Frank Bures

Education on the Front Lines

In Nigeria, a university president and Rotary Club fight Boko Haram by educating and feeding victims

Relocation Guide Access | dwell in duluth

Why are students flocking to Alexandria College? The lifestyle is just the start.

With 10 new athletic teams, lake living, furnished apartments right on campus, Alexandria College is drawing students from across Minnesota.

World Ark Article Gets Wider Recognition | Heifer International

Arts and Letters Daily, a blog of The Chronicle of Higher Education, singled out a World Ark feature as its

What happens when you say yes to Rotary

These 17 people joined Rotary to make a difference - only to find themselves transformed Rotary Club of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma Megan Law had been traveling in Poland and Ukraine for weeks before the cornflakes appeared.

It Takes a Village

Waves of undergrads in Uganda with CALS have taken the African proverb as a call to action. Their engagement has included founding a nonprofit and choosing careers in which they serve communities a...

The Ice Queen: Sveta Vold and the Night Water Butterflies Are the 'Chillest Humans'

When Sveta Vold first moved to America in 2011, no one here thought swimming in a frozen lake was a sane idea. But it was her normal.

Megan Poelaert Started A Booming Childcare Business in Alex After a Major Career Shift | Living...

Megan Poelaert quit her corporate job to open a childcare business near Alexandria, Minnesota, and she can't imagine a better career path.

r.World debuts reusable r.Cups at world's largest trade show for natural and organic products.

Expo West Natural Products, the world's largest sustainability trade show, reduced single-use waste with r.Cup reusable cups from r.World.

Two Alexandria Filmmakers are Building a Thriving Business. Here's How. | Living Alex Area

When Rachel Geyen and Alicia Bertram wanted to grow their filmmaking business, they looked to the AAEDC for some free business coaching. They found that and more.

New Life for Highland Park Basement Rec Room | White Crane Design:Build

This St. Paul Highland Park family hoped a remodel could reenergize their "dead space" basement with fun family-focused spaces like a kitchen & theater.

Looking for a great place to grow your business? Alexandria has everything you need.

When Massman Companies needed to grow, this manufacturer found a better site, local support, & TIF financing by relocating to Alexandria, MN.

NORTH Magazine | Duluth Minnesota Magazine

NORTH is a home, style, and life real estate magazine featuring the places, people, and stories that elevate the North.

Under Purple Skies: The Minneapolis Anthology

In recent years, Minneapolis has become a literary powerhouse. This edition in the Belt City Anthology Series is a literary tour guide of Minneapolis and the Twin Cities area, with narrative threads that stretch back not just to Scandinavia, but across the world.

Thirty Two Magazine

Served as Literary Editor for new Minnesota-based magazine

3 days, 200 miles: Bikepacking the backroads of Minnesota's extraordinary Driftless Area

Bikepackers in parts of the Driftless Area met unmatched beauty and rugged challenges.

Gabriel Keller: Consider Licensure Alternatives

Earning a degree shouldn't be the only pathway to becoming a licensed architect, writes PKA Architects' co-founding principal designer.

Our Team - The Wildling

A revolutionary truth-telling experience for teens and kids. Come jam with our small and mighty nonprofit! All genders. All races welcome.

The Epic Battle to Break the Mississippi River Canoe Record

How two rival teams fought storms and sleep deprivation to claim an 18-year-old paddling FKT

What My Kids Learned When They Weren't in School

This time since school was canceled-since life was canceled-has given them an education they couldn't have gotten any other way.

Runner, Interrupted

When Marko Cheseto disappeared during a run one snowy winter night, he stumbled out of the woods 55 hours later. His frozen feet could not be saved.

The Donors

Every man makes sacrifices, but some guys give to strangers as if they were family—even if it means losing a piece of themselves.

501 Pounds

Five years ago, Scott Cutshall was so fat, that doctors told him he'd die within six months. Then he looked out his window and saw a man riding a bike

A Mind Dismembered

Letter From Nigeria: In Search of the Magical Penis Thieves

Planning a trip to Mexico City? Here are 11 great museums to check out

The Mexican metropolis may have more museos than any other, ranging from art and history to chocolate and tequila.

Bologna Walking Tour: A Guide to its Ancient and Recent History

Hear stories from an author's year in Bologna on a wander through its past

Exploring the Polar Bear Capital of the World

Every autumn, thousands of tourists descend upon Churchill, Manitoba, to see polar bears in their natural habitat.

Slytherin Toward Hogwarts

How a family trip to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter unintentionally revealed the power of stories.

Hainan: China's new kingdom of bicycles

Over the past two decades the island has been reborn as a destination both for mainstream tourists and cyclists

Making bombs in Zanzibar

An enigmatic encounter with a would-be African terrorist leaves an expatriate wondering about truth and faith.

Taking a Leap with Skydive Twin Cities

How one Twin Cities couple found meaning, family, and a whole lot of adrenaline in the skies over western Wisconsin.

