A highlight of any northern summer is time with cousin Terri and family who live about as far north as one can get without crossing over into Canada (if only…) Terri lives just outside of Roseau in Red River Valley (of the North) prairie country, few miles south of the border. (And may we all say ‘keep up the good work Mark Carney’…you know, it’s one thing to say those of us who are paying attention support the Canadian leader over our own utterly corrupt foolish failed head of state…but quite another when we normies also support every other world leader [only a few exceptions like Putin] over our slimy guy in DC). Sorry, sometimes a tiny rant dropped in the middle of a sensible post about family and travel, is necessary.

Cousin Terri. One of my favorite people of all. I kinda count on seeing her every year even though that hasn’t always been possible and I know will be less doable in the future. I write about every visit with glowing words so I won’t add to them now…except to say that Terri represents one of only a few extended family connections remaining, which the older I get the more important that becomes; my South Dakota cousins and Norwegian cousins have been and continue to be of enormous importance, both because they’re lovely people, and because they keep my world from a further narrowing of experience and memories. That’s the thing though isn’t it? As we age and our peers among both family and friends pass on, soon it becomes lonely. No one else alive in the world today was, like Terri’s mom, Audrey, next door from the day I was born and lived in my world until just last Christmas…and now Terri represents her in my life. Of course, there’s also the fact that Terri and her family are a pleasure to be around … and she and husband Brian prepare walleye that is near the top (maybe at the top) of all of the very best of the whole world’s foods.

Should I apologize for being so glowingly sentimental about almost all things Minnesota? I guess I won’t; it’s what one gets to do when we’re this bloody old, wax endlessly maudlin (and perhaps just a bit boring?). Early this month, Scott (who stayed on in Minnesota to hang with his uncle Robert) and I drove up to Terri’s for an overnighter. It’s about a four-hour drive but no place is too far to travel for the company of Terri and Brian…and did I mention…Walleye. We went by way of Bemidji for a minute with Paul and Babe and then a woodsy farm and prairie drive on up. Terri and Brian have just moved into their recently-built, and wholly designed by them, new home. It is centered in a small forest, bright and open while at the same time managing to offer coziness while viewing autumn rains or winter blizzards. The grounds won’t be completed until late fall, but a wrap-around porch, everyone’s ideal-home dream, is ready for talking, dozing, reading, and admiring the ‘changing of the leaves’ from the greens of summer to the last gasp of October red and gold.

I’ve written about Brian’s grandfather, Arthur Link, before. He was governor of North Dakota from 1973 to 1981, and I mention him again because his deep concern for the environment was unusual for his time. There’s a fine documentary about him, “When the Landscape is Quiet Again,” available on YouTube. Also, Governor Link was a like-minded, and equally honest and progressive contemporary of George McGovern’s, my forever political hero and whose campaign I am proud to say I worked on in 1972. My first serious political activity. Here are the words (or at least many of them) from Governor Link’s speech that forms the basis for the documentary.

When The Landscape Is Quiet Again (reprinted from “The Prairie Blog”)

            We do not want to halt progress.

            We do not plan to be selfish and say “North Dakota will not share its energy resources.”

            No . . . we simply want to insure the most efficient and environmentally sound method of utilizing our precious coal and water resources for the benefit of the broadest number of people possible.

            And when we are through with that, and the landscape is quiet again,

            When the draglines, the blasting rigs, the power shovels and the huge gondolas cease to rip and roar

            And when the last bulldozer has pushed the last spoil pile into place

            And the last patch of barren earth has been seeded to grass or grain

            Let those who follow and repopulate the land be able to say

            “Our grandparents did their job well. This land is as good as, and, in some cases, better than, before.”

            Only if they can say this will we be worthy of the rich heritage of our land and its resources.

Finally, here’s a picture of Terri’s mom, my cousin, Audrey, who died December 26^th 2025. She had been dealing with memory issues for a long time and her death was not unexpected. As I’ve stated many times, Audrey was my idol; to me she was always beautiful and wise and funny from my earliest memories up to last year when I visited her one last time. Her death was the end of our family story out on the tiny farm on the very edge of Koochiching County, Minnesota. My brother and I are the last survivors, but Audrey was the last to share our stories of that place and time.

I had a somewhat strange reaction to her death. Of course, there was the sadness and the sense of loneliness that accompanies such exits these days. But, for whatever reason, I experienced a lot of almost-intense anger when Terri called to tell me. I tried to write about my sense of both loss and anger but I really couldn’t nor can I now. Except to say that, while in many ways Audrey had a good life with a loving husband, great kids and grandkids, and close friends, she also had more than her share of tribulations, especially in the beginning with alcoholic parents who offered a chaotic and probably somewhat dangerous home life and who did nothing to give her a sense of her own strengths and rights and opportunities. To a lesser, but important degree, some of my anger was directed at the strictures of life as woman back then; raised in an environment of catering to a husband’s way of life, however benevolent the husband. Ranch life with little money or cooking for a small crew in a remote Alaska gold mine, both difficult and the Alaska remoteness a great hardship for someone as outgoing as Audrey. On the other hand, she had a whole realm of good times too, especially some years as a staff member at the Northome nursing home. While it wasn’t perfect, Audrey absolutely loved going to work and, finally, having her own paycheck. And having family and friends close by.

On the way home from Roseau, Scott and I stopped on the shores of Red Lake, home to the federally recognized Red Lake Band of Chippewa, unique as the only fully “closed reservation” in the United States of America. “The tribe claims the land by right of conquest and aboriginal title; they were not reassigned to it by the United States government. The Red Lake Band of Chippewa refused to join with six other bands in organizing as the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe in the mid-1930s; at the time, its people wanted to preserve their traditional system of hereditary chiefs, rather than forming an electoral government. As of 2011, the Ojibwe language is the official language of Red Lake.” (Wikipedia)

Minnesota 2026. The End.