Outdoors
Lake Superior Aquaman in internal St. Louis County weekly news recap
Someone sent this along.
Duluth Rock-Skipping Contest Recap
Duluth skipped its way toward competing internationally yesterday at the inaugural People’s Free Rock-Skipping Contest. (more…)
Duluth rock-skipping takes rightful place as greatest thing ever
With Duluth’s natural renewable bounty of perfect skipping rocks, the time is now to claim the mantle of one of the top rock-skipping destinations in the world. I propose a Duluth League that plays by its own rules, owing to our iconoclastic position as Outdoor Adventure Capital of the United States. Envision a day when Duluth’s rock-skipping force fans out over the globe to win championships and decimate festivals. Tomorrow (Saturday July 13, 2PM Leif Erikson Park) will usher in such an age. A Facebook comment about the contest said, “I remember a rock-skipping contest in Duluth in the 1950s.” It’s revealing of Duluth’s decades-long funk that this never blossomed into an annual contest, or festival, in the intervening 70 years. By comparison, look at what the Michiganders of Mackinac Island have going: they just had the 51st Annual Stone Skipping Competition and the Governor comes and skips the first stone. If Duluth had kept its 1950s contest going, we’d be ahead of Mackinac Island by 20 years… (more…)
Announcing the People’s Free Rock-Skipping Contest
This Saturday, July 13, 2PM, Leif Erikson Park beach. Prizes are gift certificates etc. donated from local businesses (Pizza Luce, Vikre Distillery, Hoops Brewing, Sir Ben’s, Global Village, Whole Foods Co-op, Duluth Coffee Company). If the weather turns on us we will reschedule, but it’s supposed to be full sun and little-to-no wind, which is critical for great rock-skipping. From the folks behind the People’s Free Skate, this is the first of what must become an ongoing rock-skipping festival, either annually or more, a lifestyle choice. Aren’t we having informal rock-skipping contests all summer anyway? All I know is, Lake Superior produces truly great skipping rocks, and Duluth deserves to be known as The Rock-Skipping Capitol of the World. Read on for contest rules!
Lake patrol continues
Working closely with the Sheriff to keep y’all safe over the past few days.
Forty-three Seconds at Holyoke Park
Holyoke Park is a small community park in Holyoke Township, about 20 miles southwest of Duluth. The Net River runs through it.
The True Story of My High Seas Encounter with the Sheriff
The lake was calm and warm with a mild breeze blowing inland. I put out in Floyd, my patrol flamingo, and went upshore via flipper power. Then I drifted back toward town on the prevailing breeze. (more…)
Got Pulled Over Today
I can’t drive 55
A People’s Free Skate gem by Johnny of the Northwoods
Recorded at this past winter’s #peoplesfreeskate, in response to DNT reporters prompting him. Just getting this off my phone now. Cast your mind back to blessed February.
Selective Focus: Leif Erikson Park
Select Instagram images of Leif Erikson Park. (more…)
Video: Duluth Great Horned Owl Twins
Duluth birder Richard Hoeg captured this video of twin great horned owls in the Lester Park area. On his 365 Days of Birds blog, Hoeg named the parent owls Les and Amy, after Lester River and Amity Creek. Hoeg wrote that the happy owl couple started dating last fall and would often sing back and forth, sometimes in his yard. “Over the course of the winter the relationship grew stronger,” according to Hoeg, “and the couple cemented the bond in early March!”
North Country Trail in Wisconsin: Crossing the Border
This is the third chapter in my quest to hike the North Country Trail across Wisconsin, but logistically it probably should be the first. As I’ve explained in previous chapters, the Superior Hiking Trail in Minnesota and the North Country Trail in Wisconsin aren’t properly connected yet at the border. The best thing a purist can do to fill the gap is hike on Minnesota State Highway 23 and a pair of county roads to get to a trailhead. So that’s what I did. Because I’m an annoying purist. Sort of.
