Month: April 2025
Upset Duluth: Famous Kaylee Edition
The latest addition to Perfect Duluth Day’s ongoing “Upset Duluth” series features a true innovator in the field. Kaylee Matuszak flashes her frown in not one, but two photos in the Duluth News Tribune story “Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center to face peak season with skeleton crew.”
Upset Duluth, of course, highlights Duluth News Tribune photos of people who are upset. Usually the photo subjects appear with arms folded or gesturing with their hands in some way, but Matuszak deploys two new techniques: arms behind the back and staring forlornly into the distance. It’s simply exceptional work. Further props to DNT photographer Wyatt Buckner for capturing the displeasure.
Rafe Carlson – “Dirt Road to Heaven”
Hermantown native Rafe Carlson has a new single, “Dirt Road to Heaven.” The song is a tribute to his uncle, Jim Carlson, who died in January from glioblastoma brain cancer. The lyrics are all about hunting, fishing and growing up in northern Minnesota.
Rafe Carlson’s summer tour has him opening for country superstars Riley Green, Jon Pardi, Megan Moroney and more, with numerous stops in Wisconsin and Minnesota throughout May and June, including a performance at Rock the Bayfront in Duluth on June 21.
JamesG – “Winning Hand”
Former Duluthian James Geisler plays the cards he’s dealt in the video for his latest JamesG track, “Winning Hand.”
Homegrown Music Festival 2025 Primer
The 27th annual Homegrown Music Festival is underway. As usual, Perfect Duluth Day presents a rundown of updates, sidebar details and notes of peripheral or unsanctioned interest. (more…)
PDD Quiz: April 2025
Test your knowledge of recent headlines with this month-in-review quiz!
A PDD quiz for the birds soars your way on May 11. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at alisonlinnaemoffat@gmail.com by May 8. (more…)
Lana Del Rey gives Duluth cold props
Last summer Lana Del Rey received the National Music Publishers’ Association Songwriter Icon award in Alice Tully Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. Her acceptance speech included a brief mention of Duluth. (more…)
Footloose monkey afield in Fairmount Park in 1941
Carl Kuchenbecker was apparently responsible for nine primates disappearing into the woods near Kingsbury Creek during his many years as proprietor of The Same Old Place in West Duluth. The story of a “ringtailed monkey” named Bobby landed on the front page of the Duluth Herald on Oct. 18, 1941. (more…)
Postcard from the Same Old Place in West Duluth
This postcard image, touched up a bit from an eBay listing, shows The Same Old Place tourist information center and cabins at Fairmount Park in West Duluth. (more…)
Wolf pack howling into the wintry darkness
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.
Emily Haavik – “If I Were a Ghost”
Duluth native Emily Haavik has a new single, “If I Were a Ghost.” The acoustic video was shot by Charlie Steen.
Emily Haavik & the 35s play at the West Theatre on April 30 as part of the Homegrown Music Festival.
Our Home in West Duluth
This photo is dated April 19, 1910 — 115 years ago today. It shows a house with two adults standing against a wooden fence and a child sitting on the fence. The image is from a postcard with writing indicating the house was in West Duluth. (more…)
The Slice: Warrior Printress
Warrior Printress Letterpress and Design is a Duluth print shop that uses new and old technology. Janelle Miller works a printing press that is more than 100 years old. Stacie Renné stacks letters into a frame one at a time while creating a new piece.
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.
Future of Duluth’s Galley Hop still unknown
Graphic of participating galleries for the 2016 Gallery Hop, including Duluth Art Institute, Siiviiss of Sivertson Gallery, Lake Superior Art Glass, Washington 315 Gallery and others. Photo courtesy of Art for Earth Day Gallery Hop on Facebook.
