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How a pottery studio owner got creative to diversify her business

Nov 1, 2021
When the pandemic halted classes at Jennie Tang's ceramics studio, she turned to other ways to keep the operation thriving.
“We’ve diversified the ways in which people engage with the space,” said Jennie Tang, owner of The Workshop MPLS, a ceramics center in Minneapolis.
Courtesy Jennie Tang

New wood products plant in Minnesota will create jobs, could help climate

Aug 9, 2021
The facility would have ancillary benefits for loggers and truckers, and its building materials would keep carbon locked up, expert says.
The timber industry around the town of Cohasset could see an economic boom thanks to the planned construction of a new mill.
Chip Somodevilla via Getty Images

Minnesota grapples with returning "snowbirds"

May 25, 2020
More than 44,000 people leave in the winter and return in the summer, boosting local economies but raising COVID-19 fears.
Terry Teich and Mark Walters pan for gold in a dry creek bed in Arizona. The "snowbirds" returned to their home in Duluth, Minnesota, in early May.
Courtesy of Mark Walter and Terry Teich

Recreational trails are seen as an economic boon

Jan 3, 2020
Cities around the country have long had to worry about roads. Now, with the help of volunteers, they’re also investing more heavily in trails.
Retired Olympic gold medalist Kikkan Randall leads dozens of young Nordic skiers on a workout at the Grand Avenue Nordic Center in Duluth, Minnesota.
Dan Kraker

The market for clean wood-burning furnaces might heat up

Apr 29, 2019
New environmental rules could transform stove makers' business.
Dave Karki welds an "airbox" for Lamppa Manufacturing's EPA-approved wood-burning furnace.
Dan Kraker/MPR News

Talkin' trade war at the Minnesota State Fair

Aug 29, 2018
Nearly two million people visit the 12-day Minnesota State Fair every year. Visitors can take in live music, eat a lot of fried food and sweets, hop on carnival rides, and take in exhibits that celebrate the state’s agriculture industry. The fair is also a place for citizens to meet with their elected officials to discuss the big issues of the day, like a trade war.
A Ferris Wheel turns as people check out John Deere tractors on Machinery Hill at the Minnesota State Fair in Falcon Heights, Minn. on Thursday, Aug. 23, 2018.
Evan Frost | MPR News

High price of vanilla sends a chill through the ice cream industry

Jul 12, 2018
Vanilla bean prices have been running between the equivalent of $1,000 and $1,200 per pound, nearly five times what it was a few years ago. And that’s rippling through the ice cream industry. One key reason for the increased cost is last year’s cyclone in leading vanilla producer Madagascar, which created a huge crop shortage. Larger […]
ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/Getty Images

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Reinventing the rural health care system

Feb 2, 2018
A new report outlines the challenges the health care system in rural communities faces.
Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Passing on a tradition of wild rice harvest in northern Minnesota

Oct 18, 2017
Native Americans migrated to Minnesota centuries ago “where food grew on the water,” 500 years later, the wild rice harvest tradition is still being passed on.
Bruce Martineau poles his father Francis Martineau to the shore of Deadfish Lake after harvesting wild rice on the Fond du Lac reservation on Sept. 5, 2017.
Dan Karker/ for Marketplace

Wood City: Cloquet, Minn., hopes to keep its identity after last matchstick factory closes

Jul 14, 2017
The Diamond Match factory is one of three major wood products plants in Cloquet, Minn. But it’s slated to close later this summer, leaving Cloquet with a hole in both its history and economy.
Smokestacks at the Diamond match factory in Cloquet tower over a pile of wood. 
Dan Kraker for Marketplace