Hoaxes – Fake News – Satire – Folklore Posts

I Was Left for Dead at Nopeming Sanatorium in the 1918 Fire

(Excerpts from Scions of Cloquet by Jean-Michel Cloquet, 1946, out of print)

I was left for dead at Nopeming sanatorium in 1918, as the Cloquet-Duluth-Moose Lake fire combined with World War I, tuberculosis, and the influenza pandemic just hitting the northland. I’d brought my tuberculosis home with me from the filthy trenches of the Somme. There wouldn’t be an armistice for a month. Reaching Duluth, I was trucked on the dirt road to Nopeming with other infected veterans, fresh off the hospital ship. There we met citizens suffering from the homegrown TB outbreak traced to sewage in Lake Superior. That’s the Duluth I returned to. I’d barely survived overseas, evading German flamethrowers. Some of my trench-mates weren’t so lucky. Now I was barely surviving even though I was stateside, too sick to be properly shell-shocked from the omnipresent global crisis. So they tucked us away 10 miles outside of town in the forest sanatorium. Its name is Ojibwe for “in the woods.” The woods that burned.

The History of Cloquet, Pierre the Pantsless Voyageur and Duluth’s Missing Vermeer

Excerpts from Scions of Cloquet by Jean-Michel Cloquet (1946, out of print)

“In 1820, when he was 17 years old, the Frenchman Pierre Cloquet boarded a packet ship in Le Havre and sailed across the Atlantic Ocean. He was trying to escape his father, like many of us try to do, perhaps all of us. He just wanted a little peace and quiet. By a certain measure, he found it in the territory eventually known as Minnesota. Pierre (or Grandpère Cloquet as my brother and I refer to him) became a legendary voyageur and fur trader 20 miles southwest of Duluth, trapping, hunting, and occasionally bear-wrestling. Over two decades of working for the American Fur Company, he built his own trading post where metal tools shipped in and beaver pelts shipped out. He gradually adopted native dress, and he married into a Black-Ojibwe family out of Michigan, sought-after guides and translators. And, right around the collapse of the beaver pelt industry in 1843, he inadvertently founded the town of Cloquet.

Duluth’s Lost Township on Chester Creek

Co-written with Allen Richardson

The Duluth Inside Duluth

In 1963, on 14th Avenue East overlooking Chester Creek, seven houses installed their own sewer rather than hook up to the city system. To do so, they took advantage of the experimentation sweeping the nation regarding public services. New forms of neighborhood government had emerged as housing associations. These seven houses applied for a federal grant as an independent municipal corporation. Technically they seceded from Duluth and became an autonomous township inside the city limits.

A democratic sub-society, the citizen-residents named the township “Duluth” by unanimous vote. After all, they felt they should not have to change the name of where they lived; in fact they were the real Duluth. Their right to name themselves was blessed by an appellate court ruling in 1968, hence “the Duluth inside Duluth.”

100 Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan

The Committee for Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan, Duluth’s premier Bob Dylan monuments organization, remains hard at work designing giant colossal statues of Bob Dylan.

Tony Dierckins on Jim Richardson: “Myth-Maker”

About today’s essay, I told editor Paul Lundgren, “I love the April 1 publication date. This essay pulls back the curtain on my hoaxy stories, yet immediately discredits itself with the date. Beautiful!”

On March 31, in conjunction with the Twin Ports Festival of History, Duluth historian Tony Dierckins gave the presentation “Duluth’s Greatest Myths.” I am pleased and proud he included my Perfect Duluth Day writing in a brief mention. He was kind enough to share the slides, below. They list some of my efforts and I have annotated them.

