“This frontier was unique. It had a divergent ethnic composition, long severe winters, a short growing season, and massive muskeg swamps and bog which made travel difficult, leading to intensive isolation. Settlers in Koochiching Country endured suffering that made pioneering on the barren high plains seem like child’s play by comparison. Realizing that this would be some of the last of the free land, the pioneers had hopes that were probably greater than on earlier frontiers. Dream after dream was cruelly and swiftly smashed by reality. For many the false promotions of a garden spot of agriculture turned into a harvest of defeat and despair.” Those are Hiram Drache’s words in his ‘About the Book’ description for Koochiching, written in 1983, and covering the latter years of the 19^th century and the first years of the 20^th, up to mid-1910.

This is the territory for which grandfather Torgus Neset left the beautiful, stable, and civilized-in-comparison Setesdal Valley in southern Norway, which I’ve visited with great pleasure many times. I recognize my love for both places, but also acknowledge that the supremely-imperfect Koochiching County is my favorite. Because? Well, because I lived there the first 18 years of my life and, while it remained a tough environment even then, I was happy-enough, with a loving family, good friends, and so much freedom. The truth is I am inordinately proud of Koochiching’s tough reputation, and me and mine for surviving!

The actual 1910 arrival date of Grandma Asborg and the children on US shores is known, but we have no documentation of any kind regarding exactly when Torgus arrived. There is a census form that shows him living in Blackduck, a small town (where I’d be born in just 29 years!) near the Koochiching county line, having arrived in the US not long before. This puts him in the time and place I’m going to describe over the next few pages, depending almost entirely on Drache’s fascinating (at least if you’re from Koochiching County) book. I read Koochiching some years ago and highlighted many passages at the time. For this essay, since it focuses on the decade of 2000 to 2009, I will mostly be sharing directly or paraphrasing from the book. Comments from personal knowledge and memories will be included whenever I think of something that might be of interest.

There are two references I want to make in regard to the opening paragraph. First the idea of a “divergent ethnic composition.” Since Koochiching is primarily about the plight and successes of pioneer/settler/vagabond Europeans, with little attention paid to the Ojibwe population of the area, I am taking ‘divergent’ to mean recognizing the broad representation of Europe that wound up in the Northwoods. Apparently, all of Europe, north and south, was far more represented in the first few decades of the century than would be true when I was a teenager, much less today. There are reasons: 1) nearly the entire European continent was in constant turmoil during the time just before, after and between the two world wars; 2) and additionally, the burst and push and confusion of modernity, brought about mainly by technologies leading to benefits such as electricity and automobiles, but also to the ability to produce vast supplies of munitions, the latter generating great wealth for the few, and equally great numbers of the dead for the many. The people slaving away on the production lines often came from farmlands that could no longer support them, and they were barely compensated as they exhausted themselves making money for their greedy royal and plutocratic masters—who could then support the glorious wars of the 20^th century. Ahhh Capitalism….

So as many people as could afford to do so, got on a boat and fled … to an America only a little less affected by authoritarian governments and capitalist dysfunction. And they found work and better lives or ended up back near the bottom of the heap…like in Northern Minnesota lumber camps.

This situation was actually a little different for the Norwegians, those edge-of-the-continent Europeans who were also streaming over from the mid-to-late 1800s on into early 1900s. They were not escaping the same horrendous conditions as was true in the more urban environments or in brutal autocracies like Russia. In fact, Norway in the early 20^th century was doing fairly well economically. However, Torgus Neset came to the USA anyway, possibly the black sheep of a stable little farm family. As a child, not being possessed of the curiosity to question an old grandpa or even later, my dad, the reasons for Torgus living out most of his life in Koochiching County, Minnesota were never questioned and will never be known.

Secondly, just a word about “For many the false promotions of a garden spot of agriculture turned into a harvest of defeat and despair”, also from the opening. I have read quite a lot about the whys and wherefores of Norwegian emigration. Since the Norwegians were less desperate for better lives, coming from a stable country with both lean and better times, why did they come? There are always individuals like Torgus who want to go elsewhere—for as many reasons as there are humans. But from time immemorial, one of the reasons people ‘left for…’ or ‘came to…’ is marketing. Yup, good old sketchy promises of a better refrigerator, car, sweater, partner, life, country. If I were a religious person and thought Adam and Eve had existed, I would wager money that the reason they left the Garden of Eden was because of the snake’s message-spewing abilities. Comfy in a vegetation-rich spot in some Middle Eastern site, they were nevertheless lured north. Was it because the snake drew such fine pictures of Siberia? And, a really talented snake could do that.

