(cheerful music) (music continues) (music continues) - Hello, I'm Maarja Hewitt.

Welcome to "Almanac North".

Today we're taking a long look at getting outdoors during the winter and what our region has to offer for those that don't mind a bit of snow and cold.

We're also going to have a special guest visit, from our PBS North Colleague from "Native Report".

Learn what new programs to expect at Hartley Nature Center.

Dive into the story of a local biathlon analyst.

And get to know more about Stormy Kromer.

Well, if you're excited about getting outdoors and winter sports, there's some good news from the Steamboat Group.

According to a new study by their experts, Minnesota is the ninth best state for people who enjoy winter sports.

The study looks at how many recreation areas such as ski resorts and hockey rinks a state has available.

Of the nine categories, Minnesota scored well across them all, and leads the nation in ice skating arenas with 193.

And that number doesn't include pond hockey rinks.

The top three states for outdoor sports are Alaska, Wyoming, and Vermont.

We'll have more about our regional outdoor sports later in the episode.

Well, now we are joined in the studio by "Native Report" Associate Producer Lance Haavisto.

Welcome, and thank you for joining us, Lance.

- Thank you, it's great to be here.

- We're happy to have you here.

And I understand you brought a clip so we can get a little sneak peek.

- Yep, on next week's episode.

(mellow flute music) - Historical trauma is something that is intergenerational and passed down.

And it's not something that we have to pass down either.

- My grandparents actually met at a boarding school in northern Minnesota.

They were of a generation that really, as my uncle used to tell me, had no choice.

And so the removal of children from their homes and the placement of them in a school far enough away that they wouldn't be able to get home to visit, and their parents wouldn't be able to see them very often, was part of the purpose of the Indian boarding school system.

- So somewhere along the line, we can break it, we can stop that intergenerational trauma by just healing, by laughing, by coming to grips with the emotional anxieties that were created by this.

(pensive music) - So it looks like a fascinating episode.

Tell us about the exciting news at the "Native Report".

- Yep, so we're doing something where we're breaking our format.

Because we kind of are partnering or we are partnering with our radio station, PBS The North Radio, which is kind of exciting where we can take a little bit more of a deep dive into kind of a controversial topic about Native American boarding schools.

And you know, it's kind of nice 'cause we're highlighting a songwriter, indigenous songwriter, Keith Secola, who wrote a song called "Say Your Name".

And so it kind of has to discuss, you know, the trauma that's being caused through boarder schools and the, you know, intergenerational trauma, sorry.

- So this is a special episode, and this is the season finale.

- Finale, yep.

- Yeah.

So how can people tune in and when?

- People can tune in, you know, online we broadcast on PBS The North at 7:30, and then you can watch us online on YouTube or on the PBS Passport.

- And if people wanna get caught up on past episodes, I know they can find them online as well.

But what were some of the stories and episodes you covered this season?

- Yeah, you know, kind of the benefit of this show is that we go all over the country.

And, you know, we do have access to local stories as well.

So one of the stories that I really enjoyed is that we got to go up to Grand Portage.

And we interviewed the first woman and first Anishinabe superintendent of Grand Portage National Monument, which was kind of fun.

So it was a beautiful drive up and it turned out to be a really great story.

- So you can find that story and many others online.

But thank you so much, Lance, for joining us, and looking forward to tuning in next Thursday.

- Alright, thank you.

- Well, when we think about going outdoors in the winter, one of the first things we consider is what to wear to keep warm.

Local clothing manufacturer, Stormy Kromer, known for their iconic hats, shares a bit about their history and why keeping warm in the winter can be fashionable and fun.

- So Stormy Kromer was founded by a real person named Stormy Kromer and his wife.

So Stormy was his nickname.

It was George Kromer and his wife Ida.

And it was really founded to solve a problem.

Stormy was losing his hats on the railroad in Wisconsin, in northeastern Wisconsin.

And he came home one day and asked his wife to modify an old wool baseball cap to keep it on his head and to keep his ears warm.

