Duluth, Minnesota - San Francisco of the North

Looking toward Lake Superior

In the early 1980s my mother, brothers Tony, Bobby and oldest daughter visited Duluth, Minnesota.  We toured a narrow swatch of ho hum shops and a seafood restaurant too close to the raised interstate highway.  It didn't impress.  This September we visited friends in Duluth and found ample evidence the city's now more zippy and good guides make all the difference.

Watching 1000-foot long laker entering canal to Port of Duluth

The history of Duluth is as undulating as it's topography.  At the turn of the 19th century Duluth, Minnesota had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the world.  Astonishing considering just 14 families lived there in 1869.  All that changed with the 1870 discovery of taconite in the aptly named Minnesota Iron Range.  Taconite is a low grade iron ore, vital to industrialization.

Laker going under Aerial Lift Bridge, famous Duluth landmark

By 1900 Duluth's fledgling port surpassed both New York and Chicago in gross tonnage.  Immigrants from most of the world's mining countries were flocking to Duluth which became the largest Finnish community outside Finland.
  

Touring the Mariner's Museum

Duluth was vital to American industrial defense in both World Wars. In the 1940s professors at the University of Minnesota's School of Mines invented of an economical pelleting process for taconite, coinciding with the end of  high-grade iron ore extraction in the U.S.  This extended the Duluth iron boom until the late 1970s when foreign competition started to steam-roll in from Japan and now China and Brazil.   One of the worst blows to the city of Duluth was the 1981 closure of the U.S. Steel Duluth Works. Tourism, medical care, maritime research and shopping have all improved.  No doubt the lake's improved too-taconite mining was hard on the largest freshwater lake in the world.
Today grain is the main commodity shipped.

Ship controls

Like most other port cities Duluth is gritty and grand.  It was great fun to dash about Canal Park, the entry point of the huge ships navigating the Great Lakes.  I mean that literally because it was pouring rain, with bone-chilling gale force winds, bringing home to me what it means to be a mariner on Lake Superior. Many of the old factories and warehouses have been converted to trendy offices, boutiques, art galleries and the finest coffee house this side of Italy.

Taconite pellets

   -Painting of the Edmund Fitzgerald, lost with all hands November 10, 1975 No bodies were ever found 

    -Museum exhibit of finding the ship with sonar at the bottom of the Lake, 535 deep

The best of all possible worlds: Sublime coffee with good friends at Amazing Grace Bakery near the Duluth waterfront

Headwaters of the Mississippi

Lake Itasca, left, CCC rocks, Mississippi River, right

"From this point (Lake Bemidji) the ascent of the 
Mississippi River was due south; and it was finally 
found to have its origin in a handsome lake, of 
some seven miles extant, on the height of land to 
which I gave the name Itasca."--Henry Schoolcraft, 
1832, discoverer of the headwaters, with Ozawindib, 
the expedition's Ojibwe guide

It looked quite different back then.  In 1832 
Schoolcraft saw a respectable stream 20 feet 
wide and about two feet deep, nestled in an old 
growth evergreen forest.  But by the early 
20th century severe logging had so changed the 
lay of the land all that greeted intrepid tourists 
was a muddy mess.  The 1930s Civilian 
Conservation Corps changed that by hauling 
in sand and boulders to create a more winsome 
beginning.  And winsome it is. 

                            Headwaters looking northeast 

   
                          Mississippi River 100 feet from headwaters

     
                            Lake Itasca, from Mississippi River

Chippewa National Forest Headquarters, Cass Lake, Minnesota

50' tall field stone fireplace (this is just the first floor)

Midway through our stay at itasca, on a rainy afternoon, we drove over to Cass Lake to see the Chippewa National Forest headquarters, a beautiful 3-story log structure built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s. The staircase is exquisite ice-cracked maple with burls and branch stumps, beautifully finished. The CCC made fine use of local artisans. We also drove around Cass Lake, which is the main town of the Cass Lake Ojibwe Indian Reservation.

The Headquarters is a working building.  The staff were helpful and gracious. The main floor has a fine exhibit of the building's construction and of the Ojibwe Indians. The young woman at the reception desk showed us on a map where the best eagle viewing spots were on Cass Lake.  The Chippewa National Forest has one of the largest bald eagle populations of the lower 48 states.

CNF headquarters

Cass Lake street mural

Art Deco tile-fronted building

Itasca State Park, September 2010

Jim at Lake Itasca

Checked into cabin 11 Sunday afternoon then headed down the wooden staircase to Lake Itasca for our stroll up the Dr. Robert’s trail, to the Old Timer’s cabin. Several women were taking photos, other hikers came and went, all laughing, enjoying themselves. '"Where are you from? " was the standard refrain.  We weren't in the city any more.

Took a photo of the carved wooden chair pretending Molly’s with us then headed back down the trail to the deck over Lake Itasca. We sat down on one of the wooden seats for a quiet spell, listening to the the lake water lap gently against the decking pylons, admiring the wild rice  and cattails near the shore. The sun was lowering in the sky, twilight coming on, the end of a lovely day.

Dr. Robert's trail

Molly's thrown

Old Timer's Cabin

Cabin 11, twilight

Relics of the Sea

Bayfield, Wisconsin-- On our drive up from Virginia to Lake Itasca State Park, Minnesota, we spent a day in Bayfield, Wisconsin, gateway to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore, Lake Superior. A onetime hub of lumbering, and commercial fishing, it’s now a tourist destination. Old wooden boats grace yards around town and near the Maritime Museum, offering stark contrast to the marina’s effete fiberglass yachts  Strung about the hilly town like scratched pearls from a broken necklace, these boats tell their story grandly, humorously, beautifully.