Sleeping Giant

In the 1870s a miner’s pickaxe struck the ground in search of gold. But the vein it struck spewed forth the blood earth hematite, the rich iron ore of Minnesota’s massive Iron Range in the northeast part of the state. Mesabi (Giant) is the name the Ojibwe gave to the Laurentian Divide, an uplifting of colliding tectonics that brought to the surface the vast iron deposits of northeastern Minnesota. What caught my attention was the vermillion color of overburden, low grade ore that appeared as striking mountain ranges alongside the mines that stretch 110 miles along the divide. The mines themselves are a thing of beauty, with the multi-hue  tiers and azure water of that fills the bottom of the pits. I was visually smitten; what is this place? I visited the range often over the next four years to immerse myself in conversations and photograph the strong, proud, resilient people and landscapes of the Range . Over the years, 43 nationalities came to dig the vermillion gold of iron that built America and won two world wars, starting with picks and shovels and growing to the 300-ton trucks and six-story shovels of today. Sleeping Giant presents the many facets of this great American story of engineering, entrepreneurship, immigrant nation building, and the arts and culture they nourished.