Editing Ely, Minnesota (section)

==Arts and culture==

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Ely hosts many community events in Whiteside Park, such as the Blueberry Arts Festival in July,<ref>[http://www.virginiamn.com/news/local/article_690a6292-f5a4-11e2-afdb-0019bb2963f4.html Berry good time set at Ely Blueberry Fest - Mesabi Daily News: Local<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> the Harvest Moon Festival in September, and the Winter Festival in February. There is also an Ely-only artist gallery, [[Art & Soul Gallery]].<ref>{{Cite news|url=http://www.timberjay.com/stories/still-crazy-after-all-these-years,13071|title=Still crazy after all these years|newspaper=The Timberjay|access-date=December 28, 2016}}</ref>

Ely's post office contains two tempera-on-plaster murals, ''Iron-Ore Mines'' and ''Wilderness'', painted by [[Elsa Jemne]] in 1941. Federally commissioned post office murals were produced during the [[New Deal]] through the [[Section of Painting and Sculpture]], later called the [[Section of Fine Arts]], of the [[United States Department of the Treasury|Treasury Department]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Arnesen |first=Eric |date=2007 |title=Encyclopedia of U.S. Labor and Working-Class History |volume=1 |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9780415968263}}</ref>

===North American Bear Center===
[[File:North American Bear Center.jpg|thumb|The North American Bear Center]]
Ely is home to the North American Bear Center, which opened in 2007. It is an interactive museum and educational facility featuring [[American black bear]]s. The center, the only science/nature museum of its kind, is dedicated to helping people learn from the bears themselves about bear behavior, ecology, and their relations with humans. A wall of windows overlooks a 2.5-acre naturally forested enclosure with a pond and waterfalls, which is home to four resident bears. There are also exhibits, a theater, children's activities, and interpretive nature trails.<ref>[http://elyminnesota.com/north-american-bear-center North American Bear Center « Ely Minnesota<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.bear.org/website/ |title=North American Bear Center - Home<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=November 21, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090810233923/http://www.bear.org/website/ |archive-date=August 10, 2009 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===International Wolf Center===
{{Main|International Wolf Center}}
[[File:International Wolf Center.jpg|thumb|International Wolf Center]]

The International Wolf Center is one of the world's leading organizations dedicated to educating people about wolves. Founded in 1985 by a group of biologists led by [[L. David Mech]], a world-renowned wolf biologist, it opened in 1993. The center features [[gray wolf|gray wolves]] viewable through large windows that allow visitors to watch them communicate, play, hunt and eat. In addition to the onsite ambassador wolves, the center offers a variety of educational programs at its Ely interpretive facility and other locations in northern Minnesota and across North America. Afternoon, weekend and weeklong programs include howling trips, radio tracking, snowshoe treks, family activities, dogsledding, videos, presentations, flights over wolf country, demonstrations, and hikes.

===Arts & Heritage Center===
The Ely Arts & Heritage Center is in the historic Pioneer Mine complex. It is managed by a nonprofit arts organization, Ely Greenstone Public Art. It offers classes, exhibits, and festivals.<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://elygreenstone.org/2011/join-ely-greenstone-public-art-and-ely-arts-heritage-center/ |title=Join Ely Greenstone Public Art AND Ely Arts & Heritage Center « Ely Greenstone Public Art<!-- Bot generated title --> |access-date=October 3, 2013 |archive-date=October 5, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131005032556/http://elygreenstone.org/2011/join-ely-greenstone-public-art-and-ely-arts-heritage-center/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>

===Dorothy Molter museum===
[[File:Dorothy Molter Cabin.jpg|thumb|The Dorothy Molter cabin in Ely]]
The [[Dorothy Molter]] cabin and museum are in Ely. Known as the "Root Beer Lady", Molter lived for 56 years on Knife Lake in the BWCAW. She gradually gained national prominence and extensive coverage in media, books and documentaries, and over the years tens of thousands of canoeists stopped by to visit and drink her homemade root beer. Molter was born May 6, 1907 in Pennsylvania, but was quickly separated from her family and raised in an orphanage. She first visited her future home (The Isle of Pines Resort) on Knife Lake in 1930 and it became her home in 1934 after falling in love with the area. Until the mid/late 1940s, the Isle of Pines resort was typical of many north woods resorts. It was reachable by seaplanes and motorboats, and later by snowmobiles as they came into use.<ref name="rootbeerlady.com">{{Cite web |title=Dorothy Molter Bio Page {{!}} Ely, MN |url=https://www.rootbeerlady.com/dorothy/ |access-date=2024-05-09 |website=Dorothy Molter Museum |language=en-US}}</ref>

