Annie Dugan, untitled
Harvest is the time to reap what we’ve sewn, and to stow our goods for the difficult days ahead. It’s the time to decide what merits entry into our sod huts, and what is left to the elements. Often this is based on a degree of conformity to norms, on a willingness to fit in, and to play along. We decide what’s suitable to sustain us, cede diversity to the predictable, and leave the rest to wither on the vine.
Photographer Peter Lik, who has shot some of the world’s most incredible landscapes, was on the North Shore of Lake Superior this week.
Ann Klefstad, untitled
A recent New York Times article noted how difficult the end of Summer can be, especially for people “of a certain age” who focus on what’s left in the hourglass, and rue the many things undone that likely will remain so. But it ends on a hopeful note, in finding solace in the smaller things we managed; I had my 1st swim in Superior, I’ve been working steadily on my first book with numerous local colleagues, and I’ve eaten several Rustic Inn pies. Hardly a squandered season.
Aaron Reichow, untitled
Last week’s steep drop in temperatures had me thinking, overeagerly, of Fall. It has always been my favorite season for its paradoxical combination of things reaching fruition, then brilliantly flaming out. With luck we’ll see a harvest, survive the Winter on what we’ve stowed, and celebrate another Spring. Without luck, well, we’ll have joined the grand circle.
Hattie Peterson, untitled
I would rather see a photograph of pencil shavings than a high resolution Hubble space telescope image of some distant star cluster. Maybe that’s because I am already profoundly aware of my own insignificance, and therefore hold the inconsequential beauty of ordinary things closely. Reality doesn’t require hypermediation, and I would dearly miss all that’s sensual in what is close at hand if I were somehow, someday deprived of it.
This mighty ore-boat cribbage board, acquired at a rummage sale, is not quite as buoyant as one might expect. Though the peg-holed deck quickly floods, the vessel remains afloat. This cherished antique has all the signs of having been someone’s high-school shop project, so we salute the mysterious nameless craftsperson for the worthwhile contribution to society. It looks like a name may have been penciled on the bottom at one point, but it’s far from legible now.
Aaron Reichow, untitled
My grandpa Mohrbacher moved to Duluth in 1928 and was a tenant at the Traphagen home, which was gutted by arson the week before I arrived here. I was lamenting this loss to a sauerkraut maker I’d met at a cider pressing who told me he’d lived there in the 70s when the home became the Redstone Apartments, and that he had some interior photos. They were beautiful. I could picture my grandpa in the same sun room, occupied by a new friend over 50 years later.
Kip Praslowicz, “divers-diving”
Judging from friend’s accounts, this has been an atypical, consistently beautiful summer here. It is my least favorite season; too immoderate, languid, febrile. Still, I had my first (ever) swim in Superior, took in ballet outside the library, saw a film at a farm about Japanese dwarves, and laid in lots of grass. Best summer I’ve had since boyhood, though I’ve yet to do my annual roll down a steep hill- Leif Erikson, Chester Bowl?
Kip Praslowicz, “Crowd. 4th of July Parade. Superior, WI”
This was a tough theme, and it’s gratifying to see how each of you broadened it: Richard’s 50th Anniversary of the Wright gas station in Cloquet and the 25th Beargrease, Kip’s shots from the 4th of July, or Kyle celebrating a month of Jane’s being cancer free. I went conventional, with my folks’ belated anniversary honeymoon. We mark time in many ways.
Hint: There are actual living birds in the photos, they’re just hard to see.
I just saw these two gems with their mom a week ago, but she is nowhere to be seen now, unfortunately. Possibly hit by a car. These kids seem old enough to fend for themselves, and I hope they do well.
Is Custom Cab Co. in Duluth bringing their service to the lake with this tricked out Cheetos boat or is it secretly filled with an infinite amount of Cheetos?
The Arrowhead Bridge connected West Duluth to Superior’s Billing’s Park neighborhood across the St. Louis River for 57 years. Built by the Arrowhead Bridge Co., it opened on March 15, 1927. The company charged a toll to cross the bridge until 1963, when Minnesota and Wisconsin state officials paid $200,000 to make it a toll-free public bridge.
The Arrowhead Bridge was dismantled in 1985 after the opening of the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge.
