EDITOR'S NOTE: In June 2004 I began a new venture as managing editor of both Northfield News and Faribault Daily News. This column originally appeared in the Northfield News on Dec. 30, 2005.
As some know, I immigrated to Northfield from northern Minnesota. In my early days as a reporter I spent about eight years covering the city of Bemidji, another distinctive Minnesota town with a wonderful downtown. It was this past weekend on a trip north for the holidays that I was reminded of a special civic project that has brought tremendous pride to that city, and it sparked my curiosity about Northfield's downtown. There's been much talk locally about Northfield building a reputation as an arts town and one of the discussions has been about an art trail that would include sculptures on the Mill Towns Bike Trail that links Northfield and Dundas. It sounds a lot like a project that Bemidji embarked on about a decade ago, called the Sculpture Walk. And I wonder if it's an idea that's ever been seriously discussed here. Looking to increase its summer tourism draw, the Bemidji Chamber of Commerce collected donations from a variety of sources and used the money to buy sculptures for a summer. And other sculptors were asked to voluntarily contribute their work on the basis that they could be marketed to tourists throughout the summer. The pieces then were erected all over the downtown and near the chamber, which resides on the shores of Lake Bemidji. When all of the pieces were finally in place, the chamber developed a walking tour map of the pieces and the trail led people throughout the downtown. I think there were 15 pieces in all that first summer, some gigantic, some not; some realistic, some more abstract. But they were all intriguing in their own right. At the end of the summer, the chamber used some of the donations to purchase a few of the pieces to become permanent fixtures in town. The rest of the pieces were auctioned off for the benefit of the sculptors. The public was involved as they got to vote on which sculptures the chamber should retain as permanent fixtures. The next year, the chamber repeated the process, only this time the sculpture walk grew because in addition to the permanent pieces kept from the previous summer, 15 new sculptures were added. And so on, and so on, until now when the sculpture walk grown to as many as 30 permanent pieces in the downtown. The program seems to have become wildly successful. Downtown businesses have joined in the program, becoming hosts to certain sculptures and then purchasing them to keep them in place as a point of interest to draw people to their business. Other sculptures have become permanent inhabitants of important downtown street corners and have become a part of the local culture. In fact one of the sculptures, known as Busby's Fish, has been in statewide news a couple times in recent years because it's been stolen and recovered. The piece, a realistic-looking fish fashioned from nuts, bolts and other scraps of metal welded together, has become a town favorite and now has been moved indoors for protection. It's become a local legend and residents have become very protective of it. I see such a project as a natural fit in Northfield. I admittedly don't know if a similar project has ever been discussed here ... at least I don't think it has in my year and a half in town. There is the talk of sculptures being included on the trail between Northfield and Dundas to the south, but imagine an entire lineup of sculpture throughout the downtown and continuing into the town of Dundas. It would seem that not only local residents would appreciate it, but that it could be a draw for visitors as well, just as Bemidji is using it. Such a project also would help further the city's identity as an arts town, and could be one more amenity that make people love this town. Forgive me if this is a discussion that others already have started or have for some reason already discarded. But I thought it was worth throwing into the arena of ideas as to how keep Northfield's downtown vital and interesting. -- Devlyn Brooks is the managing editor of the Northfield News.
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