Steve Fernlund and The Long Way Home

Our second youngest grandchild, Chloe, has turned 16 and is learning to drive. With learner permit in hand she has been driving the byways of suburban Las Vegas with a licensed adult, Mom or Dad. A feisty young lady, Chloe wants to be licensed to drive when they move to Minnesota this summer so she can drive herself to school and work during her senior year of high school. (For those who don’t know, our daughter Jess and her kids visited Grand Marais last summer, for the first time in ages, and decided Minnesota was where they wanted to live. Jess and Matt have found employment in Duluth and are close to a deal on a house in Carlton after mucking about in the crazy real estate market around the Zenith City. The other day, Matt was on a driving excursion with Chloe behind the wheel. Not known for his limitless patience, Matt was commenting on her driving--hoping she’d learn the “right way” to do things like signaling turns, handling round-abouts, and stopping for the red signs that say ...

North House Folk School in Grand Marais was denied its petition for a setback variance it sought for a new classroom/workshop building it plans to construct on property it owns on the harbor waterfront. Asked what the next step is for the well-known folk school, Greg Wright, its Executive Director, said, “We’re taking a deliberate pause to engage with the community.” Wright has planned public meetings for 9-10 am on Tuesday, April 19th and 26th and 7-8 pm on April 21st and 28th. The meetings will be held at the so-called North House green building at 505 West Highway 61. “We are listening to concerns and questions people have about the waterfront for the future,” Wright said. He hopes the School’s neighbors will come to share their thoughts and review the drawings for the site. Following these meetings the school will consider how to proceed to gain the space it needs and decide how to proceed. North House Folk School began on a shoestring in 1997 when a small group of classes were hel...

I can state without fear of contradiction, the more things change, the more things change. Recently there was a minor social media kerfuffle here about the Jim Scott Fish House on Grand Marais’ harbor. It is registered as a national historical site and sits on property that the North House Folk School acquired a few years ago. It’s basically used for storage, and alongside a steel sided fish processing building, it stands in the way of a planned classroom building the school wants on the site. It became an issue as the City of Grand Marais was considering a variance request of harbor setback regulations for the new building.  The school does not intend to destroy the Scott building, but wishes to move it to a new location and preserve it as best as they can. The kerfuffle was between those wanting the Scott building to stay where it is (and be preserved) and those who want the school to follow its plan to move it, preserve it, and build more classroom space. My friend Kay always sa...

The Cook County Local Energy Project (CCLEP) is hosting its first Earth Day Fair on Friday, April 22 from 4:30 pm to 7:30 pm at the Cook County Community Center in Grand Marais. It is working with Cook County Climate Action,a faith based local group formed in 2021 and called to care for the environment.  The event is part of a statewide network of Earth Day events organized with the Minnesota Interfaith Power and Light, an organization that partners with faith communities around the state to, according to their website, “Build transformative power and bring the lights of people’s unique gifts to addressing the climate crisis.” The Earth Day event will feature eight speakers on topics that include recycling, energy efficiency, and the City Climate Action Plan. Interactive stations will be set up to include an Earth Day Photo booth, making your own reusable snack bag, Earth Day Games, face painting, and other family oriented activities. Coffee and water will be available during the p...

Baxley Creates Media Production Company in Cook County In a career move that has brought Matthew Baxley full circle, he started a full-service audio and video production company in Cook County last year called Bear Witness Media. Entering college at the University of Wisconsin Stout, the young Baxley from LaCrosse, WI, hoped to achieve his degree in multi-media productions. Before two years had passed however he switched his major. After graduation, he worked as a community organizer and taught outdoor education in St. Paul. He then spent time teaching outdoor education in San Francisco. The next stop for him is the graduate program at Stout in the Marriage and Family program. While there, he met Lindsay Gau, the current director of the Violence Prevention Center in Grand Marais. After completing the graduate program, the two of them entered into private practice as counselors in the Twin Cities. A few years into that, professional burnout set in and the two of them were longing for a ...

