Duluth real estate agent Tracy Ramsay published the premiere issue of North at the start of 2024. The lifestyle magazine will increase its territory beyond the Duluth area in 2025 to include northwest Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and parts of North Dakota.

Duluth realtor-turned-publisher Tracy Ramsay and her team are preparing to release the second issue of North magazine. The new lifestyle publication premiered in January, featuring articles about homes in the north country, local culture and more.

“It was kind of an experiment,” Ramsay said. “Do people want this? And everyone seemed to be thrilled with it.”

Now she plans to expand from one issue per year to two, and also broaden the magazine’s territory.

Ramsay’s first foray into the magazine business was the 2023 edition of Dwell in Duluth, when she teamed up with Julie Ann Kubat to publish a relocation guide containing information about Duluth neighborhoods and an events calendar, as well as directories of the city’s schools, restaurants, utility companies and other services. Ramsay described Dwell as her curation of information with Kubat’s vision.

“I try to show the best of our city,” Ramsay said. “We have interesting architecture, beautiful landscapes. I believe that every area in our city has something to offer people.”

North magazine personnel from left to right: Graphic designer Elaine Lahti, publisher Tracy Ramsay, copy editor Amy Carlson, and editor-in-chief Frank Roffers. They occasionally hold editorial meetings at the Kitchi Gammi Club. (Photo by Seth Roeser)

Dwell in Duluth was received positively upon release, but the informational guide had little regarding articles about people. According to Ramsay, some of the readership wanted something different from the publication.

“People were looking at it and saying ‘Gosh, this is really pretty, but why don’t you have any pictures of houses and any stories about the houses?’” Ramsay said. “And they said ‘You should have some stories about our interesting people here.’”

Ramsay kept that in the back of her mind, but felt that publishing personality pieces was outside of her wheelhouse as a real estate agent — that is, until she was informed that many realtors publish their own magazines.

“And I thought ‘Well, maybe in L.A. or New York or something, but certainly not humble Minnesota,’” Ramsay recalled.

Upon calling Edina real estate agent Ben Ganje and being informed that he too had a magazine, Trends https://issuu.com/benganje, Ramsay and Kubat got to work on North. The two spent a week at Barnes & Noble researching other magazines and figuring out what they liked seeing in print, making choices about aesthetics and content.

While Ramsay once again teamed up with Kubat for the premiere issue of North, the upcoming issue will be under North’s new editor in chief Frank Roffers. Kubat now operates as the art director and editor at large.

“Our goal is for North to be the most remarkable magazine that’s produced in this region,” Roffers said.

Ramsay first heard of Roffers through his work with the Minneapolis-based Artful Living, a boutique lifestyle magazine he founded in 2008. Ramsay found that she and Roffers walked similar paths, both being in the real estate business and both starting their own magazines.

“He’s got a lot of experience, 15 years experience producing a magazine,” Ramsay said. “He had some really good ideas that I hadn’t thought of.”

The premiere issue of North magazine included a feature on North Shore Camping Company in Beaver Bay.

One of Roffers’ plans for the magazine included widening its coverage area. The premiere issue was mostly Duluth-centric, though it featured stories from Grand Rapids, Beaver Bay and Bayfield. The North team now intends to cover Minnesota, northwest Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and parts of North Dakota.

“That’s a pretty big swatch,” Roffers said. “One of the things that we’re interested in is finding really unusual stories, things people have never heard of, highlighting them.”

North is a highly produced magazine — the premiere issue featured 112 glossy pages filled with professional photography and illustrations. Roffers said that while he wants North magazine to be known for its fit and finish, he wants it to be admired for its written content as well.

“We also want to be known for our journalism, for our quality, for telling stories of people and places in this region,” Roffers said.

To that end, Ramsay, Kubat and Roffers found talent from all over the region, tapping travel writers and journalists whose works have been featured in Harper’s, National Geographic, The Minnesota Star Tribune, Outside and more.

Elaine Lahti, a recent UMD graduate, is the graphic designer for North and Dwell in Duluth. She also works with Roffers to produce Only in the North, a monthly e-newsletter featuring web-exclusive stories ranging from artist profiles to travel destination spotlights.

Roffers said North magazine will be a biannual publication in 2025, with issues coming out in January and June. “A winter and a summer issue,” he said, noting that the Only in the North e-newsletter is meant to provide relevant content to readers in between issues of the print publication.

North subscriptions are available online at northmagazine.com. Physical copies are available Barnes & Noble, Genereau Jewelers, Bradley Interiors and Johnson Mertz.

“The next two issues of North that you’ll see come out in 2025 will be head and shoulders above what the first one was,” Roffers said. “The first one was really kind of a prototype just to prove concept and see if it made sense, and it does. It has lots of traction. The future looks bright.”