Should public media in Minnesota arise in conversation many will surely and immediately conjure a soothing, patient voice on the radio talking about a place named Wobegon where where all the children are above average. The state surely has many other civic-minded news outlets that get too little attention. Allow me to dwell a moment on one specific example, the only other with which I am at all familiar: Minnesota Conservation Volunteer. It is a small publication – measuring about eight by five inches. It started up 73 years ago under sponsorship of the Dept. of Conservation which in 1971 became the Dept. of Natural Resources. Surviving budget cuts, MCV has been for about ten years entirely supported by donations, is circulated to 115,000 people and various institutions, schools, businesses, etc., and probably has half a million readers.
A few years ago I briefly admired the magazine in a post and got on the mailing list. I enjoy it when it arrives but do not always, truth to tell, read it closely. It is the cover photo of the Nov-Dec number that spurred me to sit down and dive right through and then, impressed, to attend to this post.
The pic sprawls from the back cover and across the spine to the front. It shows a parade of bison crossing a grassy gold and green prairie. The scene is dotted with slaty quartzite outcrops and a few copses of what look like hardwoods in the middle distance. I thought it was a painting, so boldly perspected and brightly colored it is, but the table of contents says otherwise. Photographer Jim Brandenburg shot it on commission, editor in chief Kathleen Weflen said in an email. "As you might know, he also photographs for National Geographic, but he's from that corner of Minnesota and owns a gallery there. He and his wife, Judy, started a foundation to raise funds to restore prairie." Cozy state, that Minnesota. Much of the magazine's material is by the small staff or unpaid writing by DNR naturalists, but it does hire freelancers. Standard pay rate is fifty cents a word.
The illus goes with a fine story from another Minnesota man, freelance writer Bill Allen of St. Louis Park. His yarn, "Bona Fide Bison," has tight writing and a wide scope. The angle is that, to their surprise, managers of a bison herd on a state park learned not long ago that the animals are among the genetically purest survivors of the great buffalo slaughters of the 19th century, many of which carry genes from cattle that ranchers crossed them with to develop a tastier bison with the hardiness of the original breed. They and their offspring are thus in high demand for other bison managers who prefer as much Bison bison in their stock as possible.
Another unusual piece, by staffer and online editor Michael A. Kallok, is A Careful Walk in the Woods. That may evoke a quiet meditation on nature disturbed as little as possible by human visitation. Forget it. It's a rather engrossing tale of squirrel hunting.It examines the full procedure from stalk to shot to gutting and de-furring (with blowtorch) and to the stew pot, all presented for Kallok's edification by a family of recent immigrants, Laotion Hmong – who came here after helping US special forces during the Vietnam War years. They hunted in Laos, they hunt here, and a squirrel is a squirrel. Well, Laos I hear has special giant flying squirrels. Kallok's tale thus provides a nice, sideways bonus on America's continuing enrichment by immigrants. Anyway…. The issue theme, "A Sense of Place," features a series of 500-word reminiscences by DNR researchers on their most memorable days in the field while bolstering the Minnesota Biological Survey. They have a literate bunch of naturalists there. The pieces read well and took only light editing, boss lady Weflen reports. She calls the mag a "mighty, little publication." Yes it is.
She reminded me to mention the Guidelines for Writers, should any ksjtracker readers be interested.
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