So we're really founded on principles of functionality, right?

And doing a job for the person who's wearing the hat to keep them feeling great in the elements.

Being functional is like, core to who we are, right?

So we need products that are going to do their job, gonna keep you warm, gonna keep you dry, whatever it may be.

But people wanna wear things that look good too, right?

So we're constantly blending our knowledge of functional fabrics and functional garments with, you know, we have a designer on staff who keeps an eye on trends in the market and what colors are popular and what people are wearing so that we can really marry those things together.

We're not a fast fashion brand, so we're not constantly churning out, you know, new products every three months 'cause that's just not who we are.

We're a classic heritage brand, and we think we can keep you looking classic and simple and kind of timeless style in a way that also makes you ready for whatever activity you're about to embark on.

Just being in nature is one of the best things you can do for your soul.

And I just believe that as a human.

I grew up here in Ironwood, I moved away to a big city and I came back because I need to be around trees and water and fresh air and all of those things.

And so getting outside, whether you are hunting or fishing, whether you're snowmobiling, whether you're skiing, snowshoeing, in the summertime, you know, hiking, trail running, ATVing, all these things, like just being out in nature is so important to us as humans and making that connection.

And so with us being able to provide the products that help you to do that, we just love being a part of it.

By doing the manufacturing here, by having our company here, we're just able to give back to our community.

So it's the employment, right, of 70 people here in our community, which is meaningful.

But then it's our ability to support local nonprofits, to support local causes.

It's also people that come here for our tour and end up staying in a hotel or, you know, visiting a restaurant.

A lot of times I give the tours once in a while because it's just nice to connect with the people that are here.

And I might say, you know, where are you from and what brings you here today?

And a lot of people say, I'm here in Ironwood to do this.

We made a trip up from Green Bay, or we made a trip from Madison and we thought we'd check this out.

So that's really cool to know that we're bringing people into the area as well.

So it goes beyond the employment.

And then, yeah, just being able to have the jobs and being able to give back to our community is really important to us.

(cheerful music) - We are joined by Cloquet Ski Club Board Member, Volunteer Coach, and parent of three ski jumpers, Nathan Langer.

Nathan, thank you so much for joining us.

- So happy to be here.

- Well, so tell me about the Cloquet Ski Club.

Is it all types of skiing or mostly ski jumping?

- Yeah, we do cross country skiing and ski jumping, mostly for kids ages three to 15 or so.

We're an all volunteer-run organization, so it's a lot of parents working together just to get kids outside in the winter.

- Yeah, how important is it to get kids outside?

- I think there are so many things that pull kids inside that all the opportunities that we can give them to get outside and learn how to be outside in all temperatures, how to dress right when you're cross country skiing or snowshoeing or ski jumping, I think it's really important to get kids outside.

- And so you have three ski jumpers?

- I do.

- Were you a ski jumper?

- I was not, no.

I grew up in central Minnesota and barely knew that ski jumping existed.

- Yeah, so I have a lot of questions about ski jumping.

Because you see it and it looks like a fun slide.

My five-year-old has seen the ski jump in Cloquet and has been like, that looks fun.

- You should do it.

- How do you get kids into ski jumping, and like, what skills do they need to have?

- Yeah, for sure.

One of the great things about ski jumping is that there's really incremental growth throughout the sport.

We start with teaching kids how to just downhill ski.

We have a really simple back hill that kids learn how to downhill ski on.

And then we put 'em on just bigger and bigger jumps as they go, as they feel comfortable, as they're confident, as they're safe, and as they wanna progress.

And so I think there's a, kids need to have a desire to try something new, a willingness to do something that's maybe a little outside of their comfort zone.

And yeah, it's a great sport to try.

- How young can they start?

And here's a question too.

Could I, I'm guessing you wanna start as a child.

(both laughing) - Most do start as a child.

There have been people who have started as adults, but primarily it's kids.

My youngest started when she was three.

Mostly that was learning how to downhill ski and then going off our smallest jump.

