A specific date hasn’t been set, but WDIO-TV reports that Lake Superior Brewing will open soon. It will initially be just a restaurant and bar, however. The brewery’s beer won’t be ready until September. “Hopefully by Labor Day,” co-owner Sarah Maxim told WDIO.
This postcard was mailed 100 years ago today — July 7, 1922. The illustration presents an aggrandized version of the Rex Hotel, which later became the Curtis Hotel, then Milner Hotel, then Seaway Hotel, and then briefly the Esmond Building. It was actually a three-story building, not four like the postcard shows, and the ground floor wasn’t so ridiculously tall as to dwarf any people or automobiles in front of it.
Built in 1896, the SS Meteor is the last surviving above-water whaleback ship in the world. It operated until 1969 and is now a museum ship on Barker’s Island in Superior. The documentary embedded above was created by Duluth Film Company, a division of GOV Productions.
It was a busy weekend in Duluth, despite the rain that postponed the Fourth of July events.
Saturday I missed the Rhizomes, who played in Two Harbors. Crankily, I have decided that I will only be indoors in places with cavernous, flowing air, until the pandemic has subsided. (For more information about the pandemic that is still going on, no matter how many people you see walking around without masks, visit the Minnesota Dashboard. We’re doing okay — COVID hospitalizations are definitely flat, but variants are increasingly resistant to the vaccine.)
It’s been nearly 10 years since the pink Aerial Lift Bridge dollhouse toilet was first mentioned on Perfect Duluth Day — back when it was listed for sale on eBay. Since the reference to it was just a brief mention in a comment to the PDD Gift Guide 2012, perhaps it is time the Duluthy commode is revisited and given its own separate post, if for no other purpose than for speculating on its origin.
Duluth’s Charlie Parr performed songs from his 2021 album Last of the Better Days Ahead at the Rail River Folk School in Bemidji for an episode of the Lakeland PBS program Backroads.
For your flag-waving Independence Day viewing pleasure Perfect Duluth Day presents the “Gonzo USA Theme” from Jim Richardson’s public access television show circa 2001. The music is by Craig Minowa of Cloud Cult fame; Richardson, of course, is now alternatively known as Lake Superior Aquaman.
In Herbster, Wis., near the southern shore of Lake Superior, sits a 40-acre farm that uses sustainable methods to help build a stronger local economy. The farm is home to American guinea hogs, Icelandic chickens and a lush variety of produce including (but not limited to) apples, strawberries, cherries, lettuce, tomatoes, elderberries, raspberries, gooseberries, garlic, potatoes, saskatoons, pears and even a greenhouse with a lime tree.
Elsewhere Farm is tended by Chicago-native Clare Hintz, who came north for college and fell in love. Hintz was interviewed for this article on a particularly snowy winter day, but even then she lit up when describing the Arrowhead region.
Raptors: The sight of a bald eagle stirs a person. I used to live in more southerly climes where they were less common, so it has been a treat to see one every now and then up here. I saw them a lot after my divorce, when I had to drive halfway through Minnesota every two weeks to exchange my daughter like a prisoner. I pointed out bald eagles to my child on these drives, barely able to contain my excitement, while she did that kid act of being bored with everything. Later I visited her at her mom’s house in a rural Winona valley. There was a field of tilled earth on the dirt road to their home, and it was positively overrun with bald eagles. As I drove past, I saw fifty of them together walking around in the mud with their dirty talons. I said to my daughter, “Now I understand why you’re never excited to see a bald eagle — you see so many of them every day, they’re like rats here.” She said, “Yup.”
Hawk Ridge overruns with bird nerds. Hawks soar over the city alone or in twos and threes, or by the dozen during migration. Cold air off the lake hits the warm hillside, a clash of airmasses creating lift — they love that. Unimaginably high with laser vision watching for unwary pigeons or rabbits, eating them on the roofs on people’s houses. I saw feathers raining past my window one day. By the time I figured out a hawk was eating a pigeon on my roof, it was gone.
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.”
Perfect Duluth Day has been Duluth’s Duluthiest website for 19 years. Yes, it was June 29, 2003 when PDD’s first blog post was published … back when people didn’t know what a blog was.
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church was built at 209 N. Lake Ave. in 1869. The location is roughly where Harbor Pointe Credit Union’s main branch is today, across the avenue from Old Central High School.
The modern St. Paul’s Episcopal Church at 1710 E. Superior St. was completed in 1914 and the original in the photo above was demolished in 1925. More on the history of St. Paul’s can be found at stpaulsfaithformation.org.
Stone’s Throw Farm is among primary proponents of the region’s community-supported agriculture — a sustainable food method with the goal to improve economy, ecology and citizen health.
“The CSA model really keeps the money in the local community,” Stone’s Throw Farm Facilities Director Elden Lindamood said.
Another month has come and gone; how much of it do you remember? Test your knowledge with this week’s current events quiz.
The next PDD Quiz will explore the history of Portorama; it will sail your way on July 17. Submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by July 12.
