Thunder Bay, Canada. Photo based on an interpretation of aerial imagery by Microsoft Flight Simulator.
The last of the sister cities in this series is the first. Thunder Bay was the original sister city of Duluth, a relationship that formally began in 1980. While the Twin Ports is the largest metropolitan area on Lake Superior, Thunder Bay is the largest city, with a population of 110,000.
Some Duluthians think Bob Dylan hates Duluth and Minnesota. What has Bob Dylan actually said?
I’d heard rumors Dylan was a Duluth hater, but then I read the liner notes to his 1974 album Planet Waves, where he wrote: “Duluth! Duluth — where Baudelaire Lived/& Goya cashed in his Chips, where Joshua brought/the house down!” These are not the words of someone who hates Duluth. These words lionize the city in terms of literature and mythology. A song on the album mentions Duluth too. From “Something There is About You“: “Thought I’d shaken the wonder/And the phantoms of my youth/Rainy days on the great lakes/Walkin’ the hills of old Duluth.” Duluth as a city of wonder and phantoms: who among us cannot relate?
Growing up in Hibbing, Dylan had family in Duluth and Superior. As a teen he went to Minneapolis more and more, and that became his jumping-off point to the world. But the Northland never left him. From his autobiography Chronicles, Volume One (2004 edition), one reads many references to Duluth, Hibbing, Minneapolis, and Minnesota as a whole.
This year was the third in row that I lugged my heavy camera around during the Homegrown Music Festival and attempted to be a photographer. Above are the 86 best photos I could muster.
“The Seal Cannot Be Past the Door” is the third release from the new Dirty Knobs album, Songs About Everything Dying Around Us, Including Us.
Siggy’s Musical Garden is presenting the third annual Make Music Day in Superior on June 21, the day of the year with the most daylight. The goal of the event is for “every kind of musician — young and old, amateur and professional, of every musical persuasion” to set up on “streets, parks, plazas and porches to share their music with friends, neighbors and strangers.” The open call application for musicians is online at makemusicday.org/superior.
Versions of Make Music Day take place all over the world. Last year Superior had about 40 musical acts performing mostly outdoors.
Duluth native Rachael Kilgour visited The Current studio for a session hosted by Radio Heartland’s Mike Pengra. She played three songs from her 2023 album My Father Loved Me, including the track featured here, “Ontario.”
University of Minnesota Duluth alumni Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence spoke to students in the Writing Studies major in April. Hafdahl and Florence offered tips, tricks and profound insights into the publishing process.
This 1964 newspaper clipping, for sale on eBay, shows Duluth television newscasters Walt Jensen and Don Wright at the WDSM-TV anchor desk.
WDSM was Duluth’s first VHF television station, launching in black and white on March 1, 1954. Color broadcasts started in 1965. In 1974 the call letters were changed to KBJR.
Cloud Cult has returned with a new single, “I Am a Force Field.” The video was directed by Jeff D. Johnson of Motion 117 Productions.
The new song, written in the solitude of a tiny cabin studio-on-wheels in the middle of the Wisconsin woods, “is about facing our anxieties and inner shadows,” according to bandleader Craig Minowa. Cloud Cult will be releasing a single each month until the release of the band’s 11th studio album in August. A late-summer tour includes shows in Yuba, Wisconsin and St. Paul, Minnesota.
Luke Moravec explains how his one-man band, Zeb or Zeke and the Run Away Screamings, was named.
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.
Local and worldwide authors attended the celebration of the Nemadji Review. The 13th issue is titled “The 13th Floor.”
Tina Higgins Wussow, one of many local luminaries, read during the event.
Northern Lights on the shore of Lake Superior at Glensheen Mansion. (Photo by Mike Mayou)
A startlingly strong Northern Lights show was visible across the United States this weekend, viewable from even the Florida Keys. Instagram is brimming with spectacular shots from in and around Duluth thanks to this solar storm.
Saturday, the owner of Rogue Robot Games & Comics led a free class in figure painting at the Duluth Public Library.
In the past two weeks a pair of videos have been released for the Charlie Parr song “Boombox.” Above is the “official” version, directed and animated by Kev Craven. Below is an alternate version, shot and edited by Adam Jones and starring William Silbey. The song is from Parr’s recently released
18th album, Little Sun.
Saturday was National Train Day. The Depot was hopping, and I loved it. Picture of a very cool train set below.
