The latest Duluth artifacts to fall in my lap are three unlabeled tintypes — photos processed onto thin sheets of metal. I don’t think I’ve come across Duluth tintypes before, but surely others must exist, so I post here with the hope that someone can enlighten me in the comments section and perhaps share their own tintypes.
March is nearly over. Time to recap. What do you remember about March in Duluth? What did you miss? Let’s find out.
Our next quiz will be on April 10 and the theme will be “April Fools.” What does that mean? I don’t even know yet. Send your suggested quiz questions (and answers) to lawrence @ perfectduluthday.com by noon on Wednesday, Apr. 6.
It started when I was twelve years old and my father consented to buy me a mini-bike. It was the real deal, a miniature motorcycle, not some boxy frame with a lawn mower engine. Sixty CCs, one hundred and twenty pounds, it would do fifty miles per hour. What a foolish gift.
There had been a couple of go-carts around the neighborhood before bikes took over. Two brothers had cobbled one together but had yet to master the complexities of throttle control or brakes. We put their sister on it, wound it up, and let it go. I don’t know how she eventually came to a stop, but she was last seen careening between the trees in our beloved public park. It was obvious from that experiment their machine had two too many wheels.
I probably knew a dozen kids with mini-bikes. My friend two blocks away had one identical to mine, and ours were among the coolest. Most common were the Honda 70s. Ugly, but they could keep up. The boy across the street had a Suzuki Trail Hopper. Pathetic. Honda 50s were tiny. The clown car of mini-bikes. One kid had an Indian which sounded like a chainsaw cutting sheet metal, yet law enforcement was strangely absent for a couple of summers when the world was young.
About five minutes after this footage was taken I wandered too far onto an escarpment of ice over Lake Superior. Marching out there, intending to be careful and to stay a couple feet from the edge, I said, “Let’s go risk our lives!”
Samuel T. Weston has a goal to shoot 20 short videos in 2016. Two down, 18 to go.
Jedi Coworker was primarily shot on the College of St. Scholastica campus. There is also a scene at the Aerial Lift Bridge. The actors are Weston, Anissa Peppersack, John Vālen, Lucretia Stillwater and Mike Koenigsberg.
Nigerian-born artist, storyteller and community organizer Daniel Oyinloye, a 2004 University of Minnesota Duluth graduate now living in Minneapolis, has launched an Indiegogo campaign to fund his next album, Dawn of Redemption. On Saturday, March 26, he’ll perform at Trepanier Hall in Duluth, along with openers Rachael Kilgour and Isaac Wierman.
The Duluth Economic Development Authority has issued a request for proposals for the future development of waterfront real estate on the Lake Superior harbor, referred to as “Lot D.” The site is 12 acres of flat land, zoned as mixed-use waterfront, and is sandwiched between Compass Minerals packaging facility and the Pier B Resort development. The appraised value of the property is $2.1 million.
Christine Dean, untitled
The recent spate of lovely weather, coinciding with the vernal equinox, is a trap. We know this, yes? Having seen it snow in June, and still, we live in hope. There are gardens to ready, trails to follow, newborns to raise. Spring, tantalizingly close, isn’t for the timid, the reclusive, or the misanthropic. It’s time to be an upright, active being again until Summer’s indolence overtakes us.
Duluth’s Charlie Parr performs on the gondola at Lutsen Mountains on March 17, the day after his concert at Papa Charlie’s during the DuLutsen North of North Music & Ski Festival.
So, being of a mindset that doesn’t lean particularly religious, the wife and I tend to sleep in on Easter Sunday. I had always been under the impression that Easter brunch was sort of a big thing, so a few years back we ventured out seeking a leisurely breakfast/lunch combo with bloodies and mimosas, only to discover all the usual downtown brunch suspects were closed!
We probably gave up a bit too early in our search since we ended up at the bar at Tycoons, but there were surprisingly few open places. To save me from that situation again, what does PDD suggest as the best place in the area to get a proper Easter brunch?
The plan for a proposed 30-acre multi-purpose park at Casket Quarry in West Duluth is in its final draft stage. Duluth’s Parks Recreation Division is seeking public comment until April 6.
Quarry Park will offer accessible trails, connections to other surrounding hiking and biking trails, multi-use gathering spaces, disc golf and a rock climbing wall rock- and ice-climbing opportunities.
Click here to view the Mini Master Plan PDF.
Click here for the public comment form.
Public comments will be compiled and incorporated into a final version of the plan, which will be presented to the Parks and Recreation Commission at a special meeting on April 20.
Point-of-view video of a run during last weekend’s Lester River Race in Duluth.
Yes, Duluth musician Gaelynn Lea won NPR’s Tiny Desk Contest, but yesterday NPR posted “10 More Tiny Desk Entries We Loved” featuring the beautiful Gwen Austin.
Austin went to school at UMD and lives in Duluth on and off. Her most recent Duluth project is the trio Bone Harp. So out of more than 6,000 entries Duluth is represented twice in the top 11. Way to go Duluth.
Video by Layne Kennedy.
Ralph Plaisted’s “Big Idea” — to travel to the North Pole by snowmobile — was born in Duluth’s Pickwick restaurant in 1966. The New York Times published a fresh account of the story last week.
An Insurance Salesman and a Doctor Walk Into a Bar, and End Up at the North Pole
