In its second year, Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative aims to increase public engagement

The Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative began in 2025 with grant funds from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for a four-year project. The aim is to connect organizations working in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota to identify climate change-related challenges and draft ways that collaboration could help address them.

Deanna Geelhoed is a coordinator with the Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative. She told WTIP that the project includes government partners in the form of county leadership for Carlton, Cook, Lake, and St. Louis counties, in addition to their Soil and Water Conservation Districts, the Bois Forte, Fond du Lac, and Grand Portage tribal governments. Along with those government entities are several state agencies; the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Lake Superior Coastal Program, the Minnesota Department of Transportation, and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. Rounding out the group are the Minnesota Sea Grant and University of Minnesota Climate Adaptation Partnership.

Geelhoed explained that the first year of the project has focussed on relationship building for the organizations and identifying five priority areas. The priorities are:

• community health and well being
• Northern forest resilience
• flooding, storm water and erosion
• critical infrastructure
• energy sovereignty.

Geelhoed added, “These five topics are all under the lens and umbrella of tribal sovereignty in the region, making sure that that is first and foremost in all of all of the work that we’re doing.”

As the project enters its second year, the focus shifts to include community engagement across Northeast Minnesota.

Conservation Technician Stephan Janasie with Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District told WTIP about why community engagement is important. He said in his opinion, it boiled down to three primary reasons. First, because good ideas can come from anywhere, and hearing about people’s everyday experiences can trigger valuable ideas. Second, engagement can be empowering, since thinking about solutions helps combat the “depressing” feelings that often come with talking about climate change challenges. Finally, Janasie said that because Cook County is small it is easily overlooked, but the county faces some unique challenges, so hearing from as many people as possible helps highlight those items and why they are important.

As part of their community engagement efforts, the Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative will hold a listening session on  April 21 at Studio 21 in Grand Marais. The event includes a dinner and conversation from 5 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., though doors will open at 4:30 p.m. Both Janasie and Geelhoed said that everyone is welcome.

Geelhoed explained that as the project moves toward drafting a plan for how the participants can work to address climate challenges, representing the people of the Northland is important. “We want to make sure that we have all levels of input in this process, from government down to more grassroots,” she said.

Janasie also touted the wealth of knowledge in the community. “The expertise and the knowledge that we have up here is highly unusual, and I think that it’s critical for us to access that knowledge and that expertise as we’re walking through this process and we’re tackling this problem,” he said. “There’s a lot of conversation that goes on about Cook County being a climate refuge, and I understand where that’s coming from, but I never want us to get complacent and think that the fact that, because maybe we’re not going to see the worst impacts of climate change up here, that it’s not going to have an impact on the way our way of life.”

WTIP’s Kirsten Wisniewski spoke with Northland Climate Resilience Collaborative coordinator Deanna Geelhoed and Cook County Soil and Water Conservation District Conservation Technician Stephen Janasie. Audio of that interview is below.

Kirsten Wisniewski April 17, 2026