Ice roads aren’t something new on Lake of the Woods, but this ice road is the first of its kind going from Roseau County to the Northwest Angle. And there’s a bonus… you won’t need a passport to get to the Angle when you travel this route! Pack your bags because you are in for a once in a lifetime experience.

While you wait for official word on the opening on the 2021 ice road (est. to be open sometime in January 2021 – early March 2021), you can make lodging reservations in Roseau for your arrival the night before hitting this road less traveled. The ice road closes at sunset daily so enjoy a delicious local meal and get a great night’s sleep before you hit the ice road and hashtag you’ve done something that hasn’t been done without a snowmobile before 2021 (that could be one long hashtag)!

“All of the resorts on the Angle are involved in the project, Points North Services, Sunset Lodge on Oak Island, and Springsteel Resort will share the workload for plowing and maintaining the ice road, Alsleben said, a job that will include bridging cracks and ice heaves that form every winter.

The Northwest Angle Edge Riders, a group that grooms and maintains snowmobile trails on the Angle, also is a partner, and other resorts will chip in to help as needed, Alsleben said. As in previous winters, the Angle will be accessible by snowmobile on groomed trails from Warroad and other points along the south shore of Lake of the Woods.”

Due to the expense of maintaining the road, an ice road pass is required to travel from Springsteel Resort to Northwest Angle mainland and islands. While some might say the cost to travel on the frozen Lake of the Woods in on the pricey side, in reality, what experience isn’t pricey?

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Cost: $145 per vehicle (Springsteel Resort to Sunset Lodge)

​Hours: Daily, 8 a.m. to sunset contingent on weather and ice conditions.

Route: The road will run from Springsteel Resort, across the lake, to the Border Cut trail, then along the trail to the main Angle road (Co Rd 330). The road is approx. 25-30 miles. You are responsible for checking their FB page prior to arriving at Springsteel for any ice road updates. Based on ice condition and weather the road may be closed until cleared.

Rules: 25 MPH speed limit. The road is not wheelhouse friendly. There will not be enough clearance and you will get stuck. Regular passenger vehicles and most trailers will be fine.

Note: Traveling along the ice road is at your own risk. Road status will be monitored closely and may be subject to change without notice. Updates will be posted on the Northwest Angle Guest Ice Road Facebook page, click here to like/follow the page. Any updates to this information will be found on their FB page.

Click here to purchase your ice road pass.

Our local C&C Members are ready for the holiday season & will have a new deal each day leading up to Christmas for you to take advantage of! Be sure to bookmark the link below and check back daily to see what deal will be revealed!

Click the image below, but no peeking! Beginning Dec. 1, 2020 a new deal will be revealed every day.

Roseau County received CARES Act funding to assist Roseau County businesses which suffered uncompensated losses due to the COVID 19 pandemic. Grant requests up to $10,000 will be considered.

To be eligible an applicant business must be based and operate in Roseau County and be able to demonstrate that it has suffered a COVID 19 related loss in revenues which were uncompensated by another source.

The application deadline is September 15, 2020. Applications received after the deadline will only be considered if future funding is awarded.

Northwest Community Action Inc., is assisting Roseau County in processing the applications. To request an application by mail call Northwest Community Action at 218-528-3258 or mail your request to:

Northwest Community Action, Inc.
PO Box 67
Badger, MN 56714

Or email request to: jwynne@nwcaa.org

For more details or to print the applicaiton, click here.

Article Credit: Grand Forks Herald

The flavor of small-town life in northern Minnesota beckoned, and so, in 1996, Swanson and his wife, Nancy, returned to Roseau, where he and a partner started radio station KJ-102 FM.

Written By: Brad Dokken | Aug 4th 2020 – 10am

Some “Roseauites” might not recognize Jack Swanson by sight, but anyone with a radio certainly recognizes him by voice.

During his time in Roseau, which includes two stints from 1979 through most of 1986 and then since 1996, the longtime radio personality – and, since 2006, county commissioner – figures he’s broadcast about 500 Roseau Rams games in various sports.

Between 1979 and 1986, Swanson worked for KRWB-AM 1410, covering sports in Roseau and nearby Warroad, Minn.
KRWB was the only radio station in Roseau County at the time, he recalls.

“I’d guess we broadcast 50-60 games per year,” he said.

Swanson and his wife, Nancy, both graduated from Park High School in the Twin Cities, but his family has roots in Roseau County. His mom grew up in Roseau and his dad in Warroad.

“We came up every summer,” Swanson said. “We spent every summer in a little – I suppose you’d describe it as a cabin – just outside of Roseau.”

The Swansons and sons Jeff and Willie, both of whom were born in Roseau, in late 1986 moved to Madison, Wis., where he spent a decade as the radio voice of the Wisconsin Badgers college hockey team.

