- [Narrator] Funding for "Off 90" is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.

(loons calling) (gentle music) (upbeat music) - Cruising your way next "Off 90".

A look at one of the oldest curling clubs in Minnesota, a leather worker from Stewartville, classic cars in Rochester, and a Lanesboro activity that's not bicycling.

It's all coming up on your next stop "Off 90".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) Hi, I'm Barbara Keith.

Thanks for joining me on this trip "Off 90".

The Mapleton Curling Club is one of the oldest curling clubs in Minnesota.

Children began by riding the curling stones down the ice.

Others still play into their eighties.

The club boasts an Olympian who got a start in the club.

As they say, let's throw some rocks.

(upbeat music) - [Player] Yep!

Yep!

Hurry!

Hurry, guys, hurry that beauty.

Nice shot, Den.

- [Lori] Curling is a sport that's played on ice and involves rocks and brooms and sliding and sweeping.

- [Jeff] Some people call it shuffleboard on ice.

I think that's a fair assumption.

So the object is to get it to a certain spot.

And again, a lot of strategy involved, you know?

- Three, two, probably.

- Three, two is what Den was saying, he said three, 0 was back into the house, so.

- Again, I think it brings a lot of unique different sports and concepts to it, and I think that's what intrigues a lot of people about the game.

- [Carolyn] It's a sport for all people.

You can play curling from the time you're eight till you're 88.

Everybody can participate, and they can participate at high levels.

- You start the game and end the game with a handshake.

You say, "Good curling," and it's meaningful.

- [Jeff] And then afterwards, you know, you shake hands and go back and reminisce the game and talk about, you know, talk about the game and shots, and that's the fun part, the social part after the game as well.

- Half of the activity is on the ice, and whatever you make of it is in the back room after the ice.

The curling stones are a special granite mined under the ocean off the coast of Scotland.

It's called live granite.

And it has the density and the ability for one 42 pound stone to bump into another one and do a direct transfer of weight, so one stops and one goes.

- It is documented by the Smithsonian and the Minnesota Historical Society that we are the oldest club.

They were curling on the lakes and the rivers.

The Maple River, Lura Lake, Bass Lake were places that were common.

- [Larry] And the next step was to have a building or a structure, and that was around 1900, 19 naught something, where they made two sheets of ice in an enclosed building.

- So then this building was built like in '51, 1951.

You know, then we got the refrigerated ice, and of course, that was a big step.

So it just continues to evolve.

- I started curling probably when I was about seven.

My dad had a team, and if one of his players was missing, I would follow along and look forward to an opportunity to play.

- I started curling about 13 years ago when I moved to Mapleton.

One of the longtime club members invited me to curl with her, and I didn't actually know much about the sport.

I joke I was Googling it while she was asking me to curl with her, and I've curled ever since.

- Well, my parents curled, and so they brought us along, and if there was an open sheet, then we went out and played on the sheet.

We would take both feet in the hack and push the stones out and then we'd ride the stones down the ice.

So, I grew up here.

- [Lori] I think the biggest one we talk about here in Mapleton is John Landsteiner.

He's a Mapleton native and grew up curling here, and his family has curled here, and everyone in town's really proud that he is from this club and got to be part of an Olympic gold medal team.

- I can remember when he was 10 years old.

He had an extra eye for playing the game.

So he would come by the club knowing that I might be here with a chance to throw some rocks.

And sometimes, by himself, he would just go out and, you know, literally play for both teams.

Come on, hard!

Harder, come on, gotta make it.

Go, go, come on!

Come on, come on, don't quit now.

Oh, we should have started a little bit sooner, but you did a really good job.

I enjoy working with kids.

So, what you just came today, we do after school curling for a couple hours on two days a week.

Next week I'll get the phy ed classes from the Maple River School, and they'll come every period for five days.

Any year, I've had two weeks of phy ed classes lined up to curl.

- I think we take pride in that tradition, again, being the Scottish heritage and the oldest club and Burns Night, again, that's our town celebration, where we crown our queen.

That's a very old tradition, it goes back to the start of curling in the 1850s as well.

So again, all those things is what sort of makes, I think, Mapleton unique, and you know, the farming community and all those kinds of things, the farmers that built this club, and those of us trying to keep it going.

You know, and you know, keep it sustained and make sure curling stays in Mapleton for as long as we can.

- It's a sport that can be very casual.

It doesn't have to be super competitive.

I enjoy the sportsmanship.

That's such a key part of curling.

