Local Features

In March, Misty Jackson from the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians participated in a fashion show with the goal of highlighting the problem of missing and murdered indigenous women. Beth Tornes continues our We Live Up Here series with the story. When Misty Jackson walked down the runway at the fashion show in Billings, Montana, the audience was surprised and moved by her creation. Jackson wore a full-length silver and red ribbon skirt imprinted with red hands. Written on the

In the early 1900's, Harshaw — like many small communities — had a general store that the community depended on in many ways. The store closed in 1960, but Gary Entz looks back on its importance for this week's A Northwoods Moment in History. In the high-tech world of the twenty-first century, many people prefer to do their shopping online. Nearly everything one could desire is a simple “click” away. For those who prefer the face-to-face experience of shopping, huge national chains in the form

Since March, we've been getting questions in as part of our Curious North series. Jaron Childs from Tomahawk recently asked: What signs can we look for to help assess the health of a lake, river, or forest in northern Wisconsin? The Masked Biologist answers his question for this week's Wildlife Matters. What follows is a very brief answer to a very complex question about how to evaluate habitat health. Lake health could take up volumes of books, so there is no way to answer it simply here. In

We continue our We Live Up Here series this week with a story about an ambitious DIY project that has been 30 years in the making. The story comes in response to a listener question to our Curious North series. Dennis Marquardt from Tomahawk asks: What is up with the castle on Killarney Lake? Jim Skibo has the story. The fog lifts over Killarney Lake and Kelley Arms Castle appears on a rise. Are we on a tour of castles in Ireland? Nope. We are in Oneida County just north of Tomahawk. The castle

This week’s A Northwoods Moment in History is in response to two WXPR listeners who submitted questions to our new Curious North series. An anonymous listener from Lake Tomahawk asked: Did the French and British occupy Wisconsin? What happened in the war of 1812 in the state? In addition, Jane Nicholson from Manitowish Waters asked: What were the first initiatives of the US government in our area? Who was sent here and for what purposes/initiatives? To answer those questions and more, here's

In this month's installment of Field Notes, Scott Bowe of Kemp Station discusses trees and their resistance to decay fungi. If you have had the opportunity to travel the forests across Wisconsin, you will notice that we have an impressive variety of tree species. These tree species are an important source of food and shelter for wildlife, but also an important raw material for human use. But not all wood from trees is created equally. We favor some species for their aesthetic beauty such as the

The Masked Biologist dedicates today’s Wildlife Matters to all the mothers out there, human and animal. Mother’s Day has come and gone. The one day a year when children turn their attention, however brief, to everything their mother has done and continues to do for them. I have kids, three kids, and it is a chore to get them to recognize their mother as much more than a housekeeper, cook, taxi driver, banker and occasionally entertainment director. I am sure I probably did the same when I was

Since March, we've been collecting your questions for a new series at WXPR called Curious North . Today we're answering one of those questions as part of our We Live Up Here series. Melissa Nieman in Tomahawk recently asked: Can we agree on a pronunciation of the word sauna?! Mackenzie Martin talked to two linguistic researchers to try and figure out the answer. In the English language, there are a lot of words that people disagree on the pronunciation for. Recently, we got a Curious North

Throughout the last year, our local historian Gary Entz has uncovered why many towns in the Northwoods are named what they are. Some previous installments of A Northwoods Moment in History have included how the communities of Gagen, Sugar Camp, Phelps, St. Germain, Sayner, and Rhinelander got their names. In this week’s installment, we hear how the town of Gleason got its name. Gleason is a small, unincorporated town located on Highway 17 in Lincoln County. It is an unremarkable place today, but

You probably polluted a water body today—we all did. In today’s Wildlife Matters , the Masked Biologist takes a look at pharmaceuticals and personal care products and their detrimental impacts. If you are a regular listener to my program, you likely know that clean water is one of my greater concerns. We routinely mistreat our water oceans, lakes, and rivers. Sadly, the closer we look at water, the more problems we find. Furthermore, the problems we do find are not easily fixed. Well, maybe some