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.
A Creative Journey: Oddio Nib
“Three,” 18×24-inch acrylic on canvas.
Oddio Nib began making his mark on the Duluth art scene in the early 1980s with paintings representing a diverse array of styles. His profusion of work includes hundreds of images, and in the coming months, the Duluth community will have the opportunity to view an extensive retrospective. (more…)
Postcard from Along the Rocky Shores of Isle Royale
This undated postcard, published by E. C. Kropp Company, shows a rocky shore at Isle Royale, about 150 miles northeast of Duluth. The fourth-largest lake island in the world was established by President Franklin D. Roosevelt as a National Park on April