Fredrik Backman's Beartown 🤝 Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range

On fiction mimicking facts and hockey's impact on humanity in forest towns

I grew up in a small town in Southeast Nebraska, a part of the Midwest that gets bitter cold in the winter but lacks the snowfall and the extracurricular activities that make the season tolerable. Basketball was the only sports option for me as a child during the months of November through March. 

But I live in Northern Minnesota now, where as soon as the temperature dips, the newspaper is covered in headlines about local hockey, and with it comes questions from patients on whether or not I’ve ever played the game, and I can’t help but laugh when I answer. 

Not only was hockey inaccessible to me growing up, but I have always had a terrible fear of falling while on skates thanks to a childhood tumble that resulted in a broken arm. I have only ever put on ice skates in my life to participate in a 24-hour skate-a-thon that raised money for Parkinson’s Nebraska–and really that was only because I had to as the president of my university’s SLP student organization. (Shout out to my UNO NSSLHA peeps!) I clung to the side of the rink the entire time, inching slowly around while children lapped me. I can’t efficiently ice skate let alone skate AND hold onto a hockey stick while trying to keep tabs on an elusive puck and dodging the defense (wait–is there offense/defense in hockey?? LOL–sports are not my forte!) 

Here’s a photo of me dressed in very random layers, trying to stay warm and upright during my time on the ice at the 2017 UNMC Skate-a-thon for Parkinson’s Nebraska.

I had never really given hockey a second thought until I read Fredrik Backman’s Beartown circa 2017. The story centers around the rivalry between two youth hockey teams and their struggles to stay running, and an event that changes both communities forever. I don’t want to give any more away because it’s a good book with great character development, beautiful writing, and a story that’ll stick with you for ages. (That being said–trigger warning for rape.)

I was listening to Beartown this past summer while I was driving to a nursing facility located in a town that claims to be the hockey capital of the country–Eveleth, Minnesota– and a facility in the better funded, neighboring town of Virginia. It was a three hour drive, round trip, and I was eager to spend the time revisiting an old favorite in anticipation of reading Backman’s last installment of the Beartown trilogy.

Both Eveleth and Virginia are located in a region of Minnesota that is referred to as ‘The Mesabi Iron Range’ or if you’re local simply ‘The Range.’ (The Ojibwe called the area ‘Qeechaquepagem’ which roughly means ‘Lake of the North Woods’ —what a lovely name.)  Both Eveleth and Virginia are birthplaces to many former NHL and Olympic hockey players. Both are towns rich with history and rivalry. Both are towns with economies that rely on iron ore mining and subsequently whose populations have been steadily decreasing as demand has declined. 

A screenshot of an old postcard showcasing an iron ore mine and washing plant on the Mesabi Iron Range. Image obtained from Flickr.

Many of the patients I treated during my first day working on The Range were employed at the mines during the peak activity of the 50s and 60s. They remember when the communities were thriving and bustling. They played hockey in the Hippodrome next to future Olympians. They lived and died by their teams. 

When I meet Ray the first time, I ask him if he is from The Range. I look around his room, observing the faded hockey posters with the team photos of young men from a long gone era. He says, “My family moved to Minnesota when I was three. We lived in Duluth first before we settled in Eveleth.” His accent is North Woods thick, the vowels stretching out far and long.  

“Eveleth! HockeyTown U.S.A.,” I proclaim because that’s what the Google search page proclaimed to me when I was looking up directions to the facility.

He rolls his eyes and grunts, “Not anymore–they are merging our team with the bastards over in Virginia!” 

I sense that there is more to this story than simply hockey, and I’m right. Ray tells me how the state government has funded more of Virginia’s endeavors while rarely investing in Eveleth. “They get the shopping centers, the new hospital, and a new ice rink now too. What do we get? Jack shit. Why do they need a new rink when there is the Hippodrome?” 

I am reminded of the audiobook I listened to on my way here, two towns fighting over money and hockey rinks. Fiction mimicking facts. 

Ray continues, “The only options the people of Eveleth have are working days at the mines or working nights, and that’s if you’re lucky! Now-a-days you need to have an in to get a job interview. Your relation has to be a foreman to even be considered.” 

I ask him if he ever worked in the mines and he answers without hesitation. “I did. And it’s killing me. It killed all my family too.” 

