The magnetic pole was over Canada until relatively recently though (20 years ago it was) so that makes it much closer to Minnesota than to Normandy. It's getting closer these days though, moving towards Russia.
I also witnessed austral auroras on Kerguelen island for example, which is 49° south, because the south magnetic pole is rather close to it, but people on the Antarctic continent itself near the peninsula could not see any because although further south geographically, they were at a greater distance to the magnetic pole.
I saw them from my house just north of Stockholm December 2016, twice. It can apparently be seen there, but it was much nicer in kiruna! :>
Yeah, I was more than a little surprised they'd seen them in Minnesota. But I see that might not have been as clear as I intended...
I've lived for 10+ years at 59 degrees (Stockholm, Sweden) and never seen one clearly, even though I'm a night owl and watch the aurora reports, and none of the people I knew had ever seen one in that area. Where I am now at 50 degrees noone would even consider looking for them, it's so far south.