Thanks to all of you who reached out after our recent series on “Northern Loners,” those mysterious characters who choose to live in isolation.

One of my favorite notes came from my former neighbor, Chuck Thorne:

Hi Tracy, I read your hermit article the other day and wanted to know if you had heard of Ole the hermit. The Forum published an article about him many years ago, which my aunt had saved (but I can no longer find it). He carved little statues of people, and I inherited four of them from her.

I wrote back: No, I hadn’t heard of him. Did I miss a North Dakota loner? Tell me more, old neighbor.

Who was this guy who carved the statues sitting in Chuck’s house? All he knew was that the name Ole “the Hermit” was written on the bottom of each one and that he had gotten the statu

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