After a 1949 flight ban Molter began importing her supplies for root beer by boat and reusing glass bottles that she stored in a shed. Canoeists stopping by would be asked to bring supplies from town and would commonly leave an oar behind, hundreds of which are still on display at the museum. Molter's land was taken from her in the 1964 Wilderness Act, however, after a nationwide uproar and her friends protesting, she was allowed to temporarily stay as long as the resort was closed down. Along with Molters land being taken, nearly all motorized transportation to Molter's lodge was eliminated, residences, buildings, business and the few roads from the wilderness were removed, leaving Molter as the only full-time resident in a wilderness area three times the size of [[Rhode Island]]. Later she was given a lifetime pardon to live in her home. After her death, her multiple cabins, all her belongings, and other parts of her residence were dismantled and moved to Ely by boat. They were all then reconstructed there, and the Dorothy Molter Museum was established, and to this day sells her root beer to preserve her legacy.<ref name="rootbeerlady.com"/>

=== Ely-Winton History Museum ===
[[File:Ely-Winton History Museum.jpg|thumb|left|Ely-Winton History Museum]]

The Ely-Winton History Museum is on the Vermilion Community College Campus. It depicts local history through displays, photographs, and oral histories. Logging and mining histories are told using geological samples and old logging and mining tools. Examples of past businesses are demonstrated as well as the importance of women on the frontier. In 2018 the museum opened an exhibit of paintings representative of Ely mining history, featuring the works of Albin Zaverl. It also has a collection of the work done by [[Ojibwe]] artist Carl Gawboy, who grew up in Ely.<ref>{{cite web |title=Albin Zaverl mining artwork exhibit opens at Ely Winton Historical Society |url=https://www.elyecho.com/articles/2018/08/30/albin-zaverl-mining-artwork-exhibit-opens-ely-winton-historical-society |website=The Ely Echo |access-date=August 28, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Duluth artist Carl Gawboy honored with county arts excellence award |url=https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/2016770-duluth-artist-carl-gawboy-honored-county-arts-excellence-award |website=Duluth News Tribune |date=November 11, 2011 |access-date=August 28, 2020}}</ref> The museum offers programs about the history of the area twice a month during the summer. The museum mission statement reads:<ref>{{cite web |title=Ely-Winton Historical Society |url=http://www.museumsusa.org/museums/info/6339 |website=Museum |access-date=August 28, 2020}}</ref>

:The mission depicts local history through artifacts, photographs, oral histories, numerous videos/DVDs; displays include Ojibwe, fur trade, mining, logging, immigration, voyageurs, and Footprints Across The Wilderness, the history of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness with a new exhibit each summer. They cover the history of the area from prehistoric times through mining, immigration and logging. Arts displays include Carl Gawboy and Albin Zaverl.

===Historically significant structures in and around Ely===

[[File:Listening Point cabin.jpg|thumb|Listening Point cabin]]
[[File:Ely State Theater.jpg|thumb|Ely State Theater]]
[[File:Tanner1907.jpg|thumb|Tanner's Hospital -1907]]

The [[U.S. National Register of Historic Places]] deems certain structures worthy of preservation for their historical significance. Several sites in and around Ely have been placed on the Register's list: Bull-of-the-Woods Logging Scow, Ely State Theater, Listening Point, and Tanner's Hospital.

[[Listening Point]] was the private retreat of conservationist [[Sigurd Olson]] on Burntside Lake. Olson acquired the property in 1956, then purchased a log cabin and a log sauna elsewhere that he had dismantled, moved to Listening Point, and reassembled. In 1998 the Listening Point Foundation was organized to preserve the property as an open-air museum to Olson.

The [[Ely State Theater]] is a 1936 [[Streamline Moderne]] design, epitomizing the small-town commissions of leading regional theater designers, Minneapolis architects [[Liebenberg & Kaplan]].

[[Tanner's Hospital]] is a former hospital building built in 1901 as a moneymaking enterprise due to the area's high disease rate, a consequence of low investment in sanitation infrastructure in the mining boom towns of the Iron Range, where the long-term existence of any given community was unpredictable.

The [[Bull-of-the-Woods Logging Scow]] is a small paddle steamer wrecked in Burntside Lake. It was built around 1893 for one of the lumber companies in the area. There were at least a few of these vessels, locally known as "alligators" or "gators", in operation in northeastern Minnesota in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. They could tow timber rafts, hoist logs, navigate shallow waters, and even pull themselves across dry land. It is the only known surviving example of its type.