Five years after the coronavirus pandemic forced the cancellation of what would have been the 30th annual Art for Earth Day Gallery Hop, no plan is in place to bring the event back. But its organizers are still considering some type of reboot. (more…)
Sunshine Cafe gets new life as training space for entrepreneurs
Family Rise Together Executive Director ChaQuana McEntyre stands outside the Sunshine Cafe, 5719 Grand Ave. The social service organization purchased the diner and will remodel it to serve as a food-service industry small-business incubator. (Photo by Lissa Maki)
A shuttered building that once housed a landmark West Duluth cafe won’t reopen with breakfast specials and counter seating but new owners will use the space for a program to train ambitious food entrepreneurs and deliver meals.
St. Louis County records show the former Sunshine Cafe, 5719 Grand Ave., was purchased in December by the Duluth social service organization Family Rise Together for $230,000. The nonprofit started renovations on the historic building this winter and has launched a fundraising campaign to install a state-of-the-art, commercial-grade kitchen inside the space. (more…)
The Many Conveniences of the St. Louis County Jail in 1925
The April 15, 1925 issue of the Duluth Herald featured several photos of the then-new St. Louis County Jail, part of the Duluth Civic Center. The paper called it “a model in jail construction” and compared it to a “first-class hotel.” (more…)
Breanne Marie & the Front Porch Sinners – “Dashboard Dandelion”
Breanne Marie & the Front Porch Sinners have finished recording their next album, Two Trees, which will include the single “Dashboard Dandelion.” The band has Kickstarter campaign underway to raise money for mixing, mastering and releasing the new record.
PDD Quiz: Homegrown 2025
Homegrown is nearly upon us! Study your field guide and test your knowledge of the upcoming 2025 festival!
A quiz reviewing this month’s shenanigans goes live on April 27. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at alisonlinnaemoffat @ gmail.com by April 23. (more…)
What About Today?
Today is the day. The day to do something. To do anything. Because there is no better day than today.
This is the day you think about more than yourself. You think about your family, neighbors, friends, others around the city, and the vulnerable populations who are struggling with such challenges as poverty and being homeless.
And no matter what time it is when you read this, it’s the right moment to respond and get physical. To stand up. To step up. To speak up. If you wait for another time or day, it will be too late.
Too many of us have never felt a greater sense of angst and urgency. With all the disturbing news, it would be very easy and understandable to distance ourselves, to distract ourselves, to even disconnect ourselves from the harsh reality which surrounds us. But we can’t keep closing the door behind us and walking away from what’s happening out there.
This is not just a bad dream or nightmare. It’s definitely more than that. It’s real. It’s painful. It’s inevitable. (more…)
Beautiful day for a bike ride on a 1000 footer
What’s the best way to get around on the 1000-foot Stewart J. Cort? Bicycle, of course. This video was shot in Silver Bay on March 31.
Postcard from Mining on the Range
This undated postcard shows an unidentified mine on Minnesota’s Iron Range, obviously not in Duluth despite what the caption on the front indicates. The card was published by the Souvenir Postcard Company of New York and Berlin.
Sleeping Steel Giants
The Soo Locks, gateway to Lake Superior, opened March 21. The St. Lawrence Seaway’s 67th navigation season officially began March 25. The start of the Great Lakes shipping season is also the end of the period when cargo vessels are docked for maintenance and repairs. This aerial video offers views of the winter layups in Sturgeon Bay, Superior and Duluth.
Arctic Bound: Sailboat Nord Hus arrives in Grand Marais
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. (more…)
Duluth Deep Dive #3: Bob Dylan and the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub
Bob Dylan’s father leads a dance in Duluth, The Duluth Herald, October 28, 1931.
The free, open access, online Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub, supported by recently cut grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, lets you do your own deep dives into genealogy, the history of a home or business, or just about anything that has happened in Duluth or throughout Minnesota. This month’s deep dive shows you how the site works by using Bob Dylan’s Duluth family history as an example. (more…)
Charlie Parr – “On Marrying a Woman with an Uncontrollable Temper”
This video for a track from Charlie Parr‘s 2015 album, Stumpjumper is part one of a two-part visual story produced by Polecat Productions. Actors in the video are Sadie Katz and Lance Lindahl. The video was directed by Lindahl and edited by Adam Jones.