As I told Tony, I draw a distinction between my fiction and my myth-making “essays.” Both are set in Duluth. But for instance “The Alworth Incident” presents as non-fiction, but quickly reveals itself to be a screwball superhero origin story. Maybe it could become a rumor, but it is not designed to be believed per se. However my “myth-making” material, such as Lake Inferior: The Underground Lake Beneath Lake Superior, is specifically designed to live on as urban legend. These myths have “tells” but readers may miss them. Also, I have tailored the stories so Duluthians want them to be true. Lundgren called them “Duluth fan fiction,” naming the new genre. Allowing me to publish them as “essays” aided the crime. They were also tagged as “Hoaxes – Fake News – Satire – Folklore.”

Press releases supporting Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan

The Committee for Building Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan is pleased about the following press releases from the Building Trades and Essential Health:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MN Trades and Building Council Endorses Plan to Build 12 Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan

[Duluth, MN] – The Minnesota Trades and Building Council (MTBC) is proud to announce its full support for the construction of 12 giant colossal statues of Bob Dylan.

The MTBC believes that this project will bring significant economic benefits to the local community, and we look forward to working with the Committee for Building Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan to make this project a reality.

Giant Colossal Bob Dylan Statue Finalists

Location: The horizon, in the shipping lanes. Material: Reinforced treated concrete with steel superstructure. Height (above the waterline): 300 feet. Ships will have to navigate around this stunning monument.

The Committee for Building Giant Colossal Statues of Bob Dylan (formerly the Committee for Building a Giant Colossal Statue of Bob Dylan) is pleased to announce its 12 finalists! Thanks to a generous anonymous donation, ALL of the statues in this post will be built in the next five years. Thank you to our state regulators who approved this project, and congratulations, Duluth!

The Committee for Building a Giant Colossal Statue of Bob Dylan

Proposal: Building a Giant Colossal Statue of Bob Dylan in Lake Superior by Duluth’s Aerial Lift Bridge Canal.

Three academic papers on Duluth and the lost Confederate gold

The Hillside Irregulars. Clockwise from lower left: Buckminster Wilde, Fancypants Nettleton, Henri Enragé Cloquet, Babyface Bong

The Stolen Lost Confederate Gold: A Historical Analysis of Duluth, Minnesota’s Development

Abstract: This paper explores the historical claim that Duluth, Minnesota was built using stolen lost Confederate gold. Through a critical analysis of primary and secondary sources, including the research of historian Peter S. Svenson, this paper argues that the city’s development was aided by the illicit acquisition of gold by Union agents during the American Civil War. Specifically, this paper examines the role of Duluth native Buckminster Wilde and the Hillside Irregulars as Union assassins behind enemy lines, as well as the involvement of key figures such as Walt Whitman, the Pinkerton detective agency, and financier Jay Cooke.

Obituary of Peter S. Svenson, Minnesota’s Rogue Historian

August 23rd 1947-January 24th(?) 2022. The historian Peter Sven Svenson died without heirs sometime last week according to his autopsy. He will be buried in Forest Hills cemetery in Duluth after the spring thaw. Speaking as one of his only friends, I have penned this obituary.

A document hoarder, Svenson was practically the state’s analog back-up brain for decades, and its conscience.

He was a popular history professor at UMD from 1973-2002. However, he tussled with the university over the legitimacy of his sources. Then they disavowed his work altogether when issues arose about his statistical analyses. Under pressure, he took early retirement, but sued the university for defamation. He lost.

Svenson went on to self-publish books, monographs, and articles, but struggled to find a paying audience. His most important work was produced during this period. Being his friend enabled my access to his research and unpublished manuscripts.

“What About the Legend of the Underwater Lake?”

This informative article refers to the “legend” of Lake Inferior, which originated here at Perfect Duluth Day with my 5/8/21 Saturday Essay, “Lake Inferior: the Underground Lake Beneath Lake Superior.” From a blog post to legend in less than two years — oh, internet! The informative article summarizes the “legend,” linking to the PDD Saturday Essay as the source, which is repeated in a second article seemingly plagiarizing the first:

The Fur-bearing Trout of Lake Superior

From the Museum of the Weird in Austin, Texas.

