Duluth Lakewalk Posts

Bike-a-Band Inaugural Ride

Tom Maloney built a rolling stage for a moving concert. Here’s a very brief montage of videos and photos from the inaugural ride of the Bike-a-Band.

The Slice: Duluth Lakewalk Reconstruction

Watch reconstruction of the Duluth Lakewalk unfold over the past year in this time-lapse video, compiled from footage via Veit & Company.

A Day in Duluth Can be a Lifetime

My wife and I were eager to spend the afternoon alone together as we ambled through the Leif Erickson Rose Garden. Four pre-teen girls stood across the way giggling together as we concentrated on the bushes and trees aflush with blooms in the mid-July sunshine. The scent of flowers was already adrift as we approached one tree, and we drew closer. We love the smell of flowers. Often, we pick up a bouquet at the grocers on the way to the milk, bread, and eggs. On this day, we inhaled the soft scents before they were cut.

Back on the sidewalk, we turned toward the Lake and, from this higher vantage point, we saw the Aerial Life Bridge in the distance. The Lake is calm, for the most part — there are no white caps to indicate a brewing storm. An easy breeze cools our skin and clothing, even from an eighth of a mile away. A footbridge crosses well above the interstate highway. For about 45 seconds as we walk across, we hear the thrum of rubber tires against the tarmac below. Three-fourths the way across, we hear a group of teens with their two chaperones palavering behind us. Excited about an adventure on the Lakewalk, they quickly approached from behind us to the ramp in front of us that slanted from the footbridge to the lakefront. We hastened to move to one side of the bridge so the teens could run at their pace, and we could stroll at ours.

Duluth You & Me: Downtown Lakewalk

Use the link below for a printable PDF for your drawing and coloring pleasure.
Duluth You & Me: Downtown Lakewalk

Follow the Duluth You & Me subject tag to see additional pages. For background on the book see the original post on the topic.

Duluth Lakewalk Mural

Duluth photographer Dennis O’Hara presents this look at Duluth’s 12-foot-high by 580-foot-long “Image Wall” along the Duluth Lakewalk.

Muralists Mark Marino and Sandra Ettestad placed 6,960 12-by-12-inch tile assemblies and more than 1.7 million 3/4-inch ceramic tiles to create a timeline of Duluth’s shipping history.

I Demand a Lakewalk

I demand a Lakewalk.

Retired engineer and geologist David Hoag wrote in a Jan. 22 Duluth News Tribune op-ed piece that he feels, “It would be much better to retreat,” than to “shore up, harden, and improve the lakeshore in areas near the Lakewalk and Brighton Beach that were battered by recent storms.”

Retreat to where? Are we going to let the lake have the rail line, and Fitger’s? Are we going to cede Canal Park to the lake? Are we going to abandon all infrastructure because it needs fixing? Are we going to tear down the bridge and the canal and move them to higher ground? Set fire to the ports? Should we flood the highway and designate it “boats only”? Is Leif Erikson Park to be abandoned to the waves, and we’ll just watch as it crumbles? Should we watch as Lake Superior undermines and claims the Rose Garden? Are our Park Point citizens to be forgotten?

Video Archive: Spring on the Duluth Lakewalk, 2008

This video was uploaded to YouTube ten years ago today — April 1, 2008. It landed on Perfect Duluth Day two days later, posted by someone using the screen name “Repur.”

Missing Lakewalk link will remain on hold

lakewalk footpathThe Duluth News Tribune reports the plan to build a pedestrian-only trail behind Beacon Pointe Resort is on hold while the owners of four adjacent properties continue to negotiate a potential sale to prospective developer.

Duluth’s Lakewalk That Wasn’t

The comments on the recent post about wine rooms as breeding places of vice in Duluth a century ago delved into the history of prostitution in Canal Park. If only someone had come up with the idea for the Lakewalk back then …

Reduced Parking Access to Lakewalk?

For the second time in as many weeks, I attempted to park near the Beacon Point Condos only to find parking severely restricted. Why do I feel like I’ve been taken in a give an inch, take a foot situation? It was bad enough the city permitted Beacon Point in the first place, but it was allowed under the premise that we’d all still have the same access to the area and so on. But I’m left feeling like an Apache who was told his reservation needs to be moved, and oh yeah, now it’s smaller too.

I’m not a native of Duluth. I moved here specifically for the availability of public land, parks, trails, etc. A piece of our freedom has been diminished, if anyone else cares. The big property taxes paid by the owners of Beacon Point appear to have swayed the local parking bureaucrats into closing the parking lot gate over the stormwater tank. Am I missing something here? Runners, walkers, and anyone else should have a fair opportunity to park in this area.

Litter on the Lakewalk near East High School

I am a resident on Gilliat Street and live adjacent to the Lakewalk, which runs from 42nd to 40th avenues east. When walking on the Lakewalk recently I was appalled by the amount of litter from fast food restaurants, etc. in the stretch of Lakewalk behind Ordean and also the stretch from 40th going east.

There are garbage cans placed at intervals along the Lakewalk, but it is still obviously too difficult for some people to use them. There have been school lunch milk cartons, cigarette butts, Culver’s wrappers, Taco John’s wrappers, McDonald’s, used condoms, etc.

Lakewalk extension

Anybody who lives in Lakeside has presumably figured this out by now, but others may be interested to learn that construction on the latest phase of the Lakewalk extension–from 47th to the highway– appears to be rolling along.  It looks like the section nearest to 47th may take a little more preparation than the rest due to the slope, but the part farther east might be pretty close to ready for pavement. Based on the work the past couple summers, it doesn’t seem too farfetched to think they’ll be done before fall.

Ledges Section of Lakewalk

I just learned this section of the Lakewalk is open. Does anyone know when it opened, or the story about volunteers working on it to meet a deadline? The Private Property signs are on 23rd Avenue East. The other signs are at the beginning of this section of the Lakewalk, at the end of 23rd. How about a sign that reads “Public Welcome”?

Do NOT follow this link or you will be banned from the site!