One decade ago the springtime water-skipping action at Chester Bowl in Duluth was excellent. This video depicting the skiing, snowboarding, saucering, couching and so on that took place has gathered more than 32,000 views in the ten years since it first appeared on PDD in 2007.
As the failing winter of 2016-’17 continues, we take another look back to a decade ago and the amazing freeze over Lake Superior. In this video from Feb. 22, 2007, “Duluthom” skates the big lake, accelerated by wind power and a simple umbrella.
The 2016-’17 winter hasn’t been great for ice on Lake Superior, but ten years ago was one of the most magical freeze-overs in modern memory. In this video from Feb. 18, 2007, Zac Bentz captures the sounds of shifting and cracking ice off Park Point.
Carrie Fisher, the actress best known for her role as Princess Leia in Star Wars movies, died today at age 60.
Destination Duluth recently found this WDIO-TV news report on YouTube. The clip is from Dec. 22, 1977, the day the original Star Wars closed in Duluth. Destination Duluth posted it to Facebook with a note that “Star Wars smashed box office records with 459 showings over 191 days in Duluth.”
This 16mm film documentary was produced by Detroit Public Schools and the Ford Motor Company. It chronicles a trip aboard the Ford Motor Company freighter as it voyages from the River Rouge Factory Complex to Duluth and back with a load of iron ore.
The program is sexy throughout, but since it’s an educational film you might want the cheat sheet or Cliff Notes. The Duluth segment of the adventure starts at the 13-minute mark and ends at the 17-minute mark.
Much appreciation to the Detroit Historical Society for making this gem available to the masses.
A previous Video Archive segment featured a 1956 film from the Mark Bruzonsky collection. This time we skip ahead to the mid-1960s and his years at Duluth East High School.
Mark Bruzonsky, a 1965 Duluth East High School graduate who has gone on to become a journalist, author and consultant in Washington D.C. specializing in international affairs and the Middle East, has uploaded several of his family’s old films to Vimeo. The video above is a collection of films from roughly 1956, and includes footage of some familiar locations in and around Duluth.
Prior to the Feb. 27, 1991, Damn Yankees concert at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center Arena, KBJR-TV had a quick chat with Ted Nugent, Jack Blades and Tommy Shaw. In the clip, the “Motor City Madman” discusses his band’s mission to boost the morale of U.S. troops in Saudi Arabia.
Jay Freborg’s YouTube description:
In the mid-1970s the drinking age was 18 and friends built elaborate houseboats from whatever material they could find. Going out to “The Island” is what the typical high schooler tried to to do every weekend in the summer. It wasn’t uncommon to have 300-500 people under the age of 21 along the shores of Nesbitt. Over the years, Nesbitt Island’s sandbars and beaches have eroded but the memories have not. Thanks to Bernie Orhn for his forsight to shoot this 8MM film that I edited and put to music.
This clip from KDLH-TV 3 is from 10 years ago — June 14, 2006 — the day Duluth Mayor Herb Bergson announced he would not seek re-election the following year in order to focus on solving the city’s unfunded retiree health-care liability without politics interfering. At the time, the city’s health-care debt was projected to reach $300 million by 2014.
In early 2007, Bergson hinted he might run again after all, then announced two months later that he wouldn’t, only to reverse course three months after that and file to run.
His opponents in the race were Charlie Bell, Meg Bye, Joanne Fay, Greg Gilbert, Todd Gremmels, Sunny Helbacka, Reiner Nelson, Don Ness, Jim Pratt, John Socha and Robert Wagner. Bell and Ness advanced to the General Election, with Ness ultimately replacing Bergson as mayor.
In early 1996, under the assignment of the late-great UW-Superior Professor John D. Munsell, I was tasked with creating a 60-second television commercial for a Direction of Talent in Media class. Since psychic hotline ads were common on cable TV, and I grew up in a house with a rec room and a Magic 8-ball, I opted to produce this spoof.
Denise Novotny is the reporter. Interview subjects in order of appearance: Marnie Housel, Jan Tilley, Angie Sommerfeld, Seung-Hyun Oh, Jon Ellis and Brandon Leno.
No, this is not a legitimate campus news piece. Yes, I wrote a script and fed everyone their lines, although they improvised a tiny bit. Yes, I was apparently terrible at white balancing TV cameras 20 years ago.
With high school hockey playoffs underway this week, PDD takes a look back 30 years to Denfeld’s first trip to the Minnesota State High School Hockey Tournament. The video above includes TV news clips of Denfeld’s Section 2 playoff wins (2-1 over Duluth East, 8-2 over St. Cloud Apollo and 6-2 over Anoka). The photo at left is from the victory over Anoka, shot by John Rott of the Duluth News Tribune (as featured in the DNT archives).
The subject of The Louie Show, Louie Anderson’s 1996 TV situation comedy set in Duluth, was covered fairly in-depth on PDD two years ago, but we mark the 20th anniversary of the airing of the first episode with a few updates. Particularly, there’s the discovery of the Louie Anderson interview above, conducted by KDLH-TV’s Joe Thornton, which aired during the 10 p.m. newscast following episode #2.
This film footage from 1928 shows U.S. President Calvin Coolidge arriving in Hibbing on the Duluth, Missabe, and Northern Railroad to view mining operations and see the highly acclaimed Hibbing High School. Modern-day aerial footage of the school concludes the video.