She didn't really jump, she just kind of rode the bump down the hill.

- How does ski jumping help with, you know, confidence in athletics?

- Yeah, for sure.

I think it helps in a lot of different ways.

Some kids go off really big jumps.

And the confidence necessary to do it is pretty high.

I also think some of the benefits that helps with confidence is the kids work with coaches.

So after each jump, the kid goes back and has a conversation with a coach about how that jump went.

Coaches usually ask how they feel it went, what did they perceive?

And because a lot of it is technique and body control.

And so just having that ongoing conversation in a relationship with coaches I think is a big piece of where confidence comes from for our ski jumpers.

- So how did you get involved in the ski jumping?

Was it your children that kinda led the way?

- Yeah, totally.

Like I said, I barely knew it existed when I was a kid.

My kids wanted to, well, we wanted to get our kids involved in something outdoors in the winter, so we signed them up for the cross country ski half of the ski club.

But then after they watched other kids ski jumping, they wanted to try.

And here we are seven years later and I'm coaching and spending a lot of my winter helping kids ski jump also.

- Sure.

I mean, the ski jump does look cool.

I understand the allure.

So if people wanna learn more about the ski club, can they check you out on social media?

- Yeah, for sure.

We're on Facebook, you can find us there.

And yeah, I invite people to come and check us out.

It's been a bad snow year, so we haven't had a lot of practices at Pine Valley.

We don't have the ability to make snow there.

But most years we have a competition that the public is welcome to come and watch.

And it's pretty amazing what these kids are doing.

- Thank you so much for joining us tonight.

- Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

- Well, the world's largest ski race, the Loppet Cup, is slated to take place this weekend at Theodore Wirth Park to a packed crowd, bringing together the biggest names in cross country skiing from all over the world.

Producer Megan McGarvey sat down with local biathlon and cross country skiing analyst, Chad Salmela, to learn about his journey from competitive skiing to Olympic color commentator.

- [Narrator] 100 years has passed since these hardy pioneers first arrived on America's shores.

And today the world returns to Minnesota's Iron Range, this time for World Cup cross country skiing.

- IRRRB, up in Eveleth, they bought an old ski area called Giants Ridge that was basically going under.

And they realized they couldn't be a world class alpine ski area just 'cause of the vertical, but they could become a world class Nordic ski venue.

They built an amazing ski area, a Nordic ski area.

And I grew up in that environment.

That first year I remember I met several Olympians.

So you got ski team members up there.

And when you're exposed to that and you're an athletic kid, things just kind of take off and I started ski racing and I had some success and that just kind of snowballed from there.

Successes are relative.

I mean, I was a junior national champion in biathlon in a country that wasn't very good at the sport.

I got to the World Cup level, world championship level.

I unfortunately had tried three times to make an Olympic team, and maybe I should have made at least one of those teams, but I didn't, as luck would have it.

So I spent a bunch of years competing internationally, but I was never really, truly that competitive at the high end of the international field.

Certainly not as good as the Americans are now in both skiing and biathlon.

Biathlon is a combination of cross country ski racing with rifle marksmanship.

It debuted as an Olympic sport in 1924 as Military Patrol, it was called.

And then I think the Olympic movement got rid of it because of that military connotation.

But by 1960, it was re-added into the Olympic games as a individual event, a 20 kilometer individual event, it's the oldest sport in winter, it's hunting on skis.

Like, that is what it is.

There are cave drawings in Norway about people on skis with bow and arrow, hunting.

So I think that that was a compelling story, and I think that's what got them into the modern Olympic movement.

It's primarily a two shooting stage event or four shooting stage event.

And it's head to head, and it's really wildly exciting because you see human thought processes and self-doubt and self-confidence in real time.

And I think that's the most compelling aspect.

I think that the growth of biathlon specifically, not just cross country skiing, but in Europe, the growth of biathlon is actually very remarkable.

And I think that has a lot to do with the nature of the sport.

