I love good writing and have diligently followed the News-Herald for more than 45 years, first as a tourist, then subscriber, then land owner in Cook County.
Found some good writing and some “not so good” over the years (well, awful, really).
The paper currently carries a regular column written by Cory Christianson called Tails from the Trail. It is uniformly well written even when the subject matter holds no interest for me. When Cory gets “political” you can’t really make out his personal views—the true mark of a very good journalist. The column is stuck back with the police and conservation officer reports, which simply is not appropriate.
His writing and personal reflections remind me of somebody I knew and (very briefly) worked for, Justine Kerfoot. She wrote things in her column like mixing anecdotes about trips to Russia with the advent of spring on the trail. I can say that there were some years that I only read the paper to read her column.
Cory’s writing is like Justine’s, highly passionate, observational, lucid, personal— just a little less seasoned. I really have no accolade stronger than that.
His column should be on page 3, upper left, where Justine’s column resided. He’s that good. With time I think he’ll do that special space in the paper proud. He deserves that space and I know he will honor it with his writing.
John Thompson
Grand Marais
Editor’s note: The Cook County News-Herald is proud to share Tails from the Trail with readers every week. We believe Cory Christianson’s column is in the perfect location as the anchor of our outdoor page.
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