The flavor of small-town life in northern Minnesota beckoned, though, and so, in 1996, they returned to Roseau, where Swanson and a partner started radio station KJ-102 FM.

“Most of our closest friends were still in Roseau,” Swanson said. “So although it wasn’t where we grew up, it was pretty much like coming home again.”

The partners sold the station a few years ago, but Swanson continues to work on the air part-time, producing a local interview segment called “Friends and Neighbors” and – pre-pandemic, at least – stepping behind the mike to broadcast five to 10 Rams hockey and basketball games every winter.

As a Roseau County commissioner, Swanson has served on the board of the Association of Minnesota Counties since 2013 and was the group’s president in 2016. He has been a “great champion” for rural Minnesota, said Julie Ring, executive director of the Association of Minnesota Counties.

“Jack is a gifted relationship-builder,” Ring said. “He is genuinely interested in the ideas that others bring to the table, and he puts people at ease. Perhaps because of his background in radio, Jack always asks great questions and encourages lively discussion, which always leads groups to better decisions.”

Swanson serves on more than 30 various committees, both locally and statewide, but describes his day-to-day life as “kind of boring.” Like many Roseau residents, though, Swanson speaks highly of the place he calls home.

“I think what’s special about it is once you are immersed in the community, you’re accepted as a neighbor,” he said. “That’s probably true of most small towns, but that’s the one I’m most familiar with as an adult. And I would extend that to saying, if you need help from your neighbors, your neighbors will gladly help you.

“I don’t know that that happens necessarily in bigger towns.”

Article Credit: Grand Forks Herald

Looking back on the distance-learning experience, Roseau School Superintendent Tom Jerome said it “really demonstrated how much our community and our students value the traditional educational system.”

Written By: Brad Dokken | Jul 29th 2020 – 6am

On a sunny Thursday in mid-July, a small crowd gathered in front of the Roseau Community School to mark the ceremonial groundbreaking of a $40 million-plus school construction project voters passed with more than 74% approval during a May 12 referendum.

A combination of 65,000 square feet of new construction and 44,000 square feet of remodeling, the project is set to be completed in the fall of 2022, and the recent midday groundbreaking was a way of saying thanks to the residents of this northwest Minnesota school district for their support, Superintendent Tom Jerome said.

The grassroots effort was the culmination of more than two years of planning, discussing and debating “to meet the needs of our students, and the students of today and the students of tomorrow,” Jerome said.

During the middle of a pandemic, no less.

“Our community has proven to be very resilient throughout the pandemic and determined to continue to look forward,” he said.

While the timetable for the Roseau school expansion is set and construction began July 20, the shape of the upcoming school year remained a work in progress as of late July as the COVID-19 pandemic continued to evolve.

As of this writing, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz has told Jerome and other public school administrators in the state to prepare for three scenarios: Resumption of traditional in-school classes, a hybrid mix of in-person and distance learning – which could look very different depending on the school and community and the age of the students – and a return to the distance learning that began in March as the pandemic hit and threw everyone’s lives into a tailspin.

“We’re going to continue to build on what we did with distance learning and try to improve,” if that’s the direction the school year takes, Jerome said. “We’ve surveyed our families and asked for feedback on what worked and what didn’t work and we want to build on that.”

A decision from Walz’s office is expected Thursday, July 30, but the potential shape of the coming school year is “incredibly fluid,” Jerome said.

“I think one of the really challenging things is that we’re all acutely aware of the fact that whatever does come down the pipeline could change for us again,” he said. “But we’re all yearning, starving to return to some form of normalcy and balancing that with the health concern. What we do know is our education is most successful when our students are in the classroom. Generally speaking, as a whole, our mental health is in a much better position when our kids are back in our hallways socializing with their classmates, interacting with their teachers.

“But it’s a real balancing act right now,” Jerome said. “We want our kids back in the building and we want our staff back in the building in the safest way possible. We can’t be reckless about this.”

According to a recent informal survey by the Department of Education, 64% of Minnesota residents were comfortable with their children returning to school.

“There’s a real tug of war going on in terms of this desire to return to normalcy,” Jerome said. “And at the same time, to ensure the safest environment we can, not only for our students but for the number of adults in our building.”

As of mid-July, questions far outnumbered answers, Jerome said.

“What I do know is that we are focused, we are waiting for our direction, and we’re going to do the very best we can to meet the needs of our students,” he said. “And that’s pretty general right now, but it’s impossible to be anything more than that.”

Looking back on the distance-learning experience, Jerome said it “really demonstrated how much our community and our students value the traditional educational system.”

“Our educational system is not built on isolation or separation or distance,” he said. “Not at the K-12 or the preschool through K-12 level. That distance provided us a lot of challenges, and we did the very best that we could working together with our families, but there is no doubt that distance learning impacted all of us.”

Traditional education is built on personal connections distance learning can’t provide. Whatever direction education takes for the coming school year, Jerome said the school district will be ready.