It's a little bit like NASCAR racing, where there's an improbability of the outcome, and you don't know what it's gonna be and it's worth sitting on the edge of your seat and watching.

Cross country has that, but in a much more linear fashion, it's a little more hierarchical.

Fewer underdogs are gonna win, and when they do, it's a huge shock.

Whereas in a biathlon, there's a lot of different people.

So there's the media aspect, and I think that drives a lot of things.

Because you know, that's how you generate money to support people to do it more professionally.

I started doing commentary like, at venues while I was in college and transitioning out of being an athlete and a coach into getting my degree.

And at that time there weren't a lot of people doing it.

That ended up getting me to the Olympics in 2002 where I was in the stadium for the public address announcer.

I was a biathlon commentator.

And the producer for NBC Sports was also an independent television producer.

And he wanted to get my brand of excitement in calling the sport on television.

And we started doing shows in 2013, or 2003, excuse me, after the Olympics, on the Outdoor Life Network.

And that's kind of where it took off for me, the announcing side of it.

So I started commenting on television, which led to working my first Olympics for NBC in 2006.

And I've been with NBC Olympics ever since then.

I was not by nature an outdoorsy kid, I didn't like to be cold, wet or any of that stuff.

But when I got tough, when I actually trained enough and when I think of my times on the national team, some of the greatest memories I have as a training athlete were outdoor experiences.

And being a part of nature is great.

And then I think today, like even interacting with nature, like one thing that really hurts about this winter is one of my favorite things to do still today is to go just for a short classic ski at Hartley Park in Duluth.

There's something about coming off the ridge overlooking Lake Superior on the eastern side of Hartley Park, gliding in two tracks.

And to me that is, first of all, it's quintessential Duluth.

And it really makes you feel one with like, the cold air, the gliding on the snow, being in the forest, even though you're in a city.

And that, to me, kind of grabs me as to why I love Duluth and why still love getting out to ski, because there's something, you can't get that just anywhere.

That's a special thing.

And I think that makes cross country skiing a special experience.

And I've been lucky to get to where I am, in the sport and in the Olympic movement.

(mellow music) (music fades) - With this year's unique winter weather, winter outdoor recreation organizations have had to shift and adapt programs across the state.

Here to speak to us more on the subject is Hartley Nature Center's Stewardship and Recreation Program Manager, Matt Wiley.

Matt, thank you so much for joining us.

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

- We heard about the Hartley cross country trails in that last piece there, but of course it's been a harder winter.

What are some of the outdoor recreation activities you can enjoy at Hartley?

- Yeah, great question.

Yeah, this winter has been very challenging for us.

In a typical winter we would have our gear rental program so folks can come in and grab cross-country skis and snowshoes from us and enjoy a day out on the trails.

You know, last winter we were able to have some Intro to Cross-Country Skiing lessons for beginners.

We do some big community events every year, and we have some smaller social events.

And all of that has certainly been a little bit more challenging this year, but we're not letting it stop us.

You know, we did have a couple of weeks where the ski trails were skiable this year.

The multi-use trails were actually in fairly good condition for the early part of winter.

And so we got out there and did some cross-country skiing and some biking.

You know, the trails right now, they're pretty icy.

Hartley does offer studded boot rentals, so folks can still come in and grab those and go out on the trails and not worry as much about slipping and falling down.

We are thankful we were able to host our candlelight event at the end of January.

Certainly didn't look like it traditionally does in previous years, but we were still able to host it.

For that event, we have luminary, lit cross country ski trails, and snowshoe, or in this case hiking loop, and it's always a really magical night.

We do have some sort of weekly social drop-in things that we do as well.

So this winter we have our Tuesday fat tire bike rides, which we've still been able to do most weeks.

It certainly is a little bit more challenging now that the trails have turned to ice, but when we had dirt for the early part of winter, they were certainly still rideable.

We did have what's called our Thursday Sip and Ski, which is a social ski on the Hartley trails.

And we were able to do a couple of those earlier in the winter as well.

