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
Lane Ellis presents this GoPro 10 time-lapse video showing most of his recent 43-mile west-to-east mountain bike ride on the Duluth Traverse, ending at Lester Park during the Lester River Rendezvous.
The Voyageurs Wolf Project posted trail-camera video one month ago showing a “wolf-dog like animal wandering forests of northern Minnesota.” The scenes were captured last winter and the release of the video garnered considerable media attention — with some organizations offering competent reporting and others maybe more focused on a clickbait headline than careful attention to detail. A new version of the video, embedded above, pokes fun at some headlines that emerged after the initial video was released.
The lower falls of Chester Creek. (Photo by Matthew James)
Forty-two named streams run through the Duluth metropolitan area, from Mission Creek in West Duluth to the Lester River on the eastern edge of the city. This Geoguessr challenge looks at photospheres from five of the creeks within the Duluth Urban Watershed.
The wolves of Voyageurs National Park have a new hit single, captured during a live performance last winter. The two segments of this video offer sights and sounds of the howlin’ Minnesota wolves.
This trail-camera footage is from the Voyageurs Wolf Project, which is focused on understanding the summer ecology of wolves in the park.
Dive into this edition of the PDD Quiz, which tests knowledge of local beach (and beach-adjacent) trivia.
The next PDD quiz, scheduled for July 28, will look back at this month’s headlines. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by July 24.
This video ran on a loop at the Duluth Art Institute’s “Water Works” show June 20 to Aug. 25, 2013. It hadn’t made it to the internet yet.
