December 2017 Posts

Northern Waters Restaurant will close Dec. 31

Just two years after opening, the Northern Waters Restaurant at Mount Royal Shopping Center will close. A news release from owners Eric and Lynn Goerdt indicates the business has been sold and a new restaurant will replace it in early 2018.

Because I’m Alive

Drone footage shot by Mike Kenyanya from July to October 2017. Music by Kavulea.

Mystery Photo #58: Steamer Perry G. Walker

Although the date Dec. 11 is recorded on this image, it’s not clear what year it was when the steamer Perry G. Walker arrived in Duluth covered in ice. It’s also not clear if this is a photo or an illustration … or an illustrated photo.

Hermantown coffee shop changes hands, rebrands

 
In a swift transition of ownership, the two-year-old Pelican Coffee closed Nov. 12 and the new Yellow Bike Coffee opened Nov. 13. There wasn’t a day without caffeination at 5094 Miller Trunk Highway in Hermantown.

PDD Quiz: Holiday Traditions

It’s that time of year again: the lights are twinkling, the tourists are flocking, and “Christmas City” plays on a seemingly endless loop. How well do you know your Twin Ports holiday traditions? Whip yourself up a Tom & Jerry and settle in for the quiz!

The next PDD Quiz, reviewing the events of 2017, will be published on Dec. 31. Please send question ideas to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Dec. 28.

Video Archive: Damn Yankees 1992 Concert Promo

Television advertisement for a concert at the Duluth Arena held 25 years ago today — Dec. 9, 1992 — featuring Damn Yankees, Slaughter and Jackyl.

Tommy Shaw, formerly of Damn Yankees, will return to Duluth on March 13 for a concert with Styx.

Locker Room Talk

I have never worked a fine-dining kitchen but was a short-order fry cook for many years and absolutely loved the work. It’s the closest I have ever been to becoming a star athlete: the physical challenge, mental focus, and team effort of the average brunch service was a rush no matter how many times I got through it. I would sit eagerly after the line was clean, watching the waitress tally her tickets so I could go home with my head full of fresh stats: 200 covers, 8 hours, no walk-outs, no comps = perfect game.

And I was good. I have no idea why. I walked into the diner of my future as a 21-year-old anthropology student and applied for a part-time job I (falsely) assumed would be as low-accountability as my former pizza kitchen work, where as the only woman in the back of the house I was treated with all the novelty I deserved and none of the (usual) hostility. Like a kitten in a nursing home, my male co-workers gave me just enough to play with in that kitchen so I didn’t run away, all the while relieved to have a distraction from their own tired dynamics.

Selective Focus: #lutefisk

It’s a Northland tradition. Show your heritage runs deep enough that lutefisk is no big deal, or as a young, hard-driving journalist, prove you’re brave enough to venture into the depths of a Lutheran church basement to try it for the first time.

Video: Sen. Al Franken announces resignation

Boutique hotel opening in Lincoln Park

A small and stylish boutique hotel — the first of its kind in Duluth — is set to open this spring in the Lincoln Park craft district.

The husband and wife team of Andy Matson and Chelsy Whittington plan to open the three-suite hotel on the second floor of a historic building they recently purchased at 1923 W. Superior Street. The new accommodations will be called the Hotel Pikku, which means small or odd in Finnish.

Matson and Whittington said travelers who want to experience a trendy, centrally-located neighborhood away from typical Duluth tourist areas will stay at the Pikku Hotel. Clients or patrons of other Lincoln Park businesses are also potential lodgers. The cozy, completely renovated rooms with kitchenettes will rent for between $100 and $150 a night.

Uncle Harvey’s Pillar, 2007

Tony Rogers posted this photo to Perfect Duluth Day ten years ago today — Dec. 7, 2007. It features the infamous round column from the sand- and gravel-hopper ruins known as “Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum.”

Minnesota Point

Year unknown, photographer unknown. Appears to have been shot in the late 1800s.

A peek at what Bent Paddle’s new taproom will look like

Bent Paddle Brewing Company plans to relocate its taproom to a larger, revitalized space in the former Enger & Olson Furniture store building at 1832 W. Michigan St. This new location is directly adjacent to its main production brewery and current taproom in the Lincoln Park neighborhood.

Ingeborg von Agassiz – “Oh, the Hillside”

Duluth’s Ingeborg von Agassiz (Emma Rustan) has written an ode to the Duluth Hillside, part of her upcoming debut album O Giver of Dreams, to be released later this winter. Perfect Duluth Day and the Homegrown Music Festival bring you this wintry holiday-time video for the song. It features some of Emma’s music students, and dancers Brianna Hall-Nelson and Amber Burns.

How tall trees feed themselves

A faculty member at the University of Minnesota Duluth’s Biology Department has conducted research on tall trees that has been published in Nature Plants and will be highlighted in the journal Nature. Assistant Professor Jessica Savage has been teaching at UMD for about a year and is the lead author of a paper detailing the process tall trees use to transport sugar or feed themselves.

The article, “Maintenance of Carbohydrate Transport in Tall Trees,” was published today on nature.com. An online subscription is required to fully nerd out and read the work, but a 277-word abstract is available for free.

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