But it certainly has looked different this year than it has in the past.

- Yes, it sounds like you've made the most of it.

But, so people can rent the studded boots still, but unfortunately the ski trails are ice, you probably don't wanna skate on them either.

So if people wanna get involved with Hartley and be a part of the outdoor recreation program like year round, how does one get involved?

- Yeah, great.

I mean, we offer programs all year long.

We offer a lot of environmental education programs.

Of course most people probably know Hartley for our youth-based education programs.

So we have our nature based preschool, a pretty robust school field trip program.

We have an outreach program that's working with our youth serving agencies and trying to engage youth and adult from low income neighborhoods in Duluth who otherwise might not be able to participate in Hartley programming.

We have a summer camp coming up here.

We see around 1,200 kids during an 11 week summer camp.

So it's a really crazy, fun, busy time of year for us.

But we also do a ton of recreational programming throughout the year as well.

So, you know, Candlelight's our winter community event, but in the summer we have a Summer Trails Fest, which is really fun.

And we work with a lot of our local trail partners just to celebrate all things, you know, recreation in Hartley Park in the summer.

Our sort of weekly programs continue through the year as well, so folks can come out and hop on mountain bikes in the summertime and go biking.

And then we were just recently awarded a grant from the Burnett Family Foundation for a fleet of adult and youth bikes at Hartley Nature Center.

So we'll be able to use those in our programming all year long.

We'll use it in our rental programming, we'll use it for our school field trip programming, our outreach programming.

We're hoping to develop some intro level biking courses this summer as well for adults and older youth.

So there's lots of opportunity for people to come out and not only participate in Hartley programming, but of course the park itself is a great place to just come out and recreate all year long, whether there's snow on the trails or dirt.

It's a great place for doing that.

- Do you have any advice for someone who wants to get involved in a new outdoor recreation sport?

But, you know, like I would love to cross country ski, but it seems like there's, getting the equipment, it seems a little expensive, it seems time intensive to learn, you know, how does one get into it?

- Yeah, great question.

You know, that's one of the things that we constantly think about at Hartley Nature Center.

There are a lot of barriers to participation if you've never done something like that before.

And we're constantly trying to break down those barriers.

So some of the things that we hear from our community is, I don't know how to mountain bike.

I don't know how to cross country ski.

I don't feel like I belong on the trails.

Or it's really expensive.

I can't afford a bike.

I can't afford skis.

And so we're trying to reduce some of those barriers by, you know, getting these grants for bikes so that people can come and they can rent bikes from us for either low cost or no cost in some situations.

They can come take a class at Hartley and we can teach 'em about trail etiquette and the skills that they need to get out there and hope to make 'em feel a little bit more comfortable on the trail.

And then just creating a welcoming community and a space for these people.

With our social events, you know, the whole idea behind it is to get people to Hartley, to meet other people who are skiers and bikers, to ask them for support maybe, but also just to feel like you belong to a community.

And when they come out to our events, hopefully they feel like they belong, you know, they are a biker, they are a skier, and they belong in those communities.

- Oh, great advice.

Thank you so much for being with us tonight, Matt.

- Yeah, thank you.

- Well, before we go, let's take a look at what you might be getting up to this weekend.

Saturday from 10:00 to 4:00 at the Bagley Nature Center in Duluth are the Ojibwe Winter Games.

Participate in atlatl, throwing hoop and spear, and snow snakes, among other activities.

Also Saturday in Ashland is 2024's Book Across the Bay.

An important note, this year will be untimed and walking only due to weather conditions.

Registration and packet pickup for the participants goes from 11:30 AM to 5:30 PM, and the race starts at 6:00.

If you're into the latest and greatest outdoor tech toys and tech, check out the Duluth Sports Show all weekend long at The Deck.

Doors open at 9:00 AM on Saturday and 10:00 AM on Sunday.

Well, I'm Maarja Hewitt.

Thank you for joining us on "Almanac North".

I'll see you next time.

Good night.

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