A Look at Minnesota and the North Shore
Go to a convention and you’ll probably come home with a bag of swag: Product samples, t-shirts with vendor logos, mouse pads, what have you. My recent convention to Lutsen, Minn. for the annual meeting of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association was no different.
Whoever put the swag bag together did a good job of assembling a collection of items that not only have some homestyle flavor that reflects on the host state. All (with one exception) came from companies in Minnesota, and most items were made there as well.
The samples included:
* A “Market Tote” from GraniteGear, a company that sells bags and various containers for hiking, canoeing, and other outdoor activities. The Tote is a polyester replacement for a grocery bag, meant to keep plastic and paper bags out of landfills.
I like it well enough, but at $14 per, it’s not something I would buy myself. It’s supposedly a green product, but being green requires either spending a lot of green to buy more one tote (I seldom come back from the grocery story with only one bag of food) or making several trips a week to the store, which is a waste not only of time but of fuel. The company says it donates a portion of its profits to combat global warming. I suspect that its target market are the people who fret about their “carbon footprint.” I wonder how much of a carbon footprint was created to ship the bag from Vietnam (where it was made) to the U.S.?
* A thick folder of brochures and such containing tourism information from five different organizations based on or near the North Shore. The North Shore, which appears at the northeast triangle of Minnesota if you look at a state map, is one of the state’s natural treasures. It features forests, mountains, and of course Lake Superior. In the winter, it has opportunities for downhill and cross-country skiing, dog mushing, snowmobile riding, snowshoeing, ice fishing and other activities.
* A box of chocolates made by Gunflint Mercantile (no web site available), which was a welcome addition to the bag. A few of the chocolates served as a fine snack my first day in town.
* A beanie from Wintergreen Northernwear, which makes and sells all sorts of clothing suitable for arctic (and not-so-arctic) activities. It’s sharp-looking hat with embroidered artwork, made in northeastern Minnesota. Since it’s made by Americans and not, say, workers in Vietnam, it’s rather spendy (retail value: $40), meaning that you could buy a comparable hat elsewhere, and put $10 or $20 to use elsewhere. But since it was in the bag of samples, I’ll gladly add it to my inventory of winter hats. It works just fine, though it’s a bit tight.
* A copy of the Cook County News Herald. Not Cook County, Illinois (population 5,200,000), but Cook County, Minnesota (population 5,200, more or less). The edition was from the week before the convention.
So why was it in the bag? Perhaps it’s due to the front page story that offered a preview of our meeting, a week out. Nice touch. The article had this quote from Lutsen Mountains marketing manager Jim Vick: “A Denver writer would have a hard time selling a ski vacation story to his editor. But Cook County has so much more to offer [and it does]. A winter vacation story is different.”
True enough, on all three counts.
* A small (50ml) bottle of syrup from Wild Country Maple Syrup. It’s produced by a family operation in Lutsen. I’m looking forward to trying it out on pancakes, though at a retail price of $4.75, I may go back to Aunt Jemima. The comparison is somewhat unfair, as the sample comes in a fancy glass bottle, and AJ comes in a plastic jug. But even when you purchase Wild Country in a large plastic container, there’s no contest in price: AJ: 20 cents at once; Wild Country: 54 cents. Is Wild Country that much better? Perhaps. But again, I might prefer to buy something cheaper and apply the difference elsewhere. There are some items where I’ll gladly go upscale. Syrup? Probably not. But you may draw a different conclusion.
* Four sticks of wax from Fast Wax. I ought to wax my board myself, but I don’t. It’s a hassle, I’m resisting laying out the money for a good iron and the assorted equipment, and I don’t need any more stuff cluttering my garage. If I waxed the board as often as I should, it would probably make sense to do it myself. As it is, I take my board to a shop a couple times a season and let them do it.
This is the second meeting at which I’ve received some wax. Now if I get an iron sometime, maybe I’ll learn how to do it myself.
* A small package of lotion of Warm Skin. The company says its product has been “Torture-tested in such diverse climates as the North and South Poles, the Grand Canyon, and Mt. Everest.” Supposedly it is as useful in summer as it is in winter. But since my skin dries out so much in the winter, I’ll keep this product in storage until next snowboarding season.
The brochure that accompanied the package offered a challenge: Put this on one side of your face but not the other. Go skiing or riding and then see how you feel at the end of the day. This is one product sample that I’m going to try, and perhaps buy more of.
* Some notecards from three different artists on Minnesota’s North Shore, including Rick Allen. A couple seasons ago, his work was used as promotional materials for Lutsen Mountains. Click on the link and look for two prints titled “Lutsen,” and another called “Moose Mountain. I like its retro look, and I’m willing to overlook the fact it contains no snowboarders.
* A few items from the Indian Land Tenure Association. One is a newsletter about the organization, which works to promote land ownership among American Indians (a fascinating topic; click through to read more). Another item is a package of wild rice, a quintessential Minnesota food. To be truthful, I’ve never cooked wild rice, so I’m looking forward to trying it. One caution: It’s not “minute” rice. More like “hour” rice.
* A related product, a Tankabar energy bar made of buffalo and cranberry. It’s produced by a company based on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota. It’s the only non-Minnesota company represented in the swag bag, but it’s in the neighborhood. Looking through the company web site, I learned that there are over 400,000 bison in North America.
How about that? Go on a snowboarding trip and pick up a little bit of knowledge on biology, a different culture, and food.
How does the bar taste? I don’t know. I’ll try it soon.
* A copy of Lake Superior magazine, a regional “lifestyle” magazine focused on, as you can guess, the people in Michigan, Minnesota, and Ontario who live near Lake Superior–and anyone who is fascinated by it.
All in all, it’s a good collection of products that represent or offer insight into this part of the country.