On Northern Voices this week Leah Lemm profiles Iron Range Native and Finnish-American musician Sara Pajunen . She is a v iolinist, composer and sound artist who lives in Duluth. Sara tells us about her Finnish ancestry, and the traditional music that she plays and writes, plus about a project of hers that incorporates family history, landscape and sound. Northern Voices is made possible with funding from the MN Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund. MINE SONGS / AN EXERCISE from sara pajunen on Vimeo

Chronic Wasting Disease is moving closer to home - with a deer farm in Merrifield testing positive and closing, there's some reason to worry about the spread of the disease . The University of Minnesota considers CWD a potential public health crisis. What exactly is Chronic Wasting Disease? Chronic Wasting Disease affects the deer and elk family. It’s caused by a protein called a prion, which damages brain and nerve tissue. The disease is most likely transmitted when infected deer and elk shed

Each week John and Heidi pull up a chair to one of our member’s kitchen tables and get to know them a little bit better. This week’s callers, Leo Miltich and Katie Marshall while enjoying a breakfast of leftover birthday cake and naturally died (aka brown) leftover Easter eggs. Hear the whole conversation by clicking below. Thanks to our sponsor Homestead Mills for their support of this program! Let us know if you want to be our guest on What's For Breakfast . All it takes is your membership and

In celebration of Earth Day and Earth Week, Bemidji State University hosts the 2nd annual Arts of the Earth Festival this Saturday and Sunday. The two day event promises activities and educational, enlightening experiences for all ages. Both days have a full schedule of workshops, documentaries, arts demonstrations, live music and inspiration. More than 30 artists and vendors will have booths set up and live music will be performed by local bands throughout the weekend as well. Documentaries

Students from Voyageurs Expeditionary High School in Bemidji recently vistited the KBXE studios. After touring Northern Community Radio's vinyl and cd libraries, the students experienced recording in the studio when most of them shared an original poem in honor of National Poetry Month .

Today we talked with Andy Steiner about a collaboration of emergency department and mental health in the Twin Cities - her latest article on Minn Post is: New Set of Emergency Department standards may help identify patients at high risk for suicide The suicide rates in MN are up 40.6% since 1999. Mental health can often manifest in physical pain. Studies in The British Journal of Psychiatry and Emergency Medicine Journal show that 40 percent of patients who die by suicide were seen in an

On the Friday Morning Show we welcomed back Lynette Schmidt and Jollene Latvala from Children's Mental Health to talk about the misconceptions of mental health and tell us about Stomp on Stigma. Stomp on Stigma is in its 7th year at the IRA Civic Center in Grand Rapids on Saturday May 5th. Race day registration starts at 8:30am. T-shirts will be given to the first 150 registered participants. There will also be prizes and drawings. Proceeds benefit children and families in Northern Minnesota.

THE LATEST FROM THE TIMBERJAY Radinovich Announces Resignation from the IRRR. This week Marshall Helmberger from the Timberjay newspaper keeps us up to date on the St. Louis School building issues and the contractors who are coming to the table to help fix the many problems at Southridge and Northwoods schools. So far Kraus-Anderson and ARI have come forward, but Johnson Controls has not. We also hear about problems that some congressional committees are having to get information and documents

Program 53: The Paper Industry in Minnesota and the United States in the 1930s. Charles Blandin's plan to end the Depression. A radio series produced by historian Don Boese. Don is the author of eight books dealing with local history in Itasca County, including "John C. Greenway and the Opening of the Western Mesabi", and the main source for this series, "Papermakers: the Blandin Paper Company and Grand Rapids, Minnesota". The series begins with the arrival of the first Euro-Americans to the

A northern Minnesota winter can be hard on apple trees. In my case, when the snow melted it revealed that two of our trees were completely “girdled” and a third was partially eaten. Girdling kills trees. It means that something (vole? rabbit?) had gnawed off the bark around the entire trunk of two trees in a swath about 2” wide. These trees are our yummy Honeycrisps, a variety developed right here in Minnesota. We had bought the trees three years ago from Gilby’s Apple Orchard in Aitkin , from