“Not a single person in this building went to school to be a teacher to teach distance learning – not one of them,” he said. “We did the very best we could and we provided a great deal of service in a system that not one single teacher of ours was ever trained for, educated for, prepared for and not a system that one of our teachers ever signed up for.

“And conversely, the same thing goes for our students.”

The City of Roseau is in the process of opening up a new housing subdivision in the City Limits to accommodate the continued expansion of housing in our community. Initial plans are to develop land along Oak Crest Boulevard adjacent to the Oak Crest Golf Course on the south side of the city. The City has agreed to purchase approximately 26 acres of existing farmland to create 32 lots of approximately one half acre or more.

The City plans to develop the subdivision in 3 phases, with new phases proceeding as lots are sold. The initial development will include 10 lots directly west of the Oak Crest South subdivision along Oak Crest Boulevard. The next phase of eleven lots would run east towards and into the Oak Crest Golf Course. The final phase of the subdivision would be entirely contained within the golf course on land reserved for housing development.

The costs of the lots has not yet been determined and will be dependent on estimated costs of development. Lots will be sold through the City of Roseau. Anyone interested in more information on this development should contact Community Development Coordinator Todd Peterson at 218-463-5003.

The parks and playgrounds are open in Roseau! The Parks Department has been working diligently to keep the playgrounds clean and safe for use, but please remember all park and playground use is at your own risk, and that social distancing protocol is essential. The park shelter building at City Park remains closed to rental, but as of June 1 camping will be open again. New for this year, the City has online reservations and payments available for camping, as well as for our future recreation programming signups and fees. The link to online reservations can be found on the Parks and Recreation page on the city website.

NEW! Youth Summer Day Camp
June 1 marks the launch of a new summer program, Sunny Smiles Summer Camp which is being sponsored by the Roseau Park and Rec. This is a Monday through Friday activity camp for kids in kindergarten through age
12. We are excited to have Maranda Peterson as our camp director this year and can’t wait to see how the program develops. Due to the uncertainty we faced this spring, camp registration began later than planned; however, registration will remain open throughout the length of the program to ensure kids get a chance to be involved this year.

Memorial Arena
Memorial arena is getting an update to the refrigeration system this June. The City is installing equipment that allows remote monitoring of temperature readouts as well as electronic logging of settings and energy consumption. It is the goal that this equipment will provide arena staff with better data on the system’s operation and to extend the life of the system, along with bringing increased energy efficiency.

Summer Sports
Our summer sports programming such as youth ball and adult softball are currently postponed per the Governor’s orders restricting youth sports competitions. Hopefully our ball programs will be able to go later this summer, keep an eye on the city website for registration information, if, and when sporting activities are allowed to resume. Updates will also be available over Wild 102 Radio.

More than $60 million available in grants to small businesses affected by COVID-19

St. Paul – The Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED) has announced that the Minnesota Small Business Relief Grants Program – which was approved by the Minnesota Legislature last week and signed by Governor Tim Walz on Tuesday – will begin accepting June 23, 2020

This program will provide $10,000 grants to small businesses that have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses with 50 or fewer full-time employees are eligible. Half of the funding will go to businesses in Greater Minnesota and half to businesses in the seven-county Twin Cities metro area, as required by law.

Additional requirements include:
• $18 million for businesses with six or fewer full-time employees
• $10 million for minority business enterprises
• $2.5 million for veteran-owned businesses
• $2.5 million for women-owned businesses
• $2.5 million for operators of indoor retail and food markets with an ethnic-cultural emphasis

“Small businesses across our state urgently need this relief,” said DEED Commissioner Steve Grove. “DEED applauds the bipartisan action to pass this legislation, and we are grateful to Governor Walz for signing the bill quickly so we could immediately get this grant program up and running.”
The application period will begin on Tuesday, June 23 and close at 5:00 p.m. on Thursday, July 2 to fulfill the 10-day period required by the law. A randomized, computer-generated lottery process will be used to select eligible businesses that will receive awards. All awards will be administered by qualified local and regionally based nonprofit agencies, and the grant funds can be used for working capital to support payroll expenses, rent, mortgage payments, utility bills, and other similar business expenses.

To be eligible, businesses must have a permanent physical location in Minnesota and be majority-owned by a permanent resident of Minnesota. Businesses must be able to demonstrate hardship as a result of the COVID-19 outbreak. Additional eligibility requirements and application information can be found online at DEED’s Small Business Relief Grants page.

DEED is the state’s principal economic development agency, promoting business recruitment, expansion and retention, workforce development, international trade and community development. For more information about the agency and its services visit the DEED website or follow DEED on Twitter.

It’s June 1 and many local restaurants are offering outdoor dining in Roseau! Thank you again and again for supporting local.

Click here to print or download the restaurant directory.