Here is a rare video of the Canada lynx in MN calling at each other near Sawbill lake north of Tofte.

The Canada lynx is a rare wildcat in Minnesota. The main prey of the lynx, the snowshoe hare, has had a diminishing population in Canada, thus resulting in more lynx migrating south into MN. The lynx has large “snowshoe” like feet that enables it to walk on top of deep, soft, snows. Lynx live in dense forests across northern Canada, in northern Minnesota and Maine, and in mountainous areas of northwestern United States.

Bill Hansen of Sawbill Canoe Outfitters near Tofte shot the video.

The “official” twitter hashtag of this years Homegrown Music Fest is #hgmf13.  So tweet away!

Homegrown Twitter Feed

Duluth mixed-media artist and associate professor at UMD, David Bowen, has his “Underwater 2013″ exhibit currently on display at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts. This is pretty awesome in my opinion.  What do you think?

“Underwater” is a large-scale suspended installation that is articulated using data from the surface of water. A Microsoft Kinect was used to collect three-dimensional data from wave action on the surface of Lake Superior. This data is used to articulate the mechanical installation consisting of 729 individual servomotors. The complex and subtle movements on the surface of the water are simulated within the installation by the servomotors moving according to the collected data. January through March of 2013, underwater was installed at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts recreating the dynamic water movement from hundreds of miles away.

Click here to view photos from the pilot recording.

PDD was lucky enough to be invited to shoot photos for the pilot of the MN Orginal program “The Lowertown Line” at Twins Cities Public Television. The Lowertown Line, is a music special hosted by hip hop artist Dessa and featuring bluegrass band Trampled By Turtles and their special guest, fellow Duluth native Alan Sparhawk of Low. The Lowertown Line‘s five song set and insightful conversation was recorded with a live studio audience.

Watch online:

To view our photos from the pilot click here.
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The 2012 Minnesota deer hunting season opened this morning. I report live while in my stand north of Duluth in Kelsey, MN.

Any luck?

What a gorgeous morning. I climbed into my homemade stand in the pitch dark at around 7 a.m., sunrise was 7:57, hunters can legally shoot 30 minutes before sunrise.  (more…)

Are you ready for fall? Minnesota, especially the North Shore of Lake Superior, is known for its vibrate fall colors.

Although this year’s early spring and hot, dry summer, will likely take a toll on the Minnesota fall colors season, we’ve heard the vibrant colors may come several weeks earlier and be short lived. This will also effect cities along the North Shore like, Grand Marais, that rely on visitors looking for the reds, yellows and oranges.

Below is the 2012 Minnesota DNR Fall Colors Report graphic, which updates automatically as the colors change.

Please beware of attacking otters in the Duluth area. There is at least one attacking otter on the loose at Island Lake and where there is one there has got to be more.

Anoka triathlete suffers 25 bites in otter attack in Island Lake near Duluth

Rain, rain, go away. Come again some other day. PDD wants to go outside and play.

With 6 – 8 inches of rain in the last 18 hours flooding in Duluth and the surrounding area has caused serious problems for everyone. With more rain on the way things are probably going to get worse before they get better. I have been personally fighting a flooding basement, but feel fortunate that is all I have had to deal with.  I am wondering if now is the time to start building an ark?

Post your Duluth Flood 2012 pictures and videos in the comments!

Associated Press: Major flooding in northeastern Minnesota has closed roads, Duluth city hall and a university campus and has authorities recommending emergency travel only.

Steady, torrential rain has closed Interstate 35 and downtown tunnels in Duluth. Police say sinkholes and washouts have made travel dangerous. Residents of the Fond du Lac neighborhood in Duluth are being asked to leave their homes because of the rising St. Louis River.

Post your top Homegrown (#hgmf12) tweets in the comments below!

I was fortunate enough to be up the North Shore Monday night near Grand Marais and caught an awesome Aurora Borealis Storm that was, dare I say, a Perfect Grand Marais Night. This art showing by Mother Nature was one that I would have thought I’d have to travel to northern Norway to witness. I have seen the Northern lights many times in the past, but this was pretty amazing, there were many moments over the course of 3 hours I had to duck as I thought they were gonna hit me. I probably should have been wearing a tin foil hat.

Below is a pretty cool compilation of time-lapse videos taken over the past few weeks along the North Shore. Definitely an early spring on the shore. I’m still trying to figure out what that lightning flash thing is at 1:07 during the Aurora activity, some kinda gamma ray flash or something. Pretty sweet.

The Minnesota State High School Hockey tournament is starting today. The Duluth area has three teams competing this year — Duluth East Greyhounds in class AA, Hermantown Hawks and Marshall Hilltoppers in class A. Below is the schedules for both brackets. Good luck boys!

Does anyone have any good Minnesota State High School Hockey Tourney stories? From what I “remember” it was pretty crazy when I went.

MN State Hockey Class AA Live Bracket Click Here
MN State Hockey Class A Live Bracket Click Here

Here is what your monitors look like when you spend your Saturday night migrating PDD to a new VPS server. The amount of data currently used by PDD is 3.4GB, needless to say that takes a little while to transfer and reconfigure. If you are seeing this post you are seeing PDD on its new home. Oh side-note, the old server was in Canada the new one is in the USA….
I feel so patriotic right now!

Server Migration

UMD  released the name of a student found dead in his dorm Monday. William “Billy” Harper, 19 from Coon Rapids, was discovered dead in his room at Heany Hall on Monday. Lisa Erwin, chancellor of student life, says it appears he died of natural causes.  Billy Harper was enrolled in the Labowitz School of Business and Economics. He was very active in sports and talented football player in high school. My prayers are with his friends and family.

The 2011 Minnesota deer hunting season is officially open as of this morning.

I am coming to you from my deer stand in Kelsey, MN. It has been pretty quite morning thus far for our hunting party, but the season is still young.  Hopefully we harvest a few over the next few days.

How have others faired around the northland this season?

Good luck and be safe!

You can fast forward to about 1:05 into the clip to see the mention of the Club Saratoga Ad on Jay Leno. www.clubsaratoga.com

Below are real-time snapshots from local Duluth web cams. If you know of any other area web cams please post link in the comments below and we will look to add those to our Duluth MN web cams page. Click thumbnails for larger view.