Daily Archives: 24-February-2018

I spend a lot of time in northern Minnesota now that I have a home there. I have been surprised as to how popular curling is in the area (Figure 1). The US curling team at the 2018 Olympics is dominated by people from northern Minnesota. I also notice that there are quite a few Minnesotans participating in the games other sports – the numbers are large enough that the New York Times has even written an article called "Team USA? More Like Team Minnesota" on the topic (PDF of the article). Our state does not have a huge population, ~5 million, and most of that population is concentrated around Minneapolis and St. Paul. The northern part of the state is only sparsely populated as it is covered with national forests and wilderness areas. Continue reading →