Anyway, the marketing in Norway focused on the ‘land of milk and honey’ approach. So, to restless Norwegians, I guess the snake said …Come on over the sea to Northern Minnesota where you will be rid of old-fashioned bothers of state and church and landlords. Yeah, it’s chilly, and much of the land is basically swamp; oh, and there’s a small problem with the mosquitos and flies who come very near being able to eat you alive within a matter of minutes. But, hey, you will have your very own little patch of free land, where the crops practically grow themselves and you can do what you want. And good luck to you.

About Koochiching County, circa 1900-1909, that barely populated, tough frontier of a place. Up near the northwest corner, on the Canadian border was International Falls (originally known as Koochiching Falls and forever called ‘the Falls’) and 70+ miles away in the southwest corner (very near the borders of Itasca and Beltrami counties, was the village of Northome.

International Falls, right across the Rainy River from Fort Frances, Ontario, was and is the population center of the county, growing from around 1400 in 1910 to 5400 today. Northome has had a less hopeful trajectory, from around 200 in 1910, increasing to 300 when I was a kid, and declining to 155 at the present. If signs around town and on the Northome Facebook page are an indication however, locals are engaged in what appears to be successful efforts to maintain a prosperous-appearing village with the kind of modest activities and improvements that inspire pride among former Northome High School students who, in my case at least, loved everything about that unglamorous little town.

The Falls was and remains the hub of an area that includes much of the state’s timber industry, especially the pulp and paper mills that shared the boom years with Ontario border and timber towns. Many of the stories in both of Drache’s books focus on the lives and times of the Falls, whether weather, business, or tales of wild lumberjack doings. But, instead of offering a Cliff notes overview of Koochiching County history in the early 20^th century, I’m going to focus on Northome Sin and Booze, including some seriously needed improvements, and a mosquito footnote for this post. If you want more than that, it’s likely that thriftbooks.com or a similar site will have access to Drache’s histories.

First of all: Sin, with samples from the sex and booze categories, in Northome, Minnesota from 1900 – 1910. The small stories being shared by Drache (and me) are brutal, even by ‘olden times’ standards. When I say these happenings had an afterlife even when I was a kid, I’m primarily talking about my mom’s forever battle against booze used by anyone or for any purpose whatsoever! She watched as, back in roughly the same time period, her brother allowed drinking to play a role in his lackadaisical approach to farming, eventually contributing to the family farm being lost in the depression. And she almost lost her husband to bootleg booze in the first years of her marriage—she won the battle, but that’s a later story.

As I prepare to share these stories, directly from Koochiching the book, I’m realizing that what shocked me wasn’t that the activities and actions were extraordinarily horrendous considering they’ve have gone on in the historical forever…whenever and wherever congregations of men are gathered to do the most grueling work, such as mining or soldiering…or lumberjacking. Or wherever those who’ve risen above a station in life where reasonably moral, civilized behavior is demanded! In other words, we can expect situations such as described here to happen on the fringes of a copper mine in the DRC or on Epstein’s island in the Caribbean. The actions will be just as hideous in the latter, but tidier and more discreet. What shocked me was that Drache is describing realities in my hometown, happening about the time my seven-year-old father arrived; that’s not so long ago in my pretty woodsy little corner of the world, where regular, decent-hardworking-people were just going about their daily lives… weren’t they?  

From Koochiching: “A true event, which became the basis of a long-standing joke about the early days in Northome, occurred when one of the “girls” got drunk and on her way home fell on the sidewalk and froze to death. The following day … [the] superintendent of the Grand Rapids Research Farm, was in town to speak on farming potential in the Northome region. Before he got to the meeting hall, local pranksters had taken the frozen corpse and stood it in the corner of the coat room of the hall where the meeting was held. Needless to say, it caused a great stir for the early part of the meeting. (p. 258)

“In late 1903 that end-of-the-line railroad village [Northome] had 15 saloons, a lively “red light” district, two hotels (the source did not say how reputable), two churches, four stores, board sidewalks, and muddy streets. Lumberjacks came to town on Saturday night and stayed in the saloons until they had to return to camp Monday morning.” (p. 263)

And there’s one small story of booze that I found particularly poignant for some reason.

