Pine Knot News - A hometown newspaper with a local office, local owners & lots of local news

Spending time in Carlton, Cloquet, Thomson and Jay Cooke State Park is sure to reveal a few sites of interest for sure. I like to paddle the St. Louis River from Scanlon to the Thomson Reservoir on... Full story

Cloquet photographer Mark Cline captured this huge wall of sea smoke over Lake Superior, looking as if it will soon overtake a ship and downtown Duluth Tuesday morning. Cline said he captured the...

I spent most of the morning lost in thought. As always, I contemplated what direction a deer might appear and what I would have to do to make a good shot. I was also enamored with the lever action on...

There is no way he could have imagined my world, and I find it difficult to imagine his. We are separated by a century or more: generations of Bakers have come and gone. Nothing directly connects us,...

The four-day MEA weekend is a Minnesota tradition. A holiday without the stress and busy schedule of an actual holiday. By the time everyone rolled out of bed Thursday morning, I was heavily gauging...

The recent wind and rain have taken a toll on the leaves. In turn, the crinkly debris is strewn all over, leading to the debate on collecting or ignoring them. Whatever side of the fence you sit on...

Since the start of the 2019 fishing season on the St. Louis River in May, I’ve been fortunate enough to spend roughly 75 days on the streams, rivers, reservoirs and lakes in the region. I’ve...

Welcome to autumn: cooler, wetter, mushrooms galore, and changing leaf colors. We see green leaves all summer and now those same leaves are turning yellow, orange, red, and even purple; what's up... Full story

I had my article for this week almost completely written when I got a short and simple text from my oldest brother, Bob, on Saturday night. His wife Julie had boated a monster muskie. Exciting, for...

I was heading back down the Gunflint Trail from a full day of guiding on Lake Saganaga, or Big Sag as the locals refer to it. I had a young couple from the Cities who were excited about the cooler of...

Fall is my favorite time of the year, or at least it’s a tie for first with spring. The weather is favorable and the pestering insects are well suppressed thanks to the mild temps. All this adds up...

I stood parallel to the Cloquet goal line cheering on the hometown Lumberjacks football team Friday night under the lights of Bromberg Field. The moon struggled to break through the thick white...

My phone rang just late enough to make me nervous that something was wrong. I was right. My brother, Bruce, had fallen from his deer stand. He was in the emergency room. My heart raced. My mind...

Back to reality. The Baker household held tightly onto summer for as long as possible. But with two kids in middle school, one in high school, another off to college, and both parents teaching,...

I have a little secret my wife and kids already know. Sometimes, I have no idea what I'm doing. The last couple of weeks on the water, I've been making it up as I go. Some trips have worked out,...

My wife, Jamie, loves to put her fall decorations out at the first sign of autumn. A couple of cold mornings triggers her to journey to the recesses of our basement in search of her stash of...

We loaded the Suburban with most of the Baker crew plus an omnipresent extra child, and headed north. The big blue Lund stared back at us in confusion as we pulled away — it would remain unhitched f...

You can still find birds in August. They're not as noisy and easy to spot as in April or May and during fall's migration. They've found their mates - the goal of the glorious singing they treat us to...

The fog rolled across the surface of the water as we slid Keith Nelson's Alumacraft into the coffee-colored waters of Big Sandy Lake. I relegated myself to the back deck of his boat. I was here to...

One of the most important things a person can do in their life is to find their passion. Some people spend years experimenting and seeking out their passion, while a lucky few find what they are passi...