It came to my attention recently that the Minnesota Twins, my favorite team when I thought baseball mattered, have just signed shortstop Carlos Correa to a three-year contract worth $105.3 million. For the season, he is earning $216,049 each game.  The average ticket price for a Twins game in 2019 was $32.66, up 89% from 2006 when a ticket cost $17.26. To cover Mr. Correa’s salary, if it will be covered by ticket sales, requires 6,615 souls willing to fork over the cash for each game. Attendance last year averaged 16,377 per game. In 1962, when this writer saw his first Major League game as an eight-year-old at Met Stadium, the average attendance was 17,473. Amazing when you think how the population of average folks has grown in the Twins market area since then. The Twin's annual payroll on opening day last year was $125.2 million. In this, the Twins were below the average for MLB of $143.5 million. To cover that payroll, the team would need to average almost 24,000 ticket buyers f...

  After decades of travel and exploring around the world, Tor and Siffy Torkildson now make Hovland their home. The couple has lived in or explored almost every country on the planet and have shared some of what they’ve seen and learned about the people and places in two curated anthologies, “The Walkabout Chronicles” and “The Pilgrimage Chronicles.” Both of the Torkildsons grew up in Minnesota. They met a couple of years after college graduation. Tor had returned from his post-college wander around the world. To kill some time he went with a friend who had a job interview with the National Park Service. While hanging out, waiting for his buddy, Tor was asked by a Park Service employee if he’d like to interview for a job. With nothing else going on, he took the chance to interview and was offered a job at Glacier National Park. And there he met Siffy, where they worked the season together and became hiking buddies. They went their separate ways after that but reconnected 11 years a...

For more than a decade, Sawtooth Mountain Clinic’s Oral Health Task Force (OHTF) has helped Cook County parents get the dental care their children need. Its efforts at education and funding assistance for teeth cleaning and care have brought cavities and other dental problems in children to the lowest level of any county in Minnesota. With its new Senior Oral Health Care Program, OHTF is reaching out to the county’s population of seniors, many of whom may be in desperate need of dental care. In conjunction with Grand Marais Family Dentistry, the OHTF program is targeted at uninsured and underinsured seniors. Bonnie Dalin, Task Force Hygienist at OHTF says that poor oral hygiene can lead to more serious health issues. “It can lead to or make worse things like pneumonia, heart disease, and diabetes,” she said. Dalin, a practicing dental hygienist in the Twin Cities, moved to Cook County five years ago at the urging of her father who lives in Colvill. He mentioned that Grand Marais Dentis...

In a collaboration between Cascade Vacation Rentals and Cascade Resort in Lutsen a new north shore business was created in the Grand Marais business park. North Shore Laundry Services is the first commercial laundry in Cook County. The company website says the business was built to provide hotels, vacation rentals, and resorts hassle-free, affordable, and consistent commercial laundry service. Micah Avery is the Laundry Operations Manager. He is a long-time Cook County resident with deep ties to the community. His three-person team includes a pickup and delivery driver and a floor attendant. Micah plans to add staff and a second shift as the business grows into the summer. Although he lacked laundry experience, Micah has a strong business and customer service background. His varied life experience includes living for a time in Michigan, Arizona, and Bosnia. “I love the service industry,” he said. For many of the smaller resorts to do their own laundry requires significant investment in...

Last summer new signs sprouted on Highway 61 in Colvill, somewhere near mile marker 118, announcing the Kodonce River State Wayside just ahead. For long-time residents and visitors to this area, the site has been known as the Kadunce River State Wayside. But don’t be confused, it’s the same place and well worth a stop when you are driving up the shore. According to the website www.minnesotaseasons.com the KADUNCE River was recorded with the US Board on Geographic Names (BGN) in 1941 (BGN is a Federal body created in 1890 to maintain uniform geographic name usage throughout the Federal Government.) In 1947, the state government, perhaps asserting its independence from the Feds, changed the name to KODONCE River State Park (no one seems to know why). Then, in 1969 the park was downgraded to a State Wayside, but kept the spelling of KODONCE. Maps and signs in the area, including the highway sign marking the river crossing, still spell the river as KADUNCE. A brief internet search shows t...

  Big Bear Lodge and Cabins on Poplar Lake, up the Gunflint Trail, operates a reduced season in winter with only three cabins in use. “It gives us time for ourselves,” said owner Andy DeLisi. Not one to enjoy just sitting around, and unable to do resort maintenance and construction during the winter, Andy decided he had to come up with a hobby. Ice fishing was off the table, so he is building a Northshore themed model railroad layout in an old outbuilding on the property. As the 2021 resort season came to an end this fall Andy spent some time repurposing a small building on the property that was originally built in 1935. “We really have not used it for any real reason for the 10 years we have owned the place,” Andy said. They referred to it as “The Shack” or “The Curmudgeon Cabin.” Andy now considers it “Andy’s Hobby Shack/2nd heated workshop/man-cave/all-around cool shanty.” Consistent with it being a “Hobby Shack,” DeLisi says it is, “Perfect for a model train area.” Andy and Id...

