The Ely Echo

The Birch Bay Fire, located half a mile west of North Arm Road near Burntside Lake, reached full containment by the evening of June 6 after burning 33 acres. Originally reported at 35 acres in size, aerial footage review resulted in the twoacre downsize to the fire, which likely sparked due to chainsaw work during prescribed burn preparation by the US Forest Service.

Boundary Waters Connect’s Tuesday Group saw a sneak peek of Northern Lakes Arts Association ensemble performance of Oklahoma, which will debut June 18-28. “This is our 40th anniversary season, I call it the people’s season…it’s all shows that were most requested in our surveys from the past year,” said Ian Francis Lah, executive artistic art director of NLAA.

Most people remember Oklahoma! for the songs. “People Will Say We’re in Love.” “Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin’.” “The Surrey with the Fringe on Top.” For Northern Lakes Arts Association executive artistic director and director Ian Francis Lah, those songs were his introduction to the musical growing up. But revisiting the show as a director revealed something deeper. “I think a lot of people remember Oklahoma! as a nostalgic love story,” Lah said.

PLEASE NOTE: Your free event news can be posted on the Ely Echo newspaper’s Community Calendar. Send your info to: elyecho@aol.com. Living With Cancer Group has been cancelled for June and will meet on Wednesday, July 8, at 6 p.m. at the Ely Community Building. All cancer patients, survivors, family members, friends or those just wanting more information are welcomed and encouraged to join the group.

With an amount of exerted energy, I envy, everyone else can’t help but notice, this young man is in a hurry to go fishing. He has dashed from the boat ramp back to his parked truck and trailer many times, I said to my fishing partner for the morning, howmanymoretripsyouthinkhe’llmake before he launches? Don’t know, but I bet he sleeps good tonight, and he reminds me of us way back then. I nodded a yup.

I wrote this poem below during the Farmer’s Market last night in Ely. Whiteside Park is crowded on Tuesdays. There’s plenty of great food, live music from NLAA and according to different folks a sum total of about seventy booths to visit. We’re now open from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. and it’s a great time to hang out in the park in Ely. I looked back through pictures and poems and discovered that Juliet and I have been doing the Farmer’s Market together for a long time.

Tuesday’s Boundary Waters Connect Speaker was Jess Edberg, executive director of the Dorothy Molter Musuem. Edberg has worked at the museum for 12 years and is an avid amateur Ely historian. “Our mission is to preserve and interpret Northwoods wilderness heritage through learning opportunities inspired by Dorothy Molter, the last non-indigenous resident of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness,” said Edberg.

There was a time when election season in northeastern Minnesota had all of the excitement of watching grass grow. That’s at least when it came to state legislative races. For decades, Democrats such as the late Dave Battaglia, Doug Johnson and David Dill, as well as now-retired State Sen. Tom Bakk, had little in the way of competition. They were entrenched incumbents with widespread support, and they ran up comfortable margins of victory.

Ely’s high school baseball team captured both Iron Range and Arrowhead Conference titles during a solid spring, and now several Timberwolves have earned all-conference honors. Seniors Hunter Halbakken and Drew Johnson and junior Owen Marolt have earned both All-Arrowhead Conference and All-Iron Range Conference recognition, while junior Tyde Brecke gained a spot on the All-Arrowhead team and fellow junior Evan Leeson won All-IRC acclaim.

The local slow-pitch softball season is underway, and early results show that a perennial powerhouse will again be a forced to reckon with. Nickerson Construction won twice on Monday night to run its record to 4-0 for the season. Also 4-0 after the opening two weeks of action is Ely Liquor. Nickerson blanked SamZ 11-0 and downed Insula 14-7 in games Monday night at the Jerome Debeltz Fields, while Ely Liquor scored an 8-1 victory over Bear Island/ Benchwarmers as well as a 17-1 win against SamZ.