The annual Northern Lights Music Festival on Minnesota’s Iron Range is a three-week event that includes an opera production. Documentary directors Mike Scholtz and Marius Anderson captured the process and stories leading up to the 2021 festival for the WDSE-TV feature embedded above. Iron Opera is the story of concert pianist Veda Zuponcic and a cast of talent plucked around the world and around da Range.
Thirty years ago today nearly 30,000 residents of Superior and neighboring areas were evacuated after a Burlington Northern train derailed on a bridge over the Nemadji River, causing a benzene leak from a derailed car.
The video clip above is from KBJR-TV’s News 6 Nightside with anchor Michelle Lee and reports from KBJR’s Heather Filkins and Laura Bergan and KARE-11 reporter Rick Kupchella on the catastrophe that came to be known as “Toxic Tuesday.”
Boots sold by Duluth Trading Co. are the latest to be featured on the YouTube channel Rose Anvil. One trademark of the channel is that the reviewer (whose name I did not find online) cuts boots in half to show his 544,000 subscribers how they’re constructed. The nearly 22-minute review, featuring three styles of boots and titled “Embarrassing truth about Duluth,” is not a positive one. “We buy $500 worth of boots to see if Duluth makes stupid boots,” the reviewer says, “and they do.”
Duluth Trading Co. is not based in Duluth anymore but still bears the city’s name and operates a retail store at 300 E. Superior St. The company shares some of its history at duluthtrading.com.
The Brothers Burn Mountain have a new album, The Thrill and the Flame, set for release July 16. The video for the first single, “When We Play Music,” was produced by Ryan Dermody.
Gathered here is silent WDIO-TV b-roll footage dated June 20, 1972. Note there was a “Patio Park” at the time, next to A&E Supply — long before anyone had coined the term “parklet.”
Blacklist Brewing Company made the move to 206 E. Superior St. in May. Ethan Schultz of ShotxSchultz did a flythrough before the move, during construction, and now has returned to show the new Blacklist location in action.
Duluth Urbex presents an underground tour of Oregon Creek, which flows beneath the University of Minnesota Duluth campus and through the Endion neighoborhood to Lake Superior.
Shaun Chosa, a Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa tribal citizen and painter/graphic design artist, has more than 30 large-scale paintings on display until Sept. 16 at the Dr. Robert Powless Cultural Center in Duluth.
Comedian Mary Mack continues her tour of Wisconsin with a stop at Superior’s Choo Choo Bar & Grill.
Duluthian Nat Harvie‘s new collab album with Cole Pulice, Strawberry Roan, releases June 21 via the Texas-based Aural Canyon record label.
Trampled by Turtles asked fans to submit photos and videos of themselves at shows for a secret project. The images appear in the band’s new music video for a track from its upcoming album Alpenglow, scheduled for release Oct. 28. The video was edited by Cooper Baumgartner.
Duluth photographer and online ranter Kip Praslowicz found a rusty cast-iron Griswold square-egg skillet at a thrift store for $2.49. In this video he restores the skillet, makes a square-egg sandwich and blows minds.
Today’s episode of The Boys (season 3, episode 4) contains the following sarcastic line: “I’m sure you and Duluth’s Most Mighty can get the job done.” It occurs at the 15-minute mark in the show. The remark is intended to mean “your unpowered friends and boyfriend are pipsqueaks.” Contains salty language.
Duluth’s Charlie Parr has a new video for a song from his 2021 album Last of the Better Days Ahead. “Bed of Wasps” is directed by Lance Lindahl.
Iron Rangers Rob Wheeler and Jill Burkes make up the folk duo MorningBird. This clip is from their “Live from Studio A” session on WDSE “the North” 103.3 FM in May.
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.
