Take flight with this ornithology-adjacent quiz that tests your knowledge of bird-related trivia.
The next PDD quiz, slated for May 25, will recap the month’s headlines. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by May 22.
Etta Glinsek is a junior at the University of Minnesota Duluth majoring in environment sustainability and geography and minoring in environment and outdoor education. She is working toward graduating in spring 2026 and a career in the environmental field.
This semester, Glinsek is taking the class Nature Interpretation. Part of the coursework is to create a plot study, finding an area where the student can study and observe nature. Glinsek has chosen an area in Bagley Nature Area near a stream in hopes that it will create a more diverse environment. Her goal is to help preserve the environment and find a job that will allow her to do it.
The Peatland Pack, the largest pack of wolves in the Voyageurs National Park area, was caught on a trail camera this winter howling in chorus. The main wolf that is standing up howling in the clip is the breeding female of the pack, and three others show up on camera, but the pack is composed of at least nine wolves.
The video is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the ecology of wolves in the park.
The 36-foot sailboat Nord Hus cast off from the Knife River Marina near Two Harbors on March 31 with a crew of four and temperatures hovering around 11 degrees. The first stop on the journey was Grand Marais. Explorers Lonnie Dupre and Pascale Marceau and crew plan to sail the Nord Hus from Grand Marais through the Great Lakes to the St. Lawrence Seaway and follow the Canadian North Shore to Newfoundland, eventually reaching the arctic channel between Elsemere Island and Greenland. The crew will be conducting a variety of scientific observations in collaboration with global partners.
Seth Trobec captured these sounds and scenes looking over Moose Lake, north of Deer River, on May 19, 2023. The video was released on YouTube last week.
Gunflint Lodge owner John Fredrikson plowed what is possibly the largest ice-skating trail in the United States on Gunflint Lake. This video was produced by Matthew Baxley for WTIP North Shore Community Radio.
Please note the video was shot more than a month ago and ice conditions can always change rapidly.
The Duluth Explorers Club is a monthly gathering that highlights experiences and perspectives of local adventurers.
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.
From top to bottom, freshwater sandbars in Lake Eerie, Lake Baikal and our own on Lake Superior. In each image, the red line represents 15 miles. (Images from Google Earth)
The 10-mile combined length of Minnesota and Wisconsin Point is often described as one of the world’s longest natural freshwater sandbars. But which sandbars is it being compared against? This post takes a closer look at the world’s longest sandbars (and includes a Geoguessr challenge of remarkable sandbars around the world).
Dreamland mountain bike trail opened at Spirit Mountain last fall. Two minutes into his October ride, Rob of Rob on Bikes crashed and scratched his GoPro lens, but persevered to pull together a segment with only slightly obscured footage.
From a snowy forest in Voyageurs National Park, about 100 miles north of Duluth, trail camera footage from two weeks ago of two bull moose locking antlers, with a third bull eventually joining in. The video is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the ecology of wolves in the park.
This Duluth avenue is unlikely to be open to car traffic any time soon. (Photo by Matthew James)
Over the past 100 years, the increase in car use has changed the Duluth landscape. Downtown has fewer shoppers walking the streets and traffic is heavy on the roads to the big box stores at the top of the hill. Whole neighborhoods have been torn down to make room for highways. But the particular geography of Duluth has resulted in a number of urban routes open only to people walking (and, for some, also biking). This post takes a closer look at a few of those locations and concludes with a Geoguessr game testing your knowledge of travel routes in Duluth closed to cars.
Carl Holmstrom had the longest ski-jump at Chester Park during the opening event of the 1925 season, held on Jan. 4, 100 years ago today. The newspaper clip above is from the previous day’s edition of the Duluth Herald. Below is the report of the race from the Jan. 5 Herald.
From Wikipedia: “An ice spike is an ice formation, often in the shape of an inverted icicle, that projects upwards from the surface of a body of frozen water. Ice spikes created by natural processes on the surface of small bodies of frozen water have been reported for many decades, although their occurrence is quite rare. … Natural ice spikes can grow into shapes other than a classic spike shape, and have been variously reported as ice candles, ice towers or ice vases as there is no standard nomenclature for these other forms.”
A single trail camera in Voyageurs National Park captured an array of critters from January to May during the mildest winter on record at the park
