July 2019 Posts

Duluth rock-skipping takes rightful place as greatest thing ever

Jul 12, 2019 2 Comments

With Duluth’s natural renewable bounty of perfect skipping rocks, the time is now to claim the mantle of one of the top rock-skipping destinations in the world. I propose a Duluth League that plays by its own rules, owing to our iconoclastic position as Outdoor Adventure Capital of the United States. Envision a day when Duluth’s rock-skipping force fans out over the globe to win championships and decimate festivals. Tomorrow (Saturday July 13, 2PM Leif Erikson Park) will usher in such an age. A Facebook comment about the contest said, “I remember a rock-skipping contest in Duluth in the 1950s.” It’s revealing of Duluth’s decades-long funk that this never blossomed into an annual contest, or festival, in the intervening 70 years. By comparison, look at what the Michiganders of Mackinac Island have going: they just had the 51st Annual Stone Skipping Competition and the Governor comes and skips the first stone. If Duluth had kept its 1950s contest going, we’d be ahead of Mackinac Island by 20 years…

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Events, Outdoors, Photos , ,

Selective Focus: Susanna Gaunt

Jul 12, 2019 No Comments

Susanna Gaunt is an artist who creates installations and draws on her background as a photographer. She works with paper, dimension, transparency and light to combine 3D structures with 2D layers and textures. She currently has work on view at the DAI until August 11.

SG: For 20 years, I worked primarily in photography, both exhibiting photographs and teaching at a private workshop school in Montana. In 2013, our family landed in Duluth and I decided to learn new mediums by enrolling in the BFA program at UMD. It was there that I began focusing on installation pieces that incorporate drawing, printmaking, collage and embroidery alongside the photography. The common denominator with all of these is paper – I love working with different types of paper textures and exploring the possibilities of creating layers of both meaning and visual interest. Experimenting with multiple finishes, such as shellac and encaustic wax, allows me to find the right amount of translucency to both conceal and reveal content. 

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Art, Photos ,

The North Shore

Jul 11, 2019 No Comments

Travelogue video by Ethan Larsen; music by David Naegele.


Videos ,

Selective Focus: Rainbow!

Jul 10, 2019 No Comments

Hey, did you see the rainbow? Instagram did.

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Photos , ,

Announcing the People’s Free Rock-Skipping Contest

Jul 10, 2019 No Comments

 

This Saturday, July 13, 2PM, Leif Erikson Park beach. Prizes are gift certificates etc. donated from local businesses (Pizza Luce, Vikre Distillery, Hoops Brewing, Sir Ben’s, Global Village, Whole Foods Co-op, Duluth Coffee Company). If the weather turns on us we will reschedule, but it’s supposed to be full sun and little-to-no wind, which is critical for great rock-skipping. From the folks behind the People’s Free Skate, this is the first of what must become an ongoing rock-skipping festival, either annually or more, a lifestyle choice. Aren’t we having informal rock-skipping contests all summer anyway? All I know is, Lake Superior produces truly great skipping rocks, and Duluth deserves to be known as The Rock-Skipping Capitol of the World. Read on for contest rules!

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Events, Outdoors, Photos , ,

Chris Godsey on Pressroom Podcast

Jul 10, 2019 No Comments

Episode #186 of the Duluth News Tribune’s Pressroom Podcast features Chris Godsey, whose recent essay on Perfect Duluth Day, “Why Some Men Kill Women,” examined men’s violence against women.

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Random ,

Postcard from Gooseberry Falls State Park

Jul 10, 2019 No Comments

This undated postcard from Gallagher’s Studio of Photography offers a scene at Gooseberry Falls State Park.

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History, Photos , , ,

Lake patrol continues

Jul 09, 2019 No Comments

Working closely with the Sheriff to keep y’all safe over the past few days.


Outdoors, Photos , ,

R.I.P. Old Town Bar and Restaurant

Jul 09, 2019 No Comments

The Old Town Bar and Restaurant at 2215 E. Second St. in Superior was demolished today. It had been closed since 2013.


News and Current Affairs, Restaurants , ,

The Slice: Gowns of Glensheen

Jul 09, 2019 No Comments

Glensheen Mansion has 16 gowns on display at the historic estate this month. The collection includes dresses ranging from the late 1800s to the 1920s.

In its series The Slice, WDSE-TV presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.


Videos , ,

Duluth woman asserts right to go topless on Park Point

Jul 09, 2019 1 Comment

An incident on Park Point about two weeks ago has raised the question of whether it’s legal for women to be topless on Park Point beaches. Fox 21 reported over the weekend that Duluth photographer Michelle Bennett was “approached by a Duluth officer who didn’t know if he could arrest her” for exposing her breasts in public.

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News and Current Affairs , ,

Duluth author part of Jeopardy! clue

Jul 08, 2019 No Comments

What is Lake Superior? According to the television game show Jeopardy! and host Alex Trebek, it’s the place where “the lives of 3 women centuries apart intertwine upon the shores” in Duluth author Danielle Sosin‘s The Long-Shining Waters. The answer/question was part of episode #8030, which aired Friday, July 5, on the CBS network.

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Random , , ,

Superior in The New York Times

Jul 08, 2019 No Comments

Superior appears briefly in The New York Times opinion piece “This Chemical Kills. Why Aren’t Regulators Banning It?“

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News and Current Affairs , ,

Forty-three Seconds at Holyoke Park

Jul 08, 2019 No Comments

Holyoke Park is a small community park in Holyoke Township, about 20 miles southwest of Duluth. The Net River runs through it.


Outdoors, Videos

The Prism

Jul 07, 2019 1 Comment

In the YouTube description of his new video shot in Duluth and Superior, Eric Nordrum writes:

I’ve tried to be as open and honest about my mental health as I possibly can. I’ve struggled with severe anxiety and depression for ten years and I recently made the decision to start living my life again. I’ve made a lot of life changes recently and I wanted to express how I feel through this video. The concept is simply that we all go through a lot, and sometimes we seem stuck in an endless world of grey, but if we see it through to the end and try to see the bigger picture, we can start filling our lives with color and happiness again.


Videos