Lutsen Resort is shuttling folks between its property and the Lutsen Ski Hill in the classic luxury of a 1935 Red Jammer bus built by the White Motor Company under contract with the National Park Service. The company built just 500 buses and about 100 are still operating, according to Edward Vanegas, Food and Beverage Director at Lutsen Resort. The bus is painted the red of Mountain Ash berries, and there is an abundance of those berries here on the North Shore. It carries up to 14 people with a ski equipment rack on the exterior driver's side. Passenger doors for each row of seats are opposite. Currently, the shuttle makes three runs in the morning and three in the afternoon with three stops each trip on resort property. Bryce Campbell, President and CEO of North Shore Resort Company, acquired the 133-year-old Lutsen Resort in 2018. He has a lifelong passion for historic lodges. When he can, he visits the historic National Park Lodges including Glacier and Yellowstone. He is ins...

  After 15 months on the job as the County Administrator in Cook County, James Joerke says that there are two major issues the county faces, and they are inextricably entwined. Number one--Housing, of all kinds. Number two--child care. Both issues are creating a drag on hiring, the third issue facing the county. To attract new residents to fill existing job openings requires the community to have access to housing and child care for those workers and their families. “We’re going to need a range of housing options. Workforce housing. Housing for young and growing families. Housing for seniors and the disabled,” said Joerke. “When you look at a map for areas of the country affected least by climate change, northeast Minnesota is very attractive,” said Joerke. Add in the benefits of great broadband, our environment, and the high quality of life, Cook County is seeing an increase in the numbers of climate refugees, further complicating the housing issue. To begin addressing the housi...

The boatbuilding tradition on Minnesota’s north shore continues in the capable hands of Mark Morgen in Grand Marais. Mark is building a 20-foot Caledonia Yawl in his shop this winter and plans to be sailing her by summer. The style of the Caledonia Yawl, a popular design for sailors and amateur boatbuilders, comes from an inshore fishing boat common in the Shetland Islands of the North Atlantic, which in turn was developed from Norwegian open boats. Its double-ended, double masted style is distinctive. Mark and his wife Carol moved to Grand Marais in the summer of 2017 after he retired from 3M. For more than ten years, the two of them visited Cook County as often as they could, enjoying the outdoors and the BWCA--Winter and Summer. When they thought about how much time they spent here Mark says, “We might as well live here.” Unlike many retirees, the Morgens were not interested in a sunbelt retirement. “We are not heat people,” Mark said. “We didn’t want to move south.” Their hobbies ...

The Long Way Home  Despite the recent winter storms, spring is coming. We looked forward to spring at the Home Center--with some uneasiness, but with the certainty that we would soon have stories to tell. Spring means the return of snowbirds and seasonal property owners. And that means they’ll need to be doing home improvements and repairs. So guess what, they come to the hardware store and leave us laughing--at ourselves most of the time. Last spring a woman came in looking to get a longer toilet connection--one of those flexible, braided pieces of plumbing to get water to the toilet. In her case, it was for a bidet. So who does this poor woman get stuck with to help with plumbing? Me. We made our way back to the plumbing area and soon found the length of connector she wanted. I thought I’d solved a plumbing problem and was pretty happy with myself. The fittings on the connectors come in only a couple of sizes, most commonly ⅜” or ½”. Strange that the shorter piece she brought in ...

  January 19, 2022 Seneca, the ancient Stoic philosopher, reminds us that every person we meet is an opportunity to help other people. In fact, helping those in need is a pillar of every major religion and philosophy.  When Donna and Orvis Lunke received the first federal stimulus check in the early days of the pandemic, the Spring of 2020, Donna said, “We asked ourselves, what can we do good in the community with this?” Orvis and Donna  Lunke The answer was that they could share this money with folks in Cook County that have hit a bump in the road of one kind or another, and they called it Small Requests.  Donna was raised in Cook County and has lived and worked here most of her life. Orvis spent his career with the Minnesota DNR here in the Arrowhead. Between them, they knew several folks struggling in one way or another, so they started with them, giving a small financial gift and a loving, supportive, handwritten note.  ”That’s the way I grew up,” Donna said...