Fur Bearing Trout
Very Rare
Caught while trolling in Lake Superior off Gros Cap, near Sault Ste. Marie, District of Algoma.
It is believed that the great depth and the extreme penetrating coldness of the weather in which these fish live have caused them to grow their dense coat of (usually) white fur.
Mounted by Ross C. Jobe, Taxidermist of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario

Duluth’s Granny: Nazi Sub Hunter

August 8, 1945. Duluth, Minn. Heavy with depth charges and a crew of four, the B-25 bomber Beach Baby grumbles off the dusty airfield into the sky on routine sub patrol. The pilot, a Jewish kid from St. Paul, heads into the sun over gleaming Lake Superior. He is the oldest aboard at 22. Light moves around the cabin. The shore drops away and open blue water comes into view all around.

The tail gunner, a mook from Milwaukee, pipes up on the com: “Everybody knows there ain’t no Nazi subs in the Great Lakes. Hitler’s been dead three months.”

“Tell that to Granny down there,” the pilot says, “War’s not over.”

They spy the fishing boat to starboard and the zig-zag black-and-white lines of its weird paint job. The navigator speaks with his Michigan accent:

“She’s doing up here what Hemingway’s doing in the Caribbean: hunting for U-boats at the bottom of a whiskey glass.”

The side gunner laughs like the North Dakota yahoo that he is. “Well what do you expect, she’s from Duluth.” Now they’re all laughing.

Johnny Depp – Amber Heard Trial vs. Ukraine War: A Mashup

Judge Azcarate agrees to a last-minute venue change and the Johnny Depp v. Amber Heard defamation trial moves to Ukraine. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard get in Russian T-90 tanks spray-painted with “Z”s to fight each other. One is in a Russian tank, and the other one is in a Russian tank appropriated by Ukraine. No one knows which is which. The celebrities pursue each other shooting high explosive rounds from the 125 mm smooth-bore tank guns. Their “cope cages” and reactive armor spectacularly fail. The roads clog with burned-out tanks as the battle takes longer than legal analysts expected.

Bogged down in the countryside by the infamous Ukrainian mud, the venue changes again. Johnny Depp and Amber Heard pursue each other through the bowels of the sprawling steel plant complex at Mariupol, on the north coast of the Sea of Azov. Miles of tunnels under the plant conceal what really happened in the fog of war. All we know is they are both actors on the destabilizing world stage, cogs in a grinding apocalypse.

Johnny Depp and Amber Heard level each other’s cities in a great humanitarian crisis. Threats of a Johnny Depp chemical weapons attack haunt Amber Heard who puts on an aging gas mask and thinks, “This might be it” as she rushes into the fight. But the threats were a bluff: Johnny Depp has snorted all the nerve gas.

Zeppelins Over Duluth

From the book The First Time Germany Invaded Duluth, Minnesota by Peter S. Svenson:

“July 1, 1917: The Weltanshauung, a German hydrogen war-zeppelin, lost power over Bavaria. Captured by the wind, for the next two weeks it blew north across Europe and then the Arctic Circle. The furious crew tried fixing the engines but never succeeded. Technically, they set the World Record for the first arctic crossing by air, a feat later repeated by Shackleton.”

From “Zeppelins Over Duluth!” Duluth Herald, July 16, 1917:

“The Weltanshauung contained an internal airplane hangar with six black tri-planes that emerged from the nose of the craft like hornets. A Canadian fighter squadron looked for the zeppelin over Lake Erie and almost collided with it in the dark. It was a cliff face hanging in the sky, dwarfing them with the black-cross-on-white symbol of the German Air Force. But the Canadians lost it in confusion and fear. Soon a lake steamer spotted it drifting within sight of the North Shore of Lake Superior, toward Duluth. The authorities mobilized the American helium zeppelin, the Federalist, from its floating hangar in the Duluth harbor.

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