Page 6 - Local Features News Today

Coon is struggling to find enough employees this season. “It’s always hard just because of the nature of seasonal business, but this year seems especially hard,” he said. “Everything is way busier than it typically is, and being short staffed is not a good thing in that landscape.” Coon is not alone; other local business owners across the Northwoods are in a similar position. Credit Coontail Facebook The U.S. government recently reported that employers added 266,000 jobs in April. Tha...

3:38 Our ancestors had to cope with the specter of disease and the possibility of death in ways that most of us cannot comprehend.  There was a near constant fear that smallpox, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, cholera, diphtheria, pneumonia, and any number of childhood infections could strike and kill without warning.  Of these maladies, smallpox was the most widespread medical terror of the past, and it was a particular concern in the Northwoods where it spread throughout the lumber camps. Ther...

5:33 Conserving and Restoring America the Beautiful is a brief but important document. It is a preliminary report to the National Climate Task Force from the US Departments of the Interior, Agriculture, Commerce, and the Council on Environmental Quality. This report was triggered by Executive Order 14008 titled Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad, signed January 27, 2021 to kick off a government-wide endeavor prioritizing clean energy, economic recovery and job creation while attemp...

Oneida County 4-H is looking for some adults willing to volunteer their time. 4-H teaches kids and teens a wide-range of skills to help expand their interests and get involved in their community. Program Coordinator Anne Williams says adults are a huge part of that. “You may not think spending on hour of your time once a week or once a month or just a few times of year makes a difference, but it does. Our adult volunteers can have children and teens learn knew things, building confidence, and...

We caught up with Boll again this week to see how things were going. The family decided to stay long-term and is now even further committed to the Northwoods. “My husband jokes, he was so happy when we got Wisconsin license plates on our cars,” Boll said. “We’re not going to get dirty looks from an Illinois plate any more.” The family had never experienced a full northern Wisconsin winter. Actually, though, the past winter solidified its decision to plant roots deeper here. “We did ...

Modern telecommunication systems provide the means to contact friends, relatives, and businesses whenever and wherever we want, but historically this is a

5:43 Early spring, before the trees fully leaf out, is an ideal time for spotting tree-dwelling porcupines who often move into the upper canopy of trees to eat and rest during the daytime. They commonly venture to the outermost or highest branch tips to break off newly budding twigs to eat. Trembling aspen and young hemlock bark are favorite foods for porcupines, but they will consume bark from a wide range of tree types and supplement their diet with fruits and ground dwelling plants and shrub...

3:36 Buses are often ignored in the history of transportation because they have an image problem.  While they are the cheapest form of public transportation, they are also the slowest.  They are not as glamorous or romanticized as passenger rail or airlines and are often associated with underprivileged groups.  Yet buses were essential to the development of the tourist industry in the Northwoods. Early roads and vehicle limitations in the first decades of the twentieth century made bus trave...

As we move from winter toward spring, (a little sooner than I would have liked) I am getting excited to start biking around the Northwoods. I spend quite a

His canvas is a tree or a massive wood slab. Nathan Nuszkiewicz working on a sculpture in 2020. Credit Potlicker Chainsaw Sculptures On Monday, he was outside his Rhinelander home and shop, working on a woodcarving to go on a roof peak at a customer’s home. “It’s going to be a whole scene, where we’ve got the trees and the sky and the clouds and the sunset in the middle, and then, through that, there’s going to be an actual six- to six-and-a-half foot eagle flying out over the trees,�...