The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

John Herou isn’t your typical electric-car ideologue. The founder of e-ride Industries possesses a bright strain of idealism to be sure, but fundamentally he’s a practical man, an inventor and classic car buff, more entrepreneur than tree hugger. The cars he builds, called neighborhood electric vehicles because by law they can go only twenty-five miles per hour and drive on streets with commensurate speed limits, are distinctly Minnesotan.

The iron ore mine in Tower, Minnesota, closed in 1962. Now Tower’s major industry is Lake Vermilion, an island-studded jewel and one of the last outposts of private property before you arrive at the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

I’d read plenty about Buffalo Ridge, the windiest swath of Minnesota, located in the state’s grassy and treeless southwest quadrant, before I ever got there. I’d heard stories of hats blowing off, of windburn, of tumbleweeds that just kept tumbling. People living in the area are said to suffer perpetual bad hair days. But it was one thing to read about the place and quite another to be there. As I stepped out of my car, the February wind attacked viciously, whipping across my face. I was tempted to crawl back inside and duck for cover.

Lynx number one was a hard-luck kitten. He was barely a year old, in March 2003, when he walked into a box-like trap near Isabella, deep in the Superior National Forest. Isabella is an old logging village bisected by Highway 1 as it slices inland from Lake Superior to Ely. Beyond the village is a small network of forest roads and great patches of spruce, pine, and balsam. It’s wild and dense country that few humans ever see.

Illustration by Christopher Henderson



I’m going to miss Minnesota—not because I’m going away, but because Minnesota is. The north woods? There’s a fairly good chance I will outlive them. A walk through the spruce, the cry of a loon—a lot of experiences we think of as quintessential Minnesota may disappear. Or emigrate to Canada.

With seats on the Minneapolis City Council, and tens of thousands of supporters in the Twin Cities, the Green Party is the liberal vanguard of Minnesota politics. So why don’t you take Ken Pentel seriously?

Photos by Terry Gydesen