Adventure Craft

For most of human history, we lived, worked, and played outdoors. But over the past century or so, we've come to spend less time outside and more time in-over 90 percent of our day, by some estimates. A quarter of Americans never leave the house at all during the day.

Dead Cold

A spring outing on frigid Mississippi River went very wrong. Luckily he's around to ponder a far worse outcome and share what he learned as a lesson to others.

A Record-Breaking Paddle Down the Mississippi River

A team of four recently crossed all 2,350 miles of the Mississippi in 16 days 20 hours and 16 minutes

The Sky Is Burning: Caught in the Pagami Creek Fire

Greg and Julie Welch thought they were taking their regular, annual trip, paddling through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota. Then the fire came.

Teaching a stone to fly

The Mackinac Island Stone Skipping Competition

Shorts in winter: Why some Minnesotans stick to their summer finest

What's behind an almost cultlike devotion? Is winter madness at work?

On the Body as Machine

Seeing bodies as machines and brains as computers has led to a militaristic approach to medicine and an over simplification of the mind's complex abilities.

The Death of Snow Days

Opinion: In Minneapolis, the joy of the snow day will be replaced with the dread of e-learning.

It didn't take long for this stray cat to find a way into a Minneapolis man's heart

But the cat soon went missing and it's like they're saying we're not good enough, that there is a better life out there.

Art Inspires: Frank Bures on the lobster coffin of Ghana

The first dead person I ever saw in daylight was a young boy lying next to a road in Tanzania. It was early morning and we were driving south on the country's main highway when I saw the crows fly up out of a ditch. I craned my neck to see what they'd been eating.

Test Day

Frank Bures administers an English exam to his students in Tanzania, where life is hard and giving up isn't an option

The Geography of Madness

The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World's Strangest Syndromes

If a Weapon Didn't Cause Havana Syndrome, What Did?

American diplomats probably weren't attacked with a secret energy weapon, the CIA says. That doesn't mean patients imagined their crippling symptoms.

The Secret Lives of Stories: Rewriting Our Personal Narratives

Contributing editor Frank Bures recalls a meeting with the late poet Paul Gruchow during his formative years, a memory that sparks a personal investigation to better understand the stories we tell ourselves in an unconcious attempt to make sense of our lives.

Is there something weird about our taste for apocalypse stories? | Aeon Essays

The human world has become bafflingly complex and strangely fragile making apocalypse the easiest thing to imagine

Running Circles around Us: East African Olympians’ Advantage May Be More Than Physical

In studying runners’ genes and climate adaptation, science often overlooks culture

Cuba’s Sonic Attacks Show Us Just How Susceptible Our Brains Are to Mass Hysteria

Just because something happens in your head doesn't mean it's not real.

In the Footsteps of Prince: Downtown Minneapolis Walking Tour

Strut through downtown Minneapolis and see where His Royal Badness rose to fame

Somali Poetry Takes Minneapolis

In Minnesota, Somali youth poets are changing the game.

Back to The Beach: A Lost Interview with Alex Garland

Twenty years ago, Frank Bures chatted with a young Alex Garland about his travel novel, The Beach. Bures recently unearthed the interview--a time capsule from the dawn of global backpacking.

5(ish) Questions: David Grann and "Killers of the Flower Moon"

Sometimes the idea for a book springs from what you don't know. David Grann had never heard of the "Osage Murders" until a historian he was talking to mentioned the series of mysterious deaths among members of the wealthy Osage tribe in early 20th century Oklahoma.

Things Come Together: A Journey through Literary Lagos

It was late at night, and Toni Kan and I were pissing into a stream next to the expressway in Lagos, Nigeria. Cars raced past, to and from the city. Most would make it to where they were going. A few would not.

Interview with George Saunders: Loose in the Real World

Frank Bures talks with the author about Dubai, Nepal's Buddha Boy and what he learned about travel from a mob of rock-hauling, 70-year-old women in Singapore

The Eaters and the Players

As our country has grown more divided, so has our outdoors. And now, with public lands under assault, wild places becoming more fragmented, and hunting in decline, this division matters more than ever, as does finding a bridge across it.

Solar power could be huge in Greater Minnesota - if they can find the people to build it - MinnPost

Last year solar jobs dropped 4 percent nationwide, while in Minnesota they rose 48.2 percent. Many installers complain that they can't get enough labor for the demand.

The loss of starry skies: 'Growing problem' of light pollution

In more places, we're losing view of a true night sky to insidious light pollution.

A Growing Movement

Seed saving is part of our history—and our future. Meet the Minnesotans who are keeping the tradition alive.

Rotarians pledge to restore the monarch butterfly's disappearing habitat

In late 2019, just before the world shut down, my family flew from Minneapolis to Mexico City, then drove two hours west toward the city of Valle de Bravo. From there, we continued on to Santuario Piedra Herrada, a nature preserve situated in the forested mountains of central Mexico.

Sound Tracker

It was early morning, and Doug Quin, SMFA84, and I were headed out on a winding ribbon of road leading away from Syracuse, to a patch of wild tucked between ups