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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Known for its hydroelectric power generation and appeal to kayakers, the Thomson Reservoir is soon to be the site of a $36 million construction project. Contractors are set to converge in August on the parking lot alongside Minnesota Highway 210 outside the Thomson Dam. They’ll be there through next summer, working to apply a layer of carbon pellets that will cover up and bind to contaminated sediments at the bottom of what is the St. Louis River. The process will prevent contaminants from t... Full story
Carlton teen Abrianna Schmidt will be the grand marshal of this year's Carlton Daze parade on July 28. Schmidt won the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum's Journey of a Song contest earlier this year, with a song inspired by growing up in Carlton. Schmidt's song, "Small Town Girl," won her an all-expenses-paid trip to Nashville, and participation in the Hall of Fame's weeklong songwriting camp in June, working with music producers and other artists. The 18-year-old found out she was grand...
After hearing an annual report from the district's auditors on July 17, which highlighted the issue of the district writing off over half of its ambulance fee revenue, the Cloquet Area Fire District board approved a preliminary budget for 2025 which includes a 30-percent increase in the ambulance levy. The double-digit tax hike would be the largest since 2023, when the levy increased by 100 percent. For 2024, the ambulance levy increased by 2.83 percent. The reason for such a sharp increase in...
The Fond du Lac Police Department will hold a community input session at 10 a.m. Tuesday, Aug. 13 to discuss the proposed purchase and implementation of officer body-worn cameras. The meeting is open to all residents within reservation boundaries. According to a news release, footage captured by FDLPD cameras would serve various purposes within the department, including investigative, evidentiary, training, and accountability uses. Additionally, footage may be subject to release under specific legal circumstances, such as public records...
Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College hired two new deans this summer: Dean of Nursing and Health Sciences Jessica Huber and Dean of Education Sara Montgomery. Huber was promoted from her role as nursing student mentor and program coordinator at FDLTCC, and worked at the College of St. Scholastica before that as an assistant professor, then as director/department chair of undergraduate nursing. Montgomery was the college’s elementary education program coordinator and faculty. She was an instrumental team member in bringing the college’s new...
Wrenshall will celebrate Brickyard Days (aka Brickyard Day) on Saturday, Aug. 3, with a range of family-friendly activities and even a nod to the Olympics. The day kicks off with a pancake breakfast at the town hall 7-10 a.m., followed by the parade at 11 a.m. Activities in the park after the parade include kids’ games, face painting, crazy hair, bingo and vendors, and 3-point shooting at 1 p.m. and “crazy Olympic partner” games at 2 p.m. Sign up for the shooting and Olympic games at the park....
The annual free Journey Biker Blessing — where motorcyclists can have their rides blessed — starts with registration at 2:30 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3 at Journey Christian Church, 1400 Washington Ave., Cloquet. There will be a ride at 3 p.m. and the blessing is at 5 p.m. Outdoor services and prizes start at 6 p.m....
Come Thursday, the city of Moose Lake will have officially adopted the Carlton County Sheriff’s Office as its law enforcement provider. Both the county board and Moose Lake city council approved a services agreement this week. The contract begins Aug. 1 and runs through the end of 2026. It stipulates the county will supply four deputies and a part-time clerical administrator to the city located on the county’s southern border with Pine County. They’ll be based out of the city’s former police headquarters in the city’s emergency response...
Sixth District Carlton County Judge Amy Lukasavitz commended 22-year-old Ricky Onefeather Tobolaski for taking responsibility for his actions — a rare occurrence in these types of cases, she said — and then sentenced him to four years and nine months in prison. Under the terms of a plea agreement, the Mahtowa man pleaded guilty to third-degree criminal sexual conductbafter originally being charged with first-degree criminal sexual conduct. Tobolaski also pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of pornography. A first-degree criminal sex...
“We know that Mr. Hansen abused every child in his orbit.” Those were the words from Assistant U.S. Attorney Ruth Shnider Tuesday as she spoke to a judge in federal court in Duluth about the proper sentence for Stephan Hansen, the 30-year-old former foster parent and Carlton resident who was found, and who admitted, to be in possession of more than 1,600 exploitative and pornographic pictures or videos of children. After a plea deal made last fall, Hansen was facing a 15- to 30-year prison sentence. U.S. District Judge Jerry Blackwell hea...
The Arrowhead Library System’s Bookmobile visits Kettle River is 1:30-2:15 p.m. Aug. 5 and 26 on Main Street. Mark your calendar so you can visit the bookmobile. National Night Out is 5-7 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 6 at the Kettle River senior center. Ma & Pa Kettle Days is August 9-10. The steak fry is Friday night. The pancake breakfast, pie social, midway, mud bog and bingo happen on Saturday. More information to come. When I was living in an apartment in Chicago with three other girls, one of the girls brought home a baby duck. That duck was l...
The 59th annual Wrong Days in Wright is now in the books. This year's event was one of the best ever. The parade set a new recent record, I think. Our thanks to Mark and Linda Dahlman for their leadership this year, and for all the volunteers, vendors, flea markets, steak fry cooks and servers, and those ran activities that all added to the event. Thank you to everyone who helped in any way. Now, let's make next year's 60th even bigger and better. With that in mind, please collect any Wrong... Full story
The Minnesota Department of Transportation will be closing CSAH 61 under the I-35 bridge starting from Friday, July 26 to approximately Aug. 9. MnDOT will re-open once bridge painting has been completed. The DNR trail under the bridge will remain open during this time. Traffic will be detoured on County Road 61 to County Road 4 to County Road 5. For more information and a detour map, please visit the project website: https://www.dot.state.mn.us/d1/projects/atkinson-bridge/index.html...