There's no trash talk, or there shouldn't be, it's just, it's not part of it.

And I also enjoy the fact you don't have to be a superstar athlete to be able to slide a rock down the ice.

- [Larry] In a short period of time, have fun and feel the exhilaration of making a good shot.

- I just love the whole place.

I just wanna be able to participate as long as I'm able for the rest of my life.

I wanna be that 88-year-old woman out there on the ice that they say, "Oh, look at her, she can squat down and clean her stone."

(laughs) (upbeat music) - Leather craftsman Josiah Hanson of Stewartville learned his craft while doing it.

He says he and his wife are aspiring minimalists.

Their desire for a simple life translates to their leather goods, which follow an aesthetic that Josiah describes as Scandinavian modern.

Their handbags are a good example.

Let's take a look.

- People come to us years later, now that we've been doing this almost eight years, with a wallet that they had for five years.

And it's got the most insane patina.

And of course, I have to take a picture of it.

That's really cool.

Now we're starting to experience people that have had a bag for a couple years, three years, to see what that still looks like, and to see that our work still holds up after a bunch of years.

I'm Josiah Hanson, a leather craftsman for Hanson Leather Co. At Hanson Leather Co, we design and build leather bags and accessories with a minimal aesthetic.

Our business started out of a challenge, actually.

A friend of mine challenged me to make myself a belt.

He showed me the tools that I would need and walked me through this door and showed me the leather that I would need as well, and the hardware.

And then I made that belt, and I still use it today.

After that challenge, I just kind of continued.

So I had a couple friends come up to me and say, "Can you you make me this wallet," or, "This book cover?"

And I would be like, "Yeah, I'll do that."

So I would try to figure it out, and I started getting curious about how people made other products.

I would make mistakes and learn from my mistakes.

I really wasn't into YouTube yet, so I didn't know there was people out there that could tell you how to do leathercraft, so it was just all on my own.

And I was doing it all wrong, but I was having a good time doing it.

And most of that was done in my dorm room actually, so I was in school learning leathercraft.

After school, I came back here, my wife and I got married, and continued exploring the world of leathercraft.

So eventually, I made my wife a tote bag which she would carry around, and we were at a local store here in Rochester, and the man complimented on her bag.

And Bri's like, "Oh, he made this bag for me."

And he was like, "Oh, you need to set up a booth at Oktoberfest coming up here soon."

And so that was our first opportunity to get in front of other people and showcase our work.

So, that's kind of where the business kind of took off.

The things that I'm passionate about with leathercraft would be the fact that I can take a flat material and just about make anything out of it.

It starts with an idea you think that would make a beautiful bag.

And then you sketch that idea down.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

But then you tweak it a little bit and then sometimes you get a totally different creation out of an idea that you had in your head.

And then you spend a lot of time on that pattern and you make the thing, and then at the end, the satisfaction you get from looking at a product that you made is phenomenal.

It's one of the best feelings.

The ability to have an idea to use a raw material to make something beautiful that someone can use to complete a look of fashion.

That's something I absolutely love.

And then the other thing that I really love about leathercraft specifically is it gets better with age.

(gentle music) Brianna has been a very big part of the business, even from the beginning, even though I did most of the designing at the very beginning, she was always giving me tips on, "You should maybe change this a little bit about the bag so I would actually want to wear it."

(laughs) - I saw scraps of leather just sitting in a pile in his workshop, and I was like, "No, we can't let this go to waste."

So, what can we do with it?

So I made bracelets and earrings, and that morphed into necklaces as well.

And that started a whole new part of what he was doing, and it kind of helped make it more of a business and not just my husband's hobby.

Seeing our customers or explaining our products to people who have never seen us before, that is such a vital part of our business.

Online sales are great and the website is great, but being able to show a customer a bag and let them feel it and let them see how great we know it is, is just amazing.

And getting to hear feedback from customers and hearing what they think, I don't think we could make it to where we are now if it wasn't for those in-person events.

- I had kind of stumbled upon them at Forger Fest, and this was probably five years ago, maybe one of their first ones, I'm not sure, five, six years ago.

And they had a booth set up.

Immediately, I was like, "Okay, leather, okay, I like it."

Started chatting with them and then browsing through their earrings is where it kind of stemmed from.

This was the very first pair of earrings that I purchased from Hanson Leather.

I just was drawn to who they were and how pure they were and how in love they were talking about their products, which I truly adore.

- I was never a leather craftsman.

