February 2022

In 1983 Betty Lessard, founder and owner of Betty’s Pies, sold her business and retired. Little did she know that fifteen years later the phone would ring and Carl Ehlenz, the newest owner of Betty’s Pies would be calling to find out what happened to her famous lost pie recipes.

CLOVER VALLEY You’ve heard it before and so have I. In January and February the NHL regular season is typically referred to as the “dog days of winter.” And so they are. The Minnesota WILD is about to get a rather large dose of it too. Because the NHL had missed multiple games last fall and early winter due to pandemic issues the league decided not to go ahead with its Olympic participation. And with upwards of 100 games to reschedule and make up due to that the second half of the regular season was going to be compacted into a short timeframe.

Sir Lancelot was a northern mutt. We never knew what his dad was, other than that he himself was some kind of hunting dog hybrid. But his mom was an Alaskan Malamute, and by the time he was full grown, weighed the same as me for a while—86 pounds. He had over-sized paws and long, flappy ears, a deep chest. I think my folks saw an ad in the paper and got him for free.

The reluctant editor and the thousands who were on the march for community newspapers had slowed in Carlton County after the throng had swallowed the little communities of Nickerson, Duquette, Kerrick and Bruno. News of the impending idling of Northshore Mining had taken the wind out of the sails, so to speak, and the great moving encampment did a bit of soul searching and settled in for the night.