Standing under the Dunlap Island picnic shelter, celebrating the unveiling of the new riverfront cultural legacy signs along the St. Louis River in Cloquet, Jeff Savage shared the history of that particular area. Where Community Memorial Hospital stands today, there once was an Indian village. Even before that, the area around what is known today as Dunlap Island was a very important stopping place on the portage from Lake Superior to the Mississippi watershed, said the Fond du Lac museum... Full story
The Cloquet Police Department hosted four training sessions over the past week to help prepare officers and other first responders for active shooter response. The intense, all-day training was hosted by the CPD, and included approximately 120 people from across the area, including Cloquet and Fond du Lac police departments, Carlton County Sheriff’s Office and dispatch, Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, Minnesota State Patrol, Cloquet Area Fire District, and several fire department m...
One of the county's smallest cities will again hold its unique celebration Friday through Sunday, for the 59th year in a row. Almost nothing goes right at Wrong Days in Wright, and that's by design. Softball players bat opposite their usual stance, running to third base first, then second, first and home. Instead of bingo, folks play ognib. They also play cribbage, but they play to lose, not win. They even dress for the occasion. "You wear your clothes inside out, unmatching sox. Most of our...
A 64-year-old Esko man was rescued Saturday evening after falling off a jet ski on Caribou Lake in Canosia Township. According to the St. Louis Sheriff’s Office, the man had taken the jet ski for a ride but was not wearing a personal flotation device. While riding, the jet ski flipped and the man fell off. The man struggled to stay above water and a good Samaritan saw him struggling in the water. The good Samaritan then responded on his jet ski and pulled the man from the water and to shore, where the man lost consciousness. The call came i...
Minnesota’s ruffed grouse spring population counts are similar to last year and to other recent peaks in the 10-year population cycle of grouse — a pattern recorded for 73 years. The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and its partners use spring drumming counts to help monitor the ruffed grouse breeding population through time. The trend includes a low point in the cycle in 2021 that was not as low as previous lows, followed by the highest peak this year since 1972. Warm temperatures and dry conditions that favor high nest success and...
The Minnesota Department of Transportation announced this week that 13 sites have been selected to move to the next step in the process to receive funding from National Electric Vehicle Infrastructure (NEVI) program. The funds will be used to build and maintain EV fast charging stations across the state. Grant dollars are a part of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act which is designed to provide a convenient, affordable, reliable and equitable national network of EV chargers. MnDOT selected 13 locations from 38 applicants along the desig...
Esko school board members bought a house Monday. Or rather, they took the first step, unanimously approving a purchase agreement of $280,000 for the buildings and land at 25 Lincoln Lane. The lot is adjacent and just east of school property, behind the former RAM Insurance building, now the Esko Education Center. It is one of six houses on that block, and the closest one to the school. Superintendent Aaron Fischer recommended the purchase, after the homeowners reached out last week and gave the...
An upbeat Carlton schools superintendent Donita Stepan believes the school district's switch to a four-day school week in September will trigger an uptick in enrollments. Nothing definite in terms of filed paperwork, "But we've done several tours," she said in an interview Tuesday. "We've probably got at least eight or nine new kids interested in coming so far." Regarding families possibly leaving over the same issue, Stepan indicated she had not seen any paperwork for kids leaving the...
The challenge has vexed Jason Amundsen for a few years. He’s brought in engineering students from the University of Minnesota Duluth and St. Thomas University in St. Paul. He’s hired one of them full-time to tackle the problem. At Farm LoLa in Wrenshall, the mission is capturing water from the air — in a sense, making the concept of the indoor humidifier work outside. Amundsen said the world is starving, and he wants to find a way to better water crops. He cites endangered citrus crops in Texas...
Thomson Township passed its 2023 audit with flying colors, with one major suggestion - the township should probably have less money in its reserve fund. Auditors from Abdo, an accounting and consulting firm based in Edina, Minnesota, told township supervisors the general recommendation is to keep a minimum of 35- to 50 percent of the operating budget in the general fund reserves, to cover any unexpected costs or payment delays. "You guys are well above that. You have almost 200 percent of your...
If all goes as planned, construction on a new dental clinic will start this fall or in the spring in the city’s Business Park, after Cloquet city councilors approved the sale of a 1.3-acre lot just off Highway 33, behind the business park sign. Dentist Wendy Peterson attended Tuesday’s meeting. Peterson plans to build a $2.3 million dental facility called Woods & Water Family Dental with space for up to seven operatories, starting with four. Peterson started her career as a dental hygienist in 2006, then went back to school, graduating fro...
A Carlton County man charged with sexual contact involving three juvenile girls will be sentenced in August. Jamie Alden Godbout, 35, originally faced 10 felony charges in a 2022 case that combined charges for abuse of all three girls, but his attorneys requested the cases be split. Carlton County Attorney Lauri Ketola said her office had to honor the request, which meant dividing the charges and resulted in two of the cases being filed in 2023. According to Ketola, a jury found Godbout guilty three weeks ago in the first case to reach trial. O...