I thought, "Hey, that's cool, that's your hobby, run with it," but because of his passion and creative mind and seeing that in action throughout the years is what really made me love it as well.

We have a website, hansonleatherco.com, that has our full range of products, and on our Instagram and Facebook, we'll be posting where we're going to be in the next events, in markets and things like that.

- There's multiple times where I've had people say, "I saw your company, I was looking to buy a tote bag or a purse, and I really like your stuff and I wanna buy local first before I buy it online or from a big box store," which means a lot to us, 'cause you know, that's them supporting a local business.

And I too like to do that.

I like to support local where I can.

So, seeing other people do the same thing, supporting local has been really cool to see.

(upbeat music) - It's all about cars.

Whether you're a fan of the Charger, Challenger, or Hemi 'Cuda, you'll find these classic muscle cars at the Eagles Car Show in Rochester, along with dozens of tamer cars from every era.

Let's muscle our way over to Rochester and have a look.

(smooth music) - We're at the Eagles Jeff Hanson Car Show.

It's in Rochester, Minnesota.

It's just a bunch of people that enjoy classic cars and the camaraderie of it.

People love looking at cars.

You see young kids coming through that, you know, they have no idea what these cars are 'cause they're so young, and we're talking a lot of classic cars here.

And the thing that's cool about mine is I was nine years old when it came out.

So, my grandfather had one, and classic cars have been in the family kind of all of our lives.

This is a getaway from the hustle and bustle of life.

It's a time to kind of go back in time in history and see some antiques and classic cars from yesteryear, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s.

Some are even back in the 30s.

And people are welcome with modern cars too.

Just, it's all about cars.

- Lot of guys from Owatonna, Winona, La Crosse.

Surrounding towns, 50 miles around, you get a lot of cars.

And there's a ton of cars in Rochester that nobody ever sees except for Wednesday night here.

They're in a garage and they don't move.

I'm more of a street rod guy, but there's some pretty nice exotic cars that show up.

Ferraris, Lamborghinis, a lot of Corvettes, lot of very high horsepower cars.

There's a lot of cars that come in here that are five and six and 800 horsepower, 'cause I own street rods.

(laughs) A 1932 three-window little deuce coupe.

Wheels, tires, suspension, paint, it was neglected when I got it.

And we chromed the whole, most of the undercarriage upgraded.

A friend of mine rewired the whole car, and we updated all new brakes, four wheel disc brakes, new wheels, tires, shocks, everything.

- Most everything here is a piece of history.

It's gotta be at least 25 years old to be a classic car.

And if it's over 40 years old, it's an antique.

And mine, believe it or not, is an antique even though it's a 1970.

So I would say that just folks, just the fact that there's great food, it's the Eagles Club, everything's for a good cause here, and it's just a great bunch of people.

Well, a Cadillac's not really a muscle car, it's more like a luxurious beast that needs a tugboat to get you parked.

(laughs) But no, I don't really have a favorite.

I like 'em all.

I love muscle cars.

I love cars that go fast.

I know Carroll Shelby, and I actually do love the AC Cobra.

It's a 427.

Incredibly fast car.

But I like all kinds of muscle cars.

Ford, Chevy, Mopar, Mustangs, Corvettes.

I've owned my car for about 20 years here, and so I've been coming all that time to the different local shows, as well as 50, 60 mile radius.

And I've always had a classic car.

I used to have a '75 Corvette in North Carolina.

And my brother had a 1970 Super Bee in Key West, Florida, where we're from.

- It's fun.

We go to a lot of events, but you know, driving 'em and working on 'em and the camaraderie you have between all of the guys, that's big.

If you need help, there's always somebody that'll come and help you.

- I enjoy answering the questions that people have.

They usually ask me, "How long is the wheel base?

How long is the car?

How much does it weigh?

What is the horsepower?

How many people can it sit?

How many people can fit in the trunk?"

That's always a good one.

It's time together with old friends, and you make new friends and just enjoy the open air and nice weather, and seems like you have maybe five months of wintertime, just time to get out.

(upbeat music) - You might think of Lanesboro as a tourist and bicycling destination, but there's a lot more to it, as you'll see at the Lanesboro Historical Museum.

- Anything that you point to has some connection to the history of the town.

Well, the things in the museum have, for the most part, really been donated by people who've lived here at some time, maybe grew up here.

The museum I know got its start with the donation of the Hans Olson collection to the city.

Hans Olson was a barber in Lanesboro for 50 years.

