2/26/2026

UPPER MICHIGAN - The Michigan Department of Natural Resources (DNR) has set varying deadlines for ice shanty removal across the state. Downstate Michigan the deadline is this weekend.  Middle to the end of March for areas of the U.P.  Shanty owners must remove their structures by the deadline, after which they can only be used and removed daily. A group of 33 northern counties and Michigan-Wisconsin boundary waters have a March 15 deadline. Upper Peninsula lakes allow shanties until March 31. The DNR warns that owners who miss the deadlines will be charged for abandoned shanty removal.

2/26/2026

IRON RIVER, MI - Nick Baumgartner has returned to Iron River, Michigan Tuesday after competing for Team USA for the fifth time at the Winter Olympics. The 44-year-old is the oldest American athlete to take part in the winter Olympics.  He didn’t medal in Italy but won gold in the Mixed Team Snowboard Cross competition in Beijing in 2022, along with teammate Lindsey Jacobellis.  Baumgartner says he wants to compete in his sixth Winter Olympics in the French Alps in 2030 and says he plans to start training on for that starting today.

2/25/2026

ASHLAND COUNTY - After a years-long court battle, construction is now underway on Enbridge’s Line 5 re-reroute project in northern Wisconsin just hours after the final permit was approved.  That ruling from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers came down yesterday. Part of that route takes the pipeline through the Bad River Reservation.  The reroute project is expected to bring millions of dollars in construction related spending to Ashland, Bayfield and Iron counties.  State permits were upheld in a court decision earlier this month resulting in the band river band of Lake Superior Chippewa filing a petition for a judicial review on the administrative law judge’s decision.  Line 5 starts in Superior and runs through northwest Wisconsin and into Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.