I’ve lived in the Northland long enough to know that summer brings three things: mosquitoes big enough to carry off a small dog, tourists who can’t parallel park, and a Lake Superior breeze that feels like pure medicine.

Lately, though, that medicine’s been laced with Canadian wildfire smoke.

It seems like every year now, we wake up to a sky the color of dishwater, the sun a weak orange dot, and air that feels like someone lit a campfire and forgot to invite you. Minnesota’s Air Quality Index hits the “unhealthy” level so often kids know the color codes better than their times tables.

The Dakotas haven’t fared much better. South Dakota’s prairie haze and North Dakota’s sunsets have taken on that same end-of-the-world filter. All the while, we hear the same polite shrug from north of the

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