Carlton County, Dontcha Know: Deep dives, an outdoor classroom, a talented angler and more

CLOQUET — If you're looking for something to do this weekend, Jay Cooke State Park is hosting a Community Volunteer Clean-Up Day from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 29.

Trees in the park were hit hard by weather over the winter, and officials need volunteers to help clean up branches, clear paths and help get areas of the park open for program activities. More information is in the event posting in this week's Community Calendar.

Here's what else we've been working on:

Jed Carlson / Superior Telegram

In the course of covering the Carlton Area Fire District and the Carlton Ambulance Service, reporter Dylan Sherman realized the two entities faced similar obstacles and decided to work on a series of stories about them.

Dylan started the stories before he left. He had some more work to do on them, so I took over after he left the company.

Stories like this take a long time to report, and for good reason -- we have to talk to a lot of people to make sure we understand the situation; then as we go through to write the stories, more questions pop up that we need answers to. I appreciate the officials who explained so much to me during the course of my reporting for this series.

• Carlton, Cloquet ambulance services tackle funding challenges
• Recruiting, retaining staff key for Cloquet, Carlton emergency services
• What local officials think about Carlton Ambulance Service funding requests

Fond du Lac Tribal and Community College's Megwayaak, or outdoor, Classroom is finished, and officials let us visit during a recent sap boiling demonstration to see how the space in action. Be sure to watch the video above created by digital producer Wyatt Buckner.

Contributed / Noah Wells

Noah Wells, pictured above, is taking his love for fishing to the community when he hosts classes through Barnum Community Education in May.

Wells, who started the Esko Fishing Club, received a scholarship to attend Drury University, where he will compete on the fishing team.

• Daisy Rose has information on Carlton Community Education's upcoming Transportation Night in this week's Community Education Corner.  
  
• The Carlton County Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing next week on proposed changes to Ordinance 27, which would impact new cemeteries and dog kennels and new or existing cervid farms. More in The Deep Dive.
  
• At its meeting Monday, April 24, the county board also approved a $32,000 change order for the new Justice Center. 
  
• The Cloquet School Board approved budget reductions at its meeting on Monday.  

Editor's note: Carlton County, Dontcha Know is a newsletter I publish every Friday morning. Please consider subscribing — it's free — and hits your inbox just once a week. You can sign up here.