Not too far north of St. Paul, U.S. Highway 8 winds through the Chisago Lakes area, crosses the St. Croix River at Taylors Falls, and sallies onward into Wisconsin. But before one arrives at the border, one finds many signs of Sweden—dala horses painted on buildings, Scandinavian gift shops and bakeries, an old water tower made up like a giant coffee pot.
You’ll also see the sister city signs.
The communities along U.S. 8 maintain official, though rather informal, connections with a number of Swedish cities: Chisago City with Algutsboda, Center City with Hassela, Lindstrom with Tingsryd, Shafer with Nöbbele.
But some Minnesota cities, such as Duluth, maintain international ties through sister city relationships that promote business and environmental issues, in addition to the traditions and heritage of their citizens.
In 2005, Duluth’s Sister Cities Commission hosted a program with participants from Ohara-Isumi City in Japan and Petrozavodsk in Russia to share ideas about clean water and other environmental concerns. The commission worked with the Duluth Chamber of Commerce and other groups to create a technology center modeled after a concept they saw while visiting Växjö, Sweden, another of Duluth’s sister cities. The Soft Center, located in downtown Duluth since 1998, is home to software, health care, and IT consulting companies, and a school-to-work education initiative. Thunder Bay, Ontario, also is a Duluth sister city, and together the cities staffed a booth at the Northern Networks Trade Conference and Technology Expo in 2005. The Duluth Sister Cities Commission also arranges for a teacher from Duluth to teach in Ohara every school year. It’s estimated that about 4,000 people each year participate in sister city activities such as art exhibits, music, and festivals in Duluth.
The American Perspective
“The connections that worldwide contacts are looking at in Minnesota are often economic first,” says Gerry Wenner, president and state coordinator for the Minnesota chapter of Sister Cities International, a Washington, D.C.–based nonprofit organization that helps communities establish relationships with sister cities. “Whereas with Minnesota cities, many of them are looking at it from the cultural side.”
This is the case with the cities on U.S. 8, and is not uncommon by any means. Little Canada maintains its relationship with Thunder Bay during the annual Canadian Days festival, where travelers from Canada are treated to a special welcome reception. The MacGillvray Pipe Band from Thunder Bay plays in the Canadian Days parade each August, and the mayor of Thunder Bay always comes to the festival. In turn, people from the festival’s organizing committee visit Thunder Bay each year. “A sister city can be for economic reasons, but for our cities it’s really more of a friendship—especially after more than 30 years,” says Little Canada Mayor Bill Blesener.
Historical Connections
Visitors to Enger Park in Duluth can see a memento of a 50-year sister city relationship. During World War II, U.S. naval officers aboard the USS Duluth found a Buddhist temple bell belonging to Ohara at a Japanese scrap-metal depot. Temple bells were being melted down to aid the Japanese war effort, but this one was saved. The USS Duluth crew brought it back to Duluth in 1947, but returned the bell in 1954, thus establishing a sister city connection with Japan. In 1993, Ohara presented Duluth with a replica bell, which now hangs in Enger Park. Exchanges of sculpture were arranged between the cities in the 1990s; in July, Ohara and Duluth sister city commissioners will dedicate a Japanese peace garden in the park.
Minnesota’s involvement in sister city relationships predates the establishment of Sister Cities International: In 1955, St. Paul Mayor Joseph E. Dillon traveled to Nagasaki and formally established the first relationship between cities in the United States and Japan after World War II. Shortly after Dillon’s visit, President Eisenhower announced a call for citizen groups to establish relationships with foreign cities.
Future Expansion
Wenner says that Sister Cities International is a citizen diplomacy organization. “We help identify [foreign] cities that would be a good fit [for Minnesota cities]. Sister Cities International will interpret any language in an agreement for a member community,” he says.
The state chapter is incorporating and becoming Minnesota Sister Cities International. “We’re incorporating the Minnesota chapter, and by doing so it will be easier to assist our communities and connect [them] more easily with communities that match their interests throughout the world,” Wenner says.
