The State (Minnesota) made a colossal error or at best did not look ahead.  Their mistake is major news north of Duluth.  They built Highway 53 on mining land.  Highway 53 is the lifeline for the fragile iron range economy.  More importantly the four lane blacktop connects Duluth to Virginia/Eveleth to International Falls (north) to Ely (east) and to Hibbing (west).  All these connections are made on the part of the highway west of Virginia/Eveleth.

It is where the major businesses are for the Mesabi part of the Iron Range.  It is also the part of the highway that is on mining land.  The owners want it back and want to mine the southwest area of Virginia (northwest area of Eveleth).  It will kill both cities.  The two cities will become dead ends on a road that few if any will travel.

It has happened before on the range.  Towns like McKinley that used to be on major highways were cut off from through traffic by mines.  They slowly wither away as houses decay because nobody can live there.  Nature takes over and nature is unrelenting.

To a certain extent it has happened to Aurora and Hoyt Lakes, but they managed to retain east/west roads with highways from the south.  But the mines on the north side of the towns have forced their economy to become local.  Traffic to the boundary waters bypass the towns.  That traffic uses Highway 53.

Hoyt Lakes has an ice arena.  Because the area gets little through traffic, few people are aware of that fact.  The arena was built to support the Mesabi East high school.  The Giants haven’t fielded a high school team in five years.  For the last two years, Ice Edge AAA Hockey has taken over the arena for the month of August.  They include in their program a week at a summer camp in Hoyt Lakes for those participating in the Ice Edge program.

This year the staff will spend most of August in Hoyt Lakes conducting a week long camp for the boys 1999’s, 2000’s, 2001’s, 2002’s.  At the end of each week, they conduct a tournament and invite teams from all over to play the Ice Edge teams.  Last weekend, they had a 6 team tourney (three Ice Edge teams).  This coming weekend, ten teams will play in a tourney.

The locals support the Ice Edge well; it gives them a reason to put ice in early and once in they will keep it through the winter season.  That helps the Mesabi East youth program.

But what only a few may realize is the nature of the camp.  It is not just about playing hockey and going back to a room and playing x-box.  The arena is located between two lakes.  A two minute walk from the arena, is a swimming beach, one of the best in the area.

A walking/bicycle path empties into the arena parking lot.  The path goes along a point of land on the Whitewater Lake.  For 10 minutes the path wanders through a maze of camp sites that are set up for “trailers” as well as “tenters” ($22 per day if you want electricity).  Most of the camping sites have lake access to beach your boat.  The trail ends at the boat launch.
The locals have been feeding bald eagles on that point of land.  Saturday morning, one sleepy eagle was content to sit in the sun on the fishing dock amid dog walkers and boat launchers.  Periodically, the eagle would give the passerbys an “eagle eye”.

This past weekend, it was the 2000’s turn to play a tournament.  The tourney was a learning experience for most of the kids.  The teams played five, 15 minute period, pool games over three days.  The three Ice Edge teams played well; played disciplined hockey.  The three outside opponents were tough.

A scrappy team from Bemidji showed up playing good defense and a good passing game.  After losing 5-0 to the Ice Edge Black in their first game, the Beavers went on to beat win their next four games beating the Ice Edge Bandits 2-1, the Xtreme 6-3, the Ice Edge Blue 4-3, and the Iron Range Moose 2-1.  The Beavers’ Hunter Olson and Taylor Andersen led the team in scoring.  Ian Forsythe had a solid tourney in the nets for the Beavers.

The Ice Edge Black rolled through their pool opposition after beating the Beavers winning all five games by a combined score of 40-1.  The lone opponent goal was scored by the Iron Range Moose’s Cody Hendrickson.  The Black team showed a balanced attack.  Fourteen of the Black players scored goals.  Phillip “The Monster” Weltin scored two hat tricks in the five pool games.  Joe “Schmo” Simon had a hat trick.  In their 10-0 win over the Bandits, 10 Black players each scored a single goal.

The Iron Range Moose were the largest team in the tourney.  They had size and skill.  Their 2-1 loss to the Beavers cost them a spot in the championship game.  They won their other three games playing a solid physical checking game.  The Moose were led by Cody Hendrickson.  Hendrickson was the tourney’s top goal scorer putting 11 pucks in the net.  The Moose’s Jake Seitz had an outstanding tourney scoring 6 goals and notching 6 assists.  The Moose played the Ice Edge Blue for third place Sunday.

The Blue beat the Bandits and the Xtreme to win a spot in the third place game.  They showed balanced scoring also (must be an Ice Edge “trade mark”).  The Blues’ Tim Piechowski and Adam Tremblay were their top scorers.

The Bandits beat the Xtreme 5-2 in a tough game.  The Bandits scored two late goals in the third period to win the game.  The Bandits scorers were led by Nathan Green, Nate Whittier, and Logan Weller.  The Xtreme, a Northland team based out of Burnsville, played some tough games.  Their top scorers were Logan Kittleson and Tieler Sanders.

Sunday afternoon, the Beavers played the Black for the championship and the Moose played the Blue.  Don’t have the scores for those games yet.  They will be posted.

What was nice about this tourney was the low key way it was run.  It is not often a hockey tourney is held in a setting where kids off the ice have the freedoms to do things non-hockey without the parents having to watch them.  Outside the arena, the kids could move around and find things to do.  Inside the arena, off the lobby, was a basketball court open to the kids.  Between games, kids and fathers were playing basketball.  Why not?  It was that kind of tourney.

As to the woes of Highway 53, rather than try to figure out how to move the highway to avoid turning Virginia/Eveleth into potentially ghost towns and coming up with some “Rube Goldberg” solution-why not buy the land back from the mines by paying them their profit.  It could be cheaper than modifying the road with some expensive solution and eventually isolating the two cities anyway.  Jobs aren’t forever.

In Aurora and Hoyt Lakes, they know that.  The mines have left.  The two towns are hoping for a Polymet mining operation to start where the taconite left off.  The big argument there is environmental.  Someone wants to preserve the miles of rock left by the taconite mining.

But who knows what is best?  One thing, hopefully, is that for the next few years the Ice Edge can keep a good thing going in Hoyt Lakes.  It almost makes one wish they had a kid skating in the program and so they could split their time between watching hockey and camping on the point with a nice boat on the shore to troll for walleye or northern.  After all, that is what the eagles love to eat.