Locally owned Weed Wishes opens in Cook, adds new cannabis option

A locally owned cannabis shop has opened in Cook, giving far northern St. Louis County another retail option as legal marijuana sales spread deeper into the Northland. Weed Wishes, owned by John and Heather Chaulklin, is already about five weeks into business and is planning grand opening events next week.

For Cook, the opening is more than a storefront novelty. It gives customers a nearby place to buy recreational cannabis instead of driving farther for it, and it adds another business that could draw traffic into a downtown that also depends on lake-country visitors passing through on their way to cabins, resorts and trail systems. In a small town where every new counter or cash register can matter, a locally owned operation also signals that the first wave of cannabis retail is not being left entirely to outside chains.

The Cook opening comes as another northern Minnesota cannabis project has moved from policy to brick-and-mortar reality in Carlton. The Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Chippewa opened its second ANANG Native Cannabis Co. location on Friday, May 15, 2026, behind Black Bear Casino Resort at 1440 Black Bear Drive. The new site includes Minnesota’s first cannabis tasting lounge, which the Band calls a Dab Theatre, and describes as the first tribally owned dab theater in the United States. The public opening began with a ribbon-cutting at 9:45 a.m., followed by remarks and an official opening at 10 a.m.

The Carlton opening also shows how the product is being positioned beyond simple retail. A tasting lounge gives adults a place to consume solventless concentrates on site, turning the dispensary into a destination rather than just a point of sale. That matters in a region where tourism, entertainment and tribal enterprise increasingly overlap, especially near Black Bear Casino Resort and along the corridors that connect Carlton, Cloquet, Duluth and the Arrowhead.

The broader policy shift is already in motion. Minnesota’s adult-use cannabis rules were formally adopted and took effect on April 14, 2025, clearing the way for the Office of Cannabis Management to issue licenses to applicants who met the requirements. Later that fall, Gov. Tim Walz and the office signed a tribal-state cannabis compact with the Fond du Lac Band on October 20, 2025, a deal announced three days later that was aimed at public health and safety, product testing, data gathering and a more consistent cannabis market.

The economic stakes extend beyond storefronts. In May 2024, the Minnesota Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation approved a $2.5 million loan to a Fond du Lac Band subsidiary for a startup cannabis business on tribal land west of Duluth, backing an 18,000-square-foot cultivation and manufacturing building in Brookston and the jobs that would come with it. The Band’s earlier cannabis store had 15 trained employees and operated daily from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., with ID checks to keep sales limited to adults 21 and older.

Taken together, the Cook opening, the Carlton tasting lounge and the Brookston cultivation plan show a new retail sector taking shape in St. Louis County. What was once a policy question is now a business landscape, with local ownership, tribal enterprise and state regulation all competing to define how cannabis will fit into the Northland economy.