy Grist, an Army physician at a hospital near Boston, wrote to a colleague about what he had been seeing in soldiers during the pandemic....
L&M Fleet Supply has donated a years-worth of dog food to the Cloquet Police Department and its K9 dog Vader. Manager Larry Tisdell presented the gift last week to an enthusiatic Vader and handler Laci Silgjord (out of frame) while clerk Hannah Warpula stood as witness....
It’s Sunday morning and your most recent edition sits open to page six on our dining room table. Because we enjoy reading and digesting the articles slowly, we are rationing the paper so it lasts until the next issue arrives. We have come to trust your reporting and enjoy your coverage of our little corner of the world. Your presentation of Carlton County’s response during this pandemic is both informative and reassuring. When you offer historical reports of similar hardships you remind us of our resilience and when you caution us to hold ourse...
The Pine Knot News has a new page designed to provide some light in these troubling times for the community. It’s called “Life During a Pandemic.” How are you coping with the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures put in place to stop its spread? We’ve already heard some encouraging words from readers and want to hear more. Do you have a moment of kindness to relate? Or do you have a simple observation as we, in essence, shelter in our homes? Is there any advice you’d like to offer Pine Knot News readers – coping mechanisms that have worked for...
I was struck this past week by a surprising contrast. One day I walked several miles around town to get some outside exercise, and was impressed by how diligent other walkers were about maintaining social distance. In spite of the sparse density of people outside, most were impressively conscientious, even to the point of crossing the street when another walker approached so as to keep considerable distance. The following day, I visited a local grocery store. My partner and I are now planning ou...
Anthony Fell went to the skate park in Cloquet after the snowfall earlier this week to shovel it off, allowing skaters like Walker Lindberg, behind Fell, to enjoy the outdoor attraction while the state is in lockdown. As has been the case in a changeable pandemic world, Cloquet's parks were deemed off limits by Wednesday to promote better social distancing....
As a senior in high school, putting life on hold is quite a challenge. The constant updates and news about our worldwide problem are exhausting. At this time of year, seniors' lives are changing as rapidly as the world is, and now we are distanced from our comfortable system of relationships we built over the past months and years of our lives. It can be easy to slip into a disappointing feeling about our school situation. But, I'd rather look on the bright side. With our new system, you can go...
For the Christian community the two times on the calendar that garner the most attention for us are Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ, and Easter - which is more accurately called Passover - when we remember His crucifixion and glorious resurrection. These two events are our Super Bowl, so to speak. Many start to celebrate the week leading up to Good Friday and the Sunday morning service with various events that culminate when we gather in our local churches to...
