Most of Cloquet and close to 5,000 Minnesota Power customers in northern Carlton County were without power for one to three hours Friday.

Like in the movie “Ice Age,” the whole problem started with a squirrel. According to a Minnesota Power tweet, the company eventually determined there was a squirrel in the substation that serves the city of Cloquet. Squirrels can serve as electrical conduits to transformers, throwing the system offline.

The outage began at approximately 10:45 am Friday and affected much of Cloquet, Scanlon, plus Gnesen, Twin Lakes and Perch Lake townships. Many traff...