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The Holiday season begins with activities and a parade over the Thanksgiving holiday, so come out and support your home town with shopping, fun and family activities! You'll find them all and more in this week’s Ely Echo and North Country Saver! Enjoy! Stay warm and be safe on the snowy streets!

Now more than ever, our Nation’s future depends on overturning the U.S. Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, so we can finally put a stop to the billions of dollars in secret, dark money corporations and special interests are permitted to spend for terrible, false, and negative TV ads.
These messages, which begin months before Election Day, go on ad nauseum – discouraging good people from running for office, denigrating the candidates, driving down voter turnout, and causing Americans to lose faith in their leaders and the integrity of our public policymaking process.

Every deer season we hear Gordon Lightfoot’s haunting song The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
Our old FM radio played it on Saturday, a reminder of the sinking of the ore carrier SS Edmund Fitzgerald on Lake Superior on November 10, 1975.
We didn’t have a sinking feeling when my relative Greg and I hit the gravel road on the way to the shack Friday morning. Seeing a doe and a fawn run off into the woods could be a good sign. Or the only sign.
Greg had traveled 1,700 miles from San Diego for his first deer hunting experience at age 31. He was eager to get in the woods when we got to the shack.
But first we had to unload the truck, carrying in groceries, water and guns, followed by driving the wheeler off the trailer.
With a fire started in the wood stove, I outfitted the California boy with some wool pants and a nice blaze orange jacket I picked up from Tom Today.

Photographer Randall Greiner said it takes more than a good camera to get a photo of an eagle alongside Bear Island Road - it takes patience, too.

VETERANS DAY program speaker Mike Pope addresses the crowd at Ely Memorial. Photo by Pam Roberts.

by Tom Coombe -

Just About Everybody Reads the Ely Echo
Even a group of travelers from Minnesota (the Iron Range, Duluth and Wyoming - several Elyites) at the 1st Minnesota Monument on the Gettysburg Battlefield at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Those from Ely included Bill Erzar, Debbie Erzar, Jeff Anderson, Dean Erzar, Peggy Erzar, Terry Jackson, Ann Jackson, Kay Kratz, Al Kratz, Vera Pratt-Olson, Dave Jauhola, Judy Jauhola, Kristin Anderson, Alison Zaverl, Wayne Hartleben, Elaine Hartleben, Terry Myers and Judy Myers. They are pictured in front of the Monument of the 1st Minnesota Regiment of 296 men who held off over 1,000 Confederate soldiers until reinforcements arrived with only 42 men surviving or remaining unhurt after the Battle of Gettysburg.

Try Hockey for Free Day was held in Ely on Nov. 10 in conjunction with USA Hockey and Minnesota and sponsored by Pure Hockey and Chipolte. Kids get to try hockey with no obligation, for free! There were over 30 skaters this year and coaches at all levels come and help out. Photos by Tara Kay.

Two deer have been harvested at Camp Cholesterol, both out of the same stand.
Our deer slayer from last year, Megan, returned to take a basket rack eight on the second day of the season. She had been waging war with a squirrel who kept trying to join her in the stand.
Luckily the battle was at a lull when the buck walked in behind her. With no snow on the ground we had to do some searching.
If you’ve been in that situation, doubt can creep in really fast. Did I hit it? Which way did it go? Could I have missed? This is the time where prayer returns to the deer stand.
When I spotted the deer lying near the edge of a swamp, I called for Megan. I think she ran through the woods.
“I was praying up in the stand,” she said with an excited look on her face.
“You’re prayers have been answered,” I responded.

Once a Marine, always a Marine - Joe Telich,96 years old, (seated right) watches as Cael Richards, 23 years old, cuts the Marine Corps birthday cake at the recent Ely area Marine Corps dinner.

Philip K. DuFresne, 104, Two Harbors, passed away peacefully on November 13, 2018 at Ecumen Scenic Shores in Two Harbors.
He was born June 20, 1914 to Henry and Hulda (Johnson) DuFresne in North Dakota. When he was a child, his mother remarried and they moved to Two Harbors, where Phil remained the rest of his life. He was the second oldest of the four boys and one sister.
In 1935 he married Delores (Pat) O’Brian and had two sons, David and Fred. In 1936, John (Boomer) Norlen, (a cousin of Pat’s) at age 12, came to live with them temporarily and stayed permanently.
Phil retired with 41 years working for the D.M.I.R. (Duluth, Mesabi & Iron Range Railroad). He at one time co-owned a local pool hall with a friend in the mid 1950s and ran the Dairy Queen for a few years in the early 1960s.