Winter Posts

Selective Focus: When Winter Was

Apostle Island Ice Caves, 2014, photo by Chris Plys

There is still time for the winter of 2023/24 to show its stuff. For now, all we have is the past.

Destination Duluth, a nonprofit that shares images and stories on social media in an effort to promote the city and region, recently declared “We want winter back!” A group of photographers have contributed photos from “when we had real winters,” posted with the hashtag whenwinterwas.

Record Breaker: Winter 2022-23 is snowiest in Duluth history

The Duluth News Tribune reports that the 2 inches of snow that fell overnight was enough to make the winter of 2022-23 the snowiest since records starting being kept in 1870. The season snowfall total as of 6 a.m. today sat at 137.1 inches.

Selective Focus: Wintery PDDs

Select photos from Instagram spanning mid-February to mid-March 2023, all hashtagged with the name of a certain website. #perfectduluthday

The Slice: Hiking Kadunce River in Winter

In winter the Kadunce River, an 8.5-mile stream near Grand Marais that flows into Lake Superior about 100 miles northeast of Duluth, becomes a frozen hiking trail.

In its series The Slice, PBS North presents short “slices of life” that capture the events and experiences that bring people together and speak to what it means to live up north.

Video: Sledding at the Laskiainen Finnish Festival in Palo

Videographer Adam Jagunich took his drone for a winter flight in the small Iron Range town of Palo, about 40 miles north of Duluth, to capture sledding scenes from the 85th annual Laskiainen Finnish Festival last weekend.

Video: Changing Seasons in Grand Rapids

Video by TruNorth Productions.

Thundersnow in Duluth

Duluth’s Mollie Johnson captured the sounds of thunder during this morning’s blizzard.

Patrick-Duluth way up in the snow

I saw a ship a-sailing
From old Duluth one day,
And oh! it was all laden
With coats for boys, they say!

Surf and Slide – Great Lakes Now

Detroit Public TV produces Great Lakes Now. The show speaks to me of what we share with other Great Lakes residents and how we should quit fighting about whether or not Lake Superior is the Greatest Lake. This episode focuses on ice sailing, and lake surfing (specifically the Surfistas): “It’s about stoke.”

Selective Focus: Presidents’ Day Blizzard of 2022

Somewhere in the range of 17 inches of snow fell on Duluth from Feb. 22 to 23, blowing into tall, fluffy snow dunes. Collected here are a few images from around the region, via Instagram.

Selective Focus: Winter Recreation and Icy Silliness

Sledding, paddling, lollygagging … drifting off on an ice chunk. Collected here are a few images from Instagram of simple winter pleasures.

Red pennants make sliding safe for kids at street intersections

An update to the post “Sledding Duluth’s Avenues in 1921“:

By 1922 it was determined that the safe thing to do is hang red pennants to warn drivers about popular sledding intersections.

Selective Focus: Snow Day 2021

A few select images from today’s blizzardry via Instagram.

Filling Up at the ‘Coldest Gas Station in America’

Back in January of 1997, my friend Keith and I took a drive across Wiscosota and Minnesconsin with my cousin Matt, a California beach boy searching for a real northland winter. Our road trip launched on the eve of the Green Bay Packers Super Bowl XXXIII appearance. A handmade Packer flag crafted from a pillow case was taped to the bumper of Keith’s sedan as we drove 300 miles across frozen farm fields and snow-covered forest to Title Town. The idea was to celebrate an inevitable Packer victory in the shadows of Lambeau Field.

I’ll save our tales of mischief and revelry for another time. This essay is about gas stations – very cold gas stations.

Gas is needed to get from St. Paul to Green Bay in a V-8 Chevrolet. Somewhere in the middle of Wiscosota we stopped at a convenience store and pulled up to a service island. A snowmobile was parked at an adjacent pump and its driver was filling a tank under the seat. Matt’s jaw dropped like he had just spotted Bigfoot munching on a cheeseburger.

“Whaaaaatttt????” he said, as he grabbed a cheap point-and-shoot camera and jumped out of the car.

Sledding Duluth’s Avenues in 1921

One hundred years ago there were far fewer cars on Duluth’s streets, but it was still considered dangerous to sled down the city’s steep avenues. So Duluth Police Chief Warren E. Pugh surveyed the city and selected a few recommended avenues that posed “the least danger to life and limb,” according to the Duluth Herald of Nov. 22, 1921.

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