PDD Quiz: Northland Bakeries
This edition of the PDD quiz celebrates the season of gluttony with a look at local bakeries. Indulge your sweet tooth and check it out!
The next PDD quiz, on this month’s local headlines, will be published on Nov. 25. Please email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at [email protected] by Nov. 21. (more…)
North Country Trail in Wisconsin: Nemadji River Valley
If you’ve ever hiked Minnesota’s Superior Hiking Trail to the Wisconsin border you know the trail ends there, but doesn’t really end there. Despite a sign on a tree that reads “Southern Terminus of SHT” and a separate post sticking out of the ground that reads “Not a trail,” there is clearly a trail there leading into Wisconsin. But it doesn’t go far.
The rest of the text on the terminus sign explains: “Spur trail from here to be built by North Country Trail to a parking lot in WI. Trail now dead-ends ahead.”
I explained all that 17 months ago in a Saturday Essay titled: “North Country Trail: Wood Tick Flats,” which was the first report on my quest to hike the North Country Trail across Wisconsin. That summer I covered exactly zero miles on the trail, which is not a great start to a 200-mile journey. If you read that first North Country Trail essay from June 2017 you know I didn’t hike on the trail that day because the grass was long and loaded with ticks. So I waited and saved the hike for a day with more favorable conditions … 17 months later.
What I lack in ambition I make up for with tenacity, right? My motto is: “Never quit. Take a nap and try again later when you feel more up to it.” (more…)
If you’re a grandma in Duluth …
We missed it in 2015, but here’s a belated clip of Lance Armstrong on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast dropping a reference to Duluth.
Selective Focus: Richard C. Johnson
This week, photographer Richard C. Johnson tells how he looks for and catalogs special locations to come back to with his camera, how and why he has switched between ways of making images, and the advantages of Flickr over Instagram.
RCJ: I have lived and worked as an artist in Duluth for more than 35 years. My education and training as an artist was in both printmaking and photography. I have always thought of myself as first and foremost a photographer, even through those times I was not actively photographing. In the latter half of the 1980s, I found myself without access to a viable darkroom, and was living in a house that had no suitable place to build one. I spent a few years working with collage, mixed media, and assemblages, with varying degrees of success. In 1992 I purchased a Mac computer along with a flatbed scanner. For the next 8 years I worked exclusively within the realm of digital montage. When I did photograph, it was to make images to be part of a montage, not as singular works in themselves. By the turn of the century, 2000-’01, I felt a bit burned out with this work, spending too much time in front of a computer, and living too much in my head. I felt that what I needed was to return to photography, and reconnect with the world. (more…)
Ingeborg von Agassiz – “I’ll Do it When I Feel Like It”
An ode to procrastination by Duluth’s Ingeborg von Agassiz.
Mystery Photo #77: Passenger Boat arriving in Duluth
Date unknown. Photographer unknown. Name of vessel unknown.
Ready? Set? Go!
Duluth 2018 General Election Results
With 4.113 of 4,113 precincts reporting statewide, below are the results for races relevant to Duluth.
FEDERAL OFFICES
United States Senator
Amy Klobuchar – 1,566,015 | 60.30%
Jim Newberger – 940,454 | 36.21%
Dennis Schuller – 66,264 | 2.55%
Paula M. Overby – 23,150 | 0.89%
Write in – 994 | 0.04%
United States Senator (special election to fill two-year term)
Tina Smith – 1,370,375 | 52.97%
Karin Housley – 1,095,777 | 42.35%
Sarah Wellington – 95,634 | 3.7%
Jerry Trooien – 24,369 | 0.94%
Write in – 1,165 | 0.05%
United States Representative, Minnesota District 8
Pete Stauber – 159,388 | 50.71%
Joe Radinovich – 141,972 | 45.17%
Ray “Skip” Sandman – 12,768 | 4.06%
Write in – 178 | 0.06%
(more…)
Flight of the Northern Goshawk
Sparky Stensaas captured a few Northern Goshawks in flight at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth in October.
Duluth Cider opening Nov. 14
Valerie and Jake Scott announced today that Duluth Cider will open Nov. 14. It’s Duluth first cider production facility. Six ciders will be on tap at the opening. Flights of four sample pours will be available, as well as take-home growlers.
For more info on Duluth Cider, visit PDD’s previous story on the subject: “Craft cider coming soon to Duluth.”
Thai restaurant changes name and ownership, stays in family
Thai by Thai restaurant owner Supannee Stamm
After 19 years as a restaurateur, Sumlee Beede has passed her Sala Thai restaurant on to her younger sister Supannee Stamm. The eatery at 114 W. First St. in Downtown Duluth was renamed Thai by Thai on Sept. 1. (more…)
Ingeborg von Agassiz – “November”
Another spontaneous little ditty from Duluth’s Ingeborg von Agassiz.
Keep Duluth Skies Dark
Some Duluth residents and business owners feel bright-white LED lights harm humans and wildlife interfere with the ability to view starry night skies. They’ve set up a website at citylightsstarrynights.com.
