Year: 2025

CPKC Holiday Train travels through a snowy crossing at night with the locomotive and rail cars outlined in bright red blue and green Christmas lights.

Holiday Train Brings Christmas Spirit to Driftless Communities

The CPKC Holiday Train rolled through La Crescent and other Driftless communities in December, combining live music and dazzling lights with vital fundraising for local food banks.

Young man wearing glasses and a white sweater with an American flag sits beside a lit Christmas tree indoors, looking to the side with a calm reflective expression.

Essay | Buon Natale! Christmas in Italy: Traditions, Food and Family

An Italian exchange student reflects on Christmas traditions in Italy while experiencing the holidays with his Minnesota host family.

Historic log cabin in winter, partially covered in snow, with weathered wooden walls, small windows and bare trees casting long shadows across a snowy rural yard.

Southern Minnesota’s Near-Miss: The Children’s Blizzard Revisited

Laney Smith revisits the historic and devastating Schoolhouse Blizzard of 1888 and how the experience reshaped how Minnesota deals with snowstorms.

Three older women smile at the camera while wearing festive Christmas hats and scarves inside a museum-like space, with vintage displays and a large carved figure visible behind them.

Cold Weather Can’t Stop Christmas Cheer at Peterson’s Beloved Holiday Festival

Hardy community members won’t let a cold snap keep them from celebrating Christmas in Peterson! John Weiss reports on this local holiday tradition of Norwegian treats, Santa visits and music that continues to bring the community together.

Illustration: "Going to Conference" in the book The Circuit Rider A Tale of the Heroic Age by Edward Eggleston (left). Portrait of Father John Lewis Dyer (right). (Acquired through Public Domain)

Where Frontier Faith Took Root: Lenora Methodist Church and Its Circuit-Rider Origins

Written by Amy Jo Hahn, this story traces the influence of Methodist pastor John Lewis Dyer, his influence on building the Lenora Methodist Episcopal Church and the frontier faith that shaped a rural Minnesota community.

A combine harvester cuts through a field of mature soybeans while unloading grain into a tractor-pulled wagon beside it, creating a cloud of dust on a sunny day.

Regional Soybean Production: Understanding What Happens When the Top Buyer Stops Buying

An in-depth look at how halted Chinese soybean purchases, falling prices and a $12B relief fund are reshaping farming across the Midwest.

Black-and-white group portrait of twelve young men in dark suits posed around a wooden table, likely a student organization from the early 1900s. A banner reading “Duodecim” rests beneath the table. All are clean-shaven with neatly combed hair, photographed indoors against a plain studio backdrop.

Poet Richard Eberhart Remembered

John Torgrimson shares the nearly forgotten story and literary legacy of Austin native and U.S. Poet Laureate Richard Eberhart.

sunshine streams through the clouds with an American flag on the left

Youth and Creativity: Watching Talent Grow

Root River Current’s 2025 review of youth arts stories.

Six Canada geese glide across a calm river lined with autumn trees, their orange and gold foliage mirrored in the still water.

Essay | Summer, Spring, Winter and Fall, Water Calls to Us

A reflective essay by John Weiss exploring our deep connection to water in all its beauty, its warnings and the vital role it plays in our landscape and lives.

A young girl wearing sunglasses, a pink hoodie, gloves, and colorful boots tosses a piece of firewood into a blue wood cart outdoors. She stands on a large pile of split logs next to evergreen trees, with bright sun shining behind her and a red barn in the background.

Essay | Putting Up Firewood: A Family Affair

Just in time for holiday gatherings…Greg Schieber’s original essay about putting up firewood for the winter, from memories of his own youthful years to the help lovingly shared by his own kids today.

Wide view of Stockholm’s waterfront with bridges, walkways, and historic buildings under a partly cloudy sky, with people walking and biking along the water’s edge.

Essay | The Pursuit of Happiness

Touring from Gothenburg to Stockholm, John Torgrimson explores firsthand why Sweden ranks among the world’s happiest nations – and has some “caring and sharing” observations for the holidays.