July 15, 2021 - MPR’s Dan Kraker profiles framers and ranchers in north central Minnesota as they battle against the toll of severe drought conditions. Kraker also talks with climatologists about dry weather.
July 14, 2020 - MPR’s Dan Kraker interviews John Staine, a real estate appraiser at St. Louis County courthouse, who in an effort to address racial bias in the workplace, started a direct dialog about race with his fellow 2,000 St. Louis County employees.
March 27, 2019 - Springtime in Duluth isn't signaled by birds or butterflies or flowers. Duluthians know it's spring when the Coast Guard icebreakers arrive, announcing the start of another Great Lakes shipping season. MPR’s Dan Kraker takes a ride on the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Alder as it breaks ice and creates navigation lanes for the opening of the maritime shipping season.
March 8, 2019 - MPR’s Dan Kraker visits an area about a quarter-mile offshore from Duluth's Leif Erikson Park, where a hearty band of volunteers have carved a skating rink unlike any other on the frozen surface of Lake Superior. It is an increasing rarity, as warmer winters over the past few decades have resulted in substantially less ice cover.
October 10, 2018 - MPR’s Dan Kraker visits Duluth’s Canal Park and finds himself soaked as he witnesses 20-foot waves crash along the shore of Lake Superior.
August 14, 2018 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reports on unprecedented algae bloom along the South Shore of Lake Superior. Researchers are trying to figure out the cause. They suspect the bloom may be related to recent historic heavy rains and flooding that washed tons of sediment into the lake. Researchers expect to see more periodic algae blooms in Lake Superior, in part because of that increased water temperature, an effect of climate change.
October 31, 2017 - MPR’s Dan Kraker looks into the ongoing battle to control sea lamprey in the Great Lakes. It was one of the earliest aquatic nonnative species to invade the U.S., long before zebra mussels and Asian carp garnered headlines. Its also been one of the most destructive, wiping out lake trout populations.
September 13, 2017 - MPR’s Dan Kraker reflects on Minnesota’s worst mining disaster and the efforts to memorialize those lost in the tragedy with a park.
December 20, 2016 - MPR News with Tom Weber presents a program on The Dakota Access oil pipeline, which winds hundreds of miles from the oil fields of North Dakota to a pipeline hub in southern Illinois. In 2016, it was almost entirely built — except for a section under Lake Oahe, a Missouri River reservoir just south of Bismarck, N.D. Members of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and a coalition of other groups camped out near the site of the river crossing in an effort to stop pipeline construction.
October 13, 2016 - Bob Dylan's literary roots may be as tangled as the Nobel Prize winner's famously enigmatic lyrics, but at some point they invariably end up in the Hibbing High School classroom of B.J. Rolfzen. MPR’s Dan Kraker profiles the teacher and his future music icon student.