It’s not so much that I’m determined to be annoying and pure. There are basically three reasons I wanted to hike on the roadways. 1) I know from experience that having a somewhat methodical goal inspires me to stay active. 2) If the pieces don’t all connect, it’s easy to lose track of where I’m at in the process, thereby thwarting reason #1. 3) Hiking on a trail in May is less fun anyway because of mud and ticks, so roads might be the best option anyway. (And if I were a true purist I’d strap on a backpack and hike across the whole state in a few days instead of breaking it up into numerous easy hikes.)
With all that in mind I parked my car on the side of Highway 23 near the Wild Valley Road sign and set out to connect my Superior Hiking Trail adventures to my fall 2018 North Country Trail hike at Nemadji River Valley. (more…)
PDD Quiz: Parks of Duluth
Now that spring has (maybe) sprung, Duluth’s many parks and green spaces are beckoning. Take this week’s quiz to learn more about parks located in neighborhoods from Central Hillside to Congdon Park. While an earlier PDD quiz explored parks on the western side of town, it’s no longer available because the platform supporting the quiz changed, so we’ll revisit western parks and other neighborhood parks in future PDD quizzes.
Duluth’s Historical Parks: Their First 160 Years, by Tony Dierckins and Nancy S. Nelson, was an invaluable resource for this quiz (as was Dierckins’ Zenith City Online).
The next quiz, reviewing current events, will be published on May 26. Please email question suggestions to Alison Moffat at aklawite@d.umn.edu by May 23. (more…)
Shooting with Sparky: Greater Prairie Chickens
Mark “Sparky” Stensaas visits Tympanuchus Wildlife Management Area, about 230 miles west of Duluth, observing greater prairie chickens for his blog, the Photonaturalist.
A People’s History of the People’s Free Skate
Hear the totally true story of the People’s Free Skate Rink from its creators: Lake Superior Aquaman and Robot Rickshaw interviewed by Ryan Welles on his podcast “True Stories and Other Damage.” Featuring the genesis of it, all the behind the scenes information, anecdotes, and a few extravagant claims, finishing up with the harrowing account of our iceberg ride.
First Tick of the Year: 2019 Edition
It’s a bit of a tradition on Perfect Duluth Day to note the discovery of the first tick of the season. PDD’s tech director, Cory Fechner, supplied the video above of a wood tick he discovered today in far western Minnesota. We should be hearing soon about the first Duluth tick of the season.
Some years they show up as early as March. And sometimes they stick around into October. Mostly it’s a May/June problem.
Shooting with Sparky: Canada Lynx Jinx Broken
Sparky Stensaas had a rare Canada Lynx encounter in the Superior National Forest in northeastern Minnesota on March 21.
“As I came over a rise, there it was,” Stensaas wrote on his blog, the Photonaturalist. “It saw me and bounded off the road and into the 3-foot deep snow. I stayed put thinking that it might come my way via the pine woods. And after a few tense minutes of me second-guessing my intuition, it did!”
Annual reminder: Stay off muddy trails in spring
Duluth’s Parks and Recreation Division has put forth its annual reminder that all natural-surface trails are closed until further notice due to wet soil conditions from the annual spring thaw.
So, where should people hike in April? (more…)
Iceberg Ride
Robot Rickshaw and I sailed into our imagination on an iceberg, a doomed expedition worthy of Shackleton. Do not attempt. We selected a vessel and set sail from the Lakewalk around the Va Bene area. The wind was at our backs as we navigated down the shore past Fitger’s, where we disembarked just as our vessel began losing seaworthiness. We had sailed approximately 500 feet. However the real journey was into the depths of the human heart. Do we in fact have missing time as we suppose? Did we sail into a mist and live on the Isle of Avalon for untold years, before charting a course back to our day-to-day lives?
Game Changer: A Watershed Moment
Duluth-based Blue Forest Films produced this short feature about Alyssa Nelson’s transition from UMD Bulldogs athletics to fly fishing and nature education. Game Changer was screened last weekend during the Great Water Fly Fishing Expo at Hamline University in St. Paul.
Another Blue Forest Films production, Bigotry to Brook Trout, screens on Friday in Duluth during the Watershed Arts & Film Fest.
Tons of People’s Free Skate Rink Freakout Footage
Video by Lane R. Ellis