Iron Mining

I’ve been trying to see the iron mines in the area. The problem is closures. One park was closed after Labor Day. Another visitor center and viewing area closed a year ago (though it wasn’t shown on the websites that I checked). Anyhow, this area in northern Minnesota is full of mines and mine pits so we’ve had some views while driving of overburden hills along with old mine pits that are now lakes.

Because mining is so big in the area, they built this 85’ tall statue called “Iron Man” where the guy is 36’ tall and the steel load is 49’. Apparently steel is more important than people?

We visited a historical museum.  I liked the bizarre washing machine (these cups move up and down) while John liked the grinding wheel.

The guide showed up various interesting exhibits but she knew quite a bit about the local mining. There are plans to reprocess the overburden and tailings hills in the area to get additional metals out of the materials with new processes. New mines are also planned for rare and precious metals other than the standard iron.

Of course I needed to see the World’s Largest Floating Loon. It is 20’ long, though it is hard to get the scale since it is on the opposite site of the lake. Apparently there is a slightly larger (but not floating) loon in another town in Minnesota. Loons are big in Minnesota.