Duluth - City on a Lake

Continuing our tour of the upper great lakes, after leaving Minneapolis we drove north to Duluth. Duluth sits on the western edge of Lake Superior and was an important stop for shipping, especially in the early and mid 20th century. Lots of iron mining occurred in northern Minnesota to support the war effort and the relics of the port infrastructure are still visible today. In more recent years, only a few ships come into port per day.

Along the way to Duluth, we saw some weird signs saying "pie day." Of course we had to investigate, and we stumbled across a pie festival in Braham, Minnesota. Apparently it's the "home-made pie capital" of the state. We stopped for a bit and had some pie and cheese curds.

Pie Day!

Even the street signs have pies on them.

This girl was not happy David tried to steal her pie.

The Braham Fire Department is a BFD.

There was surprisingly little pie at the pie festival, but we found some.

mmmm. Pie!

This is the selection of cheese curds at a gas station.

After the excitement of the pie festival, we hit the road to make it up to Duluth before sunset. Coming into the area over some hills on I-35, there's a panoramic view of St. Louis Bay, Spirit Lake, and Clough Island. We continued on and drove through - or rather, under downtown.

In the 1950s, at the height of the American road-building craze, an interstate was proposed that would be elevated and run right next to downtown Duluth along the shores of Lake Superior. It would have separated the city from the lakefront, and would have required the demolition of several historic buildings. Luckily, before the road could be built, the citizens of Duluth mobilized against it. A compromise was reached to bury or cap most of the highway and top it with a series of parks. It was completed in the early 1990s. It's still disruptive, and it's not clear why the highway was even needed in the first place leading to an area this sparsely populated, but it does provide some green space. It's bizarre to think of the mindset in the 1950s that destroyed so much of American cities to build massive highways. At least Duluth survived mostly intact.

At the end of I-35 (yes, just after Duluth, the interstate to nowhere ends), we took a quick jaunt up US-61 to see some of the Lake Superior shoreline at sunset, then returned to the city for dinner at Fitger's brewery. Fitger's started brewing beer in 1881, and the lakefront building is on the National Register of Historic Places.

The view of the hills coming into Duluth

Lake Superior from scenic highway 61.

A beer flight at Fitger's.

We had some poutine made with tater tots!

The next day, we had the full day to explore Duluth. We did a lot of walking, some driving, and even some boating. We started with a morning boat tour of the harbor and lake. Duluth is a charming little city, and very popular with tourists. It stretches out along the lakefront with forested hills rising behind it. The land slopes upward from Lake Superior, so it's quite hilly. It's almost reminiscent of Norwegian fjord towns that hug the seashore while mountains rise behind. Downtown has some historic buildings, but also some seedy areas and quite a few parking lots and underutilized land. The lakefront is where most of the tourists concentrate, and there are quite a few restaurants, museums, and other attractions lining the lake. It can be tacky at times, but the natural beauty of the lake combined with the aging shipping infrastructure is unique. The downtown is separated a bit from the lakefront because of railroad tracks and the highway, but there are plenty of pedestrian bridges and stairs linking the two areas.

On the tour boat getting ready to pass under the Aerial Lift Bridge. It's an icon of Duluth.

The roadway on the bridge lifts straight up and down, allowing ships to pass from Lake Superior to the harbor and river.

Lighthouse guarding the lift bridge. The bridge lifts about once every 30 minutes, mostly to let through tour boats and recreational boats. A freighter or two still passes through every day.

View of Duluth from Lake Superior. Downtown is long and narrow, following the lakefront.

Thomas the train conducts the scenic Duluth railroad. A teenager on our boat was not impressed. (ugh teenagers)

Our boat tour went through the still active harbor and port. Here are some tugboats and giant wind turbine parts.

Passing under the I-535 bridge.

A giant freighter being loaded.

An Exhibit on the Edmund Fitzgerald at the Lake Superior Maritime Center.

We had lunch and beer at Canal Park Brewery.

Our morning boat tour was a good introduction to the layout of the city and port. We walked a bit on the nice (and popular) lakewalk before driving up to Spirit Mountain, Enger park and tower, and back to downtown to explore a bit more.

Spirit Mountain has an alpine coaster!

The view from Enger tower, dedicated by Prince Olav and Princess Märtha of Norway in 1939.

A nice Japanese garden at Enger park. The bell is from Duluth's sister city Ohara.

Downtown Duluth.

Paul bought a local beer and then took this picture of it.

A fun little fountain near the Duluth lakewalk.

Path to 12th street beach.

The Lakewalk was extremely popular!

Downtown Duluth.

The rose garden at Leif Erickson Park. This was a beautiful park built over the buried highway. It was a great place to play Pokemon Go as well! (gotta catch 'em all!)

Lake Superior selfie!

David got pretty good at skipping stones.

I think we found the reason we saw so many morbidly obese people in Northern Minnesota.

We really had no expectations for Duluth but were really pleasantly surprised. The town has lots of parks, a great waterfront, good food/beer and nice people. Duluth is a nice summer vacation destination if you happen to live in this region of the nation. We had a day and a half, and that was about the right amount of time. Up next on our tour - the upper peninsula of Michigan.