He and his wife didn't have any heirs, and I understand that when he passed away, his things were donated to the city.

And so folks realized, this is a time that we need to start a museum.

We have the old jail cell door that's in the basement that people love to see.

From there, we have things related to agriculture, to the railroad.

We also have a really old flower sack.

There were several mills in Lanesboro, and wheat was grown here early on, and flour was milled here.

There was a Chinese laundry there.

That was in the late 1800s.

And we still have a price list that was used for laundry, you know, doing laundry mostly for people who were coming into town, spending a short amount of time in the hotels.

Down on the first floor, we have lots of Hans, his craft work.

And he did lots of different kinds of things with wood in particular.

Buffalo Bill used to come here early on to visit his friend, Doc Powell, who was a doctor and performed surgery and other miracles at the Phoenix Hotel in Lanesboro.

One of our favorite objects in the museum is the doll house.

Kids love to look at the doll house, and then below that, we have lots of handmade toys.

And so that's a real favorite for kids, and it's all at eye level for them.

The phone booth was decommissioned by Assentech.

Scott Hatleli worked for Assentech for 38 years, and he was in charge of the Lanesboro area for quite a few of those.

- And then once they, you know, just decided to get rid of the phone booth, it was donated to the museum and it was moved down here.

- He loved the phone booth.

He loved that it was such a special part of Lanesboro.

- And it was the last one that was actually operating as a public payphone.

- Two folks from Lanesboro, Don Bell and Anna Loni had this fabulous idea of repurposing it as a place where stories, local stories could be shared.

- [Operator] Thank for visiting the Lanesboro phone booth.

To hear one of our current stories, press a single number, one through nine.

- [Speaker] Paula Gullickson, as told by Lois Peterson.

My dad was an immigrant here from Norway.

When he and my mother were married, they wanted to buy a park.

- The museum was first located on the second floor of the old village hall, which is now a restaurant.

Then when this building became available, it was at that time that there was a plan put into place to raise money for the museum.

It was called the Steps Program.

So if someone donated a certain amount of money, they could have their name engraved and placed on a step in the museum.

Well, we soon ran out of steps.

So, then those plaques went onto the walls, and now we're running out of walls.

So, we're going to plan to relocate some of those, so we have them all on one wall, and we're gonna call that the Founders Wall, because really, many of those names are from the early founders of Lanesboro.

When you come upstairs, we do have a third floor in the museum, and each room upstairs has its own theme.

So, we're going to imagine stepping into an apartment.

We have a dining and kitchen area, and we have a bedroom, with things from several decades in those rooms.

A room that's dedicated to really special wedding gowns from folks from Lanesboro.

We have a room, we call it the Sewing Room.

It features beautiful garments from the past, dating way back to the late 1800s, on up into the 1840s.

One of the most important rooms in the museum is dedicated to the military service people.

We have a costume from World War I that's on a mannequin there.

We have lots of the photographs from, like, first calls for World War I, where people, where men were going into Preston for their physicals and getting ready to go to service for World War I.

We've had many professional photographers in Lanesboro, Matt Boo being the one people are most familiar with.

And a lot of his early development equipment is in the photography room, along with an incredible collection of cameras, most of which belong to Don Ward, who was a historian in Lanesboro.

(gentle music) We have a room that features medical history in Lanesboro.

Lanesboro had doctors, hospitals.

Dr. Johnson is one who is featured in our museum.

He had one of the big Victorian homes in Brooklyn as his hospital for many years.

And there's an incubator in our medical room that was built by hand.

I think there was a fundraiser, cost little less than $100.

And there are at least six people who have come to the museum and claimed to be the first baby who used the incubator.

We get lots of comments from visitors.

A lot of people are just remembering what they grew up with or remembering things they saw in their grandparents' home.

Have people from other countries who are picking up on a real connection to the people who settled here.

We had a family who was from South America, and the older gentleman could not speak English, but he wanted us to know, he had someone translate, a family member, say, "I so appreciate how hard the people worked who settled in this area."

So, that's really special.

You know, so many different kinds of people who are coming here, not just locals.

Local peoples, they love it too, they love to come and see the things they've given and the things that their parents and grandparents have given, but we get so many folks from far, far away who love it too.

So, it's really special, it's really a special place.

- We've reached the end of this tour.

Thanks for riding along.

See you next time "Off 90".

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - [Narrator] Funding for "Off 90" is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, and the citizens of Minnesota.

(animals chirping)