Community Conversations

A visit to Niagara Falls

Alta as a baby and with her mother Ruth, and her High School graduation picture.

In this very special edition of Community Conversations on WTIP, we talk with life-long Lutsen resident and Grand Portage Band Member Alta McQuatters.

Alta’s grandmother Julia holding Ruth, Alta’s mother.

Newspaper clipping about Jim Geezhik.

The daughter of Ervine and Ruth Parent, Alta introduces us to her family’s Shingibiss and Geezhik relatives, as well her Parent and Allard ancestors.
A local historian and archiver of history, Alta shares the story of White Sky Rock, the first school at Lutsen, some early history of Arrowhead Electric Co. and talks frankly about what it was like growing up on the North Shore.

Alta’s father receiving the “Head Lineman Award” at an Arrowhead Electric banquet.

WTIP brings you “Agency and Authenticity in Works of Fiction,” a panel discussion featuring authors and literary scholars David Mura, Carol Miller, Michael Torres and moderated by Staci Drouillard. The group explores the question, “Who can best tell the story of people of color in works of fiction?” The conversation took place as part of the North Shore Readers and Writers Festival in November, 2023.
This Community Conversation is a production of WTIP North Shore Community Radio. With thanks to the Grand Marais Art Colony, M. Baxley, audio engineer and the Lloyd K. Johnson Foundation.

Read the full transcript here: Agency and Authenticity Transcript

This year, WTIP facilitated 25 one-on-one conversations with community members as part of StoryCorps’ One Small Step initiative. We came together for a very special listening party on December 15th, 2022. This one-hour program includes audio clips from some of the conversations, as well as fresh takes from project coordinator Barbara Jean Meyers and some of the One Small Step participants.

To learn more about One Small Step visit: storycorps.org/discover/onesmallstep/

Search for completed full interviews at: archive.storycorps.org

In the archive

1. 1. Click on interviews
   2. Left column, scroll down click partnerships
   3. input WTIP in search box & click filter
   4. Select OSS_WTIP 2022
   5. Update query

WTIP started outreach for One Small Step in June of 2022. Since then, we’ve had over 80 community members sign up to be a part of this very unique initiative. Created by StoryCorp, One Small Step was designed to serve as an antidote to polarization and political division within communities, large and small.

We’ve been heartened by the reflections of people who have completed their recorded conversations. Many participants shared that they have gotten a lot out of the experience, and that it has even changed the way they think about community and about each other.
In this one hour news special, we hear directly from some of the people who have taken that one small step. We hope it helps to inspire you to think differently about what it means to be a part of community.

Image: Scott Benolken and Steve Fernlund outside WTIP after completing their One Small Step conversation. Photo by Barbara Jean Meyers, 2022.

In this installment of Conversations on Health and Wellbeing, host Kristin DeArruda Wharton learns more about innovations in health care and disruptive systems that have, and are changing the status quo of caring for individuals and families.

Kristin speaks with Elizabeth Chidothe, a nurse practitioner with Nice Healthcare, healthcare innovated providing comprehensive primary care to employers for just $30 per employee per month.

Kristin also speaks with Dr. Steve Calvin, perinatologist and founder of the Minnesota Birth Center, to learn about how licensed birth centers created a new option for families seeking birthing care that ultimately changed birthing care in hospitals as well.