 “… poor old Pat—educated to be a priest—broke down and cried when he heard that a man was going to open a saloon [in Littlefork, 50 miles northeast of Northome] … ‘All my days I have kep ahead of civilization so I would not have to be drunk all the time. I get drunk now only once a year when I go to town [the Falls] after provisions,’ he mourned, ‘but if that fellow sells it right here what shall I do?’”  (p. 265)

Conditions do seem to have improved soon thereafter. In a book, published in 1977 in Northome (details later), based on old documents and pictures, there’s a description from 1905, indicting substantial improvements had already been made. Hopefully much of the information is true.

“The M. & I. R.R. has put in substantial, permanent improvements at Northome, comprising a two-story depot building, a three-stall roundhouse and Y, a pumping station and water tank, section house and icehouse, a half-mile passing track, sidetracks, and loading grounds. The probability is that Northome will be made a division headquarters. Three brewing companies have put in storehouses for the care of their goods, and several lumber companies have built warehouses for the transfer of their supplies form the railroad to the logging camps.

There are now in Northome six general stores, a drug store, millinery shop, jewelry store, meat market, lumber yard; six hotels, five restaurants and several saloons; a dairy and bakery, a carpenter shop, blacksmith and woodworking, a shoemaker, and a tin shop, one state bank, a loan agency, two doctors, several lawyers, a real estate firm three barber shops, bath rooms, two weekly newspapers and job printer; three livery and feed barns, two dray lines and an ice dealer.” The description goes on to include a village hall and jail, modern schoolhouse, park, public library, three churches, waterworks plant, wide streets, good sidewalks and more.

The claim is made that everything functioned perfectly. Fully stocked merchants never late in their payments; no business failures; farmers planting large quantities of small fruits, and bringing in horses, cattle, sheep, goats and hogs. And finally, an item that perhaps, just perhaps, might be false advertising/fake news. “A ‘genial summer and mild winter’ render it an ideal home country, and its numerous lakes and rivers abounding in fish and its forest teeming with game attract alike the health seeker, the summer resorter and the sportsman.” Hmmm!

The above quotes and info come from Northome Gemmell Mizpah: 1903 – 1976, compiled by Lorraine Albrecht and Dolly Thomas. The information I’ve shared from the book is actually attributed by the compilers to a 1905 booklet put out about Northome, apparently by the village itself.

Two quite different descriptions of a town with very few years separating them. I will only say that as for the summer of 2025 (taken from opposite end of the street from the previous 1910 photo, and 115 years later, but looking familiar). While there’s not a whole lot of bustle, this present-day Northome looks tidy and healthy and prosperous-enough considering what’s happened to much of rural America.

In conclusion—hear the buzz. (I have taken the liberty of reorganizing the entries, but the dates and words are the diarists.)

Back to Koochiching: From the diaries of Paul and Plummer, two men who grown up in the woods of Northern Minnesota and Wisconsin.

“5-14-01 Still spading for garden. Mosquitoes begin to show themselves, terrible.

5-22-05 Mosquitoes are beginning to show their bulls.

5-23-05 Mosquitoes very bad for first time.

6-4-05 Mosquitoes are very bad. We have to have a good smudge all the time we are out of bed.

6-7-05 Taught school. Mosquitoes pretty bad. I wore my new head screen. O.K.!

9-3-05 Mosquitoes about gone.

5-15-06 Mosquitoes out, kept us awake till about 1 A.M.

5-24-06 Mosquitoes very hungry, not a good curtain on bed.

5-28-06 Mosquitoes are very bad, had to smoke them.

6-3-06 Mosquitoes are terrible bad now.’

6-4-06 Mosquitoes are very plentiful. Just wicked.

 6-7-06 Mosquitoes just awful wicked

6-30-06 Bull dogs bad. Mosquitoes getting scarce.

7-8-06 Hoed in the garden. Gnats bad.

6-15-07 Mosquitoes still bad. Bull dog flies beginning to come.

6-30-09 Flies are a terror.

A newspaper editor in 1903 claimed, “Now that the mosquitoes have come the settlers have commenced to leave. Stick to it, boys, there’s nothing like lots of gut.” Drache confirms the insect problem. “Mosquitoes, bull dog flies, gnats, no-see-ums, and house flies seldom came all at one time; they took turns over the season, staying for irregular periods but plaguing the pioneer from spring to fall.” (pp. 154-155)

Anyone living into their 80s has stories of the strange lands and people of the “good old days.” Most are without enough drama to attract many listeners or readers. However, to those of us who were ‘there’ or have had immediate family sharing tales of ‘back then’, they’re priceless.

Next post: Lumberjacks and camps.