Minnesota’s newest honorary season: smoke season. Ya know, right between road construction and pumpkin spice.

 Alright class, let’s have a quick chat about what’s become Minnesota’s newest honorary season: smoke season. Ya know, right between road construction and pumpkin spice.

You’ve probably noticed it by now—sky turns kind of a sickly Campfire Orange, your throat gets scratchy, and suddenly everyone’s checking the AQI like it’s the lottery numbers. That’s not just some fluke or a bad air day, that’s a whole system at work. And it’s not going anywhere soon.

Here’s the scoop. In summer, Minnesota often gets air pulled down from the north thanks to how the upper-level winds flow. Now, if the forests up in Canada are behaving themselves, that’s not a problem. But lately? They are not. They are very much on fire.

Canada has a lot of forest. Like, more trees than hockey teams. And thanks to climate change, they’re growing faster in the spring, drying out more in the summer, and basically turning into one giant box of matches by July. And when they go up, that smoke doesn’t politely stay put. It hitches a ride on the wind and comes down here like an uninvited guest to your backyard BBQ.

And don’t go blaming Canada entirely—this same trend is happening in places like Alaska, Siberia, and other far-northern wildlands. Same ingredients: warmer temps, more vegetation, less rain, and not nearly enough firefighters to cover the million-square-mile forest floor. So the fires rage, and we get the smoke. It’s like a subscription we never signed up for.

Now, can Canada manage all these fires? Not really. It's just too big, too remote, and honestly, not always worth it if the flames aren't threatening people directly. It’s like trying to shovel the Boundary Waters: noble, but mostly futile.

Until we get serious about reversing climate change—and let’s be honest, that ain’t happening before your next midterm—we’ve kinda gotta accept that smoke season is the new normal. So get familiar with the air quality index, keep a mask or two handy, and maybe just embrace your inner Scandinavian stoic: “Well... could be worse, could be mosquitoes.”

And that, my friends, is physical geography in action. Not just maps and landforms, but systems colliding—climate, ecology, politics, human decision-making, all blowing right into your lungs.

Stay safe out there. And maybe enjoy those brief clear-sky days like they’re lake season... because in a way, they kinda are.