Charles O. Nelson’s Coffee-Boiler
Duluthian Charles O. Nelson — presumably the same Charles O. Nelson referenced in a PDD story about the West End Furniture Row — filed for and was granted a patent for a “Coffee-boiler” in 1901. The text of the claim is below. (more…)
Lincoln Park craft district booms; West End furniture row dies
Robert’s Home Furnishings owner Bob Rothenberger and longtime associate Rick Lowney stand at the counter inside the Lincoln Park store. Rothenberger has worked in the neighborhood for almost 50 years and recently retired, closing the store.Before Lincoln Park became a craft district lined with trendy breweries, colorful boutiques and new restaurants it was called the West End — where furniture was king and Duluthians shopped for sofas, beds and dining room tables. Those days are pretty much over. (more…)
Video Archive: Duluth Election 2008
It was ten years ago today — Nov. 4, 2008 — that Barack Obama was elected to his first term as President of the United States. Obama took nearly 53 percent of the popular vote nationwide; in Duluth he hauled in more than 68 percent. Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidates swept every 2008 contest in Duluth. (more…)
Boys
I’m done. In a little more than a month I’m going to stop hanging out with men who mistreat women. Kind of.
Let me try to speak more precisely: after the next few weeks are up I will still be spending a lot of online and IRL time — pretty much every day — among boys and men who, most often without realizing it, expect girls’ and women’s deference, use whatever level of force is necessary to ensure it, and punish girls and women who defy those normative expectations. When I say “normative expectations” I mean that the dominant social and cultural expectation for girls and women to please boys and men is so normal that it seldom gets questioned because it rarely really even gets noticed. It just is. It’s always there, whether we’re conscious of it or not, like oxygen. It permeates. It’s definitive. It defines our culture to such an inherent degree that folks who dare to name it look crazy to everyone but each other. Folks who publicly question or defy it on the regular court repercussions along a continuum more broad and real than you might realize.
None of that stuff is going to change in a few weeks. (more…)
Selective Focus: Hilltopper 6
Students at Marshall school have been launching a weather balloon equipped with a camera and data gathering equipment since 2013. This year a larger balloon went higher than ever, and collected more data and 360 videos. The extra boost came from assistance from Trail Genius, a company that maps and provides data to trail-based events and clubs. Marshall science teacher David Johnson fills us in on the project.
DJ: I met Jason at the Birkie where I carried his camera so that he could make a Trail Genius map about the Birkie Trail like he did for Hilltopper 6.
After hearing about our ballooning project, Jason offered up his camera and expertise to help us film the flight in 360 degree video. What he did for us is so much more than I ever could imagined, he has given so much of himself to this project. (more…)
Low – “Always Trying to Work it Out”
Low teams up with director Phil Harder again for this video from the new album “Double Negative.”
The video was shot at the Hillside Whole Foods Co-op.
(more…)
Grand Avenue Nordic Center trail opening soon
(Photo courtesy of Spirit Mountain)
Eric Chandler reports on his Shmotown blog that Duluth’s first cross-country trail system with snowmaking capability is expected to open in December. (more…)
Lizzie Naganab’s Glowing Grave
The “old” cemetery off Reservation Road northwest of Cloquet.
This book sparked a search into a Cloquet mystery from 87 years ago.
I’m not sure how I acquired the book, but there it sat, on the passenger seat of my car as I drove up Reservation Road northwest of Cloquet. There are some things you wish you could unsee — because a history buff like me wants all the facts. Alas, those facts can be elusive, especially so many years from an event. This was the case with a strange little entry in Six Feet Under: A Graveyard Guide to Minnesota.
I’m not into the morbid route to history that this little guide offers. That was my mother. She had dozens of books along the lines of “Wisconsin Death Trip,” “Hollywood Book of the Dead” or “Myths and Mysteries: Strange Stories of the Dead” on her shelves. Morbidly, she died earlier this year and perhaps that is how this book floated into my stacks. She redeemed herself in recent years by ditching the stories of others and digging into her own family history, a genealogy I greatly appreciate today. (more…)
Ingeborg von Agassiz – “O Giver of Dreams”
The video for the title track of Duluth musician Ingeborg von Agassiz‘ debut album features footage from the 1933 animated film The Mascot by Ladislas Starevich.
Josh Musikantow – “Duluth 99”
Chicago-born composer Joshua Musikantow references Duluth on three tracks of his 2006 new-classical album Etched in Twilight and Other Works. Above is “Duluth 99: In the Garden with Mary.” Below are “Duluth 99: Rope” and “Duluth 99: Haiku.”
Musikantow notes “Duluth 99” is “a duet for flute and percussion consisting of three movements, each inspired by a different personal experience in Duluth.” (more…)
Winery provides another reason to visit North Shore
Photo by Lissa Maki
With its rugged terrain and sometimes unforgiving climate, Lake Superior’s north shore seems like an unlikely place for a winery. But that didn’t deter wine connoisseurs Chuck and Kim Corliss from founding North Shore Winery near the base of Lutsen Mountains in 2015. (more…)
Jerree Small and Marc Gartman sing the Beatles’ “Don’t Let Me Down” at Sir Ben’s
Forgive the bar noise. Summer 2018