He tells me that after a short stint playing amateur hockey, he got a job at the mines, worked side-by-side with his two older brothers. “They were double-you-double-you-two vets, ” he says, “They survived the D-Day Invasion, but they didn’t make it to 60. Lung cancer killed them both.” 

Ray tells me how he worked alongside his hockey friends, how he used the money he earned at the mines to buy a house a few miles away. He fell in love with a local girl, an old teammate’s sister, and they got married on the eve of his 26th birthday. “Jane was a fantastic wife and a fantastic cook. She made an out-of-this world lefse that was better than my mother’s. We had so much fun together–fishing the lakes in the summer, walking the woods and following animal tracks, playing cribbage on long winter nights.” 

He pauses to take a drink of his water. “Anyways, she died too young,” he says bluntly. “She never worked a day in the mines, but cancer riddled her body by 52. It had to have been the mines, right?” he asks me. Not waiting for an answer he continues on, explaining how nobody knew the impacts of pollution then; how the Environmental Protections Agency didn’t exist until 1970. By then he’d been working at the mines for over a decade, and even if there was an EPA to warn them of the danger during that time, they had no other choice but to work at the mines because there were bills to pay and mouths to feed. He looks at me to absolve him of his guilt. 

“Listen. You were doing your best with the knowledge you had at the time. You didn’t know any better,” I say, patting his arm. “You had no reason to fear.” The conversation reminds me of a movie I watched recently about an environmental lawsuit against a big corporation whose lack of disclosure resulted in illness and death in a nearby community. I wonder out loud if the mines ever faced litigation. 

Ray thinks for a moment before he tells me about the lawsuit Jenson v. Eveleth Taconite Co. “It had nothing to do with pollution or the cancer people were getting. There were some girls who sued in the 80s because they started working in the mines and some of the men couldn’t keep their hands to themselves,” he says, making a face in disgust. “I was working somewhere else by then, but boy did it have the town divided. Most people thought the women should toughen up if they wanted to work in the mines. Some people, myself included, tried our best to show our support but it was a tricky situation because if others caught wind of it, they’d berate you for going against the town’s biggest employer and the hockey team’s biggest endorser.” 

I wonder if Ray is telling me the truth or if he’s trying to save face, if he actually supported Jenson or if he stood behind his mining friends and his hockey team. I wonder if humanity will ever take precedence over money and sports. I wonder if the merging of the two hockey teams will be mutually beneficial, if both communities on The Range will start to thrive. I wonder how this story will end.

*Edited to add: Ray is not based on one person but rather multiple people I met while working on the Iron Range. Any identifying factors have been changed to protect their privacy.*

Photos of the covers of Fredrik Backman’s Beartown, Us Against You, and The Winners.

Okay, enough hockey talk, let me tell you about some random favorite things from the past week :)

• The most recent episode of Abbott Elementary mentions one of my favorite reality trash television shows Below Deck and I don’t know why but it made me extra happy. Totally recommend both shows for some lighthearted content :)

• My fabulous neighbors gifted us a jar of delicious green pepper jelly, which we have since devoured with goat cheese & crackers.

• My sister-in-law gifted me a pair of Sorel boots!!! I could cry! I’ve been wearing a pair from Walmart that have cracked bottoms so I was always walking around with cold, wet feet. I’ve had them for two years, they did their job, but I am excited to retire them for this pair of cute, comfortable, durable, and most importantly waterproof pair!

• I started bullet journaling ! (Turns out I have a lot of extra chunks of free time when I am not wasting precious minutes on my phone. Who knew?) I am excited for another avenue to express my creativity. I am keeping my BuJo endeavors very low-key and not putting too much pressure on myself to make it look ~ pretty & perfect~

• I exercised three times this week! Okay one of those “work outs” was actually an afternoon of shoveling snow, hauling in firewood, and then walking through the woods while carrying a heavy chainsaw—I’m trying to recognize that somedays are more laborious than other days, that some chores are hard work that make me break a sweat, and so I’m counting it as exercise babyyyy!! Who needs a gym membership when you can just live in a rural location with a wood stove and acres of land that need maintained?

• I stayed up until past midnight writing and revising this newsletter (this is a big deal because normally I’m in bed by 10 lol) and I didn’t realize how much time had passed because I was totally in the moment. Is there a better feeling than that? I don’t think so.

Okay that’s allllll folks! Thank you for reading! As always, if you’ve enjoyed this newsletter, please consider sharing it with a friend or two :)