July 8th PM

I started up my bike and headed out of Ely. The winds were strong and the sky looked like rain. It was a cold day. I pulled out and got about 20 miles before I had to pull over and put my chaps on. It still amazes me that July in Minnesota and the weather can be so cold. I drove down Hwy 169 keeping my speed up because my hands were freezing and I wanted to get to someplace warm. I pulled over in Hibbing, Minnesota, a mining town. My hands were frost bit, and numb. Before I stopped into a café, I climbed a hill to look out over a working mine. I snapped some photos, unable to feel the buttons on my camera with my finger. I looked out over the landscape. I felt awe at the carved out ore. The earth was dug up, sifted and moved around. My attention for a few moments was focused on how our lives are built in part, by the reaching in and turning of the ground. I tried to imagine what it would be like to me a miner, a person in our society responsible for cutting up the land, picking the earth up and hauling it away everyday. Not to mention the profound health risks that would seem to be involved with such work. I am standing as a passer-by in Minnesota’s mining country. Before now, I had never given much thought to mining. This way of making a living off the land is different from the skills I saw folks using in the North Woods.



After viewing the mine, I warmed up in a café, clinging to a cup of decaf coffee. Then I moved on. I drove into the road construction in downtown Grand Rapids. The Mississippi runs in the middle of town. I met John, a rural mail carrier and Naturalist…. Well he used a word more specific to the study of plants, but I can’t remember the term. He talked to me about what was blooming; how far behind the average summer schedule we are this year with the cold weather. After chatting with John, I headed to Wendy and Denny Roy’s home.

The Roy’s invited me in to their home and we sat down for dinner. They live on a large lake, but like most big lakes I have been encountering in the last few days, it was over flowed water from the Mississippi. After dinner I sat down with Wendy and Denny individually. Each told me a touching story about the loss of a parent at an early age. Each of them talked about a time in their marriage when they thought that Denny was sick with Cancer. They were profoundly scared when they imagined their kids going through the pain of losing a parent. For Denny, this led him to talking about the power of fatherhood.

Each told me the lessons of family, giving back to community and moving forward when faced with fear. I observed their insights in the ways they communicated with each other. It was clear the story they had chosen to talk about was still alive in their lives today.