Tolkkinen: On a three-day northern Minnesota tour, the grit and glory of our state became clear

DULUTH - For three days I have been traveling throughout western and northern Minnesota.

I drove country highways badly in need of repair, saw sturdy Amish farmhouses, vacant storefronts and palatial lakefront homes. I bounced over railroad tracks that used to guide shipments of iron ore and inhaled the scent of red pine.

A winery near Alexandria, a riverfront brewery in Fergus Falls. A resort on Gull Lake in Brainerd. A university campus in Bemidji.

I visited a brewery in Grand Rapids, the stunning new high school in Virginia and finally laid eyes on the always-breathtaking Lake Superior.

It was the first stage of the Minnesota Star Tribune’s 2025 Minnesota Matters tour, but I don’t want to veer into corporate marketing lingo. The most important thing is the people we met along the way and the communities they represent. They’re who I want to tell you about.

First I want to tell you a great story.

It’s about Iron Range high school rivalries so intense that one speaker at a panel discussion said if you went into the wrong bar you’d get beat up. I looked at a couple of ladies at my table.

“Is that true?” I mouthed.

They nodded back. Yep. Absolutely true.

Bar fighting isn’t the great part. The great story is that these three schools, Eveleth, Gilbert and Virginia, were able to set aside those rivalries for the sake of their children. They came together and formed one school district, Rock Ridge Public Schools.

Now, if you know anything about small towns, you’ll know that they’ll do just about anything to hang onto their schools. A school is the hub of small town life, the core of its identity, and it’s remarkable that three cities that hated each other recognized they could build something better if they merged.

As part of that effort, they built a brand-new school, the Rock Ridge High School. It’s a building any community would envy. The theater department has a green room; the shop class meets in an enormous building where students can build small buildings indoors; and it has a swimming pool and impressive weight room. To boot, district leaders reimagined what high school classes should look like. They created a system that emphasizes teamwork and career tracking, which involved a significant departure from tradition.

The grace and cooperation of these three communities is the stuff that hope and reconciliation are made of. The bitter rivalries should fade into memory and a new generation will know nothing but unity. And, possibly, new rivalries with nearby districts.

Another good story? Throughout greater Minnesota, state and federal money have built up high-speed internet service to the point where high school graduates don’t have to move elsewhere for careers. The remote workforce is growing, and they can work as accountants or software engineers or many other occupations in the communities where they were raised if they want to.

Now for the tough stories. There are hard things happening in greater Minnesota. In Bemidji, poverty, addiction and petty crime drag on as they have for decades, with no end in sight.

On the panel there, housing advocate Reed Olson and county prosecutor David Hanson talked about how one problem feeds into the next. Drug dealers prey on the poor and vulnerable, they said, who then steal or commit other crimes to pay for the drugs. Those who want to get clean have a hard time finding help. There are only four detox beds in Bemidji.

Bemidji is a national hot spot for meth trafficking, Hanson said. Once cooked in the United States, it began traveling into the U.S. from Mexico after the U.S. began restricting sales of Sudafed, a key ingredient.

“If we could get rid of meth, this community would be better off,” Olson said. “It’s so bad. It just destroys people from the soul out.”

I asked Hanson if President Donald Trump’s tighter control of the southern border has made a difference in meth availability, but he said it’s too soon to know.

Bemidji is a great town. It’s a beautiful place, earthy and real, full of art and sports, history and culture. Its people deserve better.

In many places throughout northern Minnesota, people were worried that lawmakers will cut local government aid while shifting more costs to counties in order to balance the budget. In Virginia, leaders were especially worried about loss of state and federal funds, given the pending mine layoffs as well as an ongoing costly conversion from steam heat to natural gas.

Mayor Larry Cuffe, who grew up on the Iron Range, said he left when he was young because he couldn’t find work. The population of Virginia then was 13,100. Now it’s between 8,000 and 9,000.

“The future is bleak,” one man said. Others in the room agreed.

I think they’re selling themselves short. The Range has always been resilient. And these are the same people who convinced three hardened enemies to work together to create something beautiful. If they can do that, imagine what else they can do.

The Minnesota Matters southern tour is May 20-22 and will include community discussions in Marshall, Mankato, Albert Lea, Rochester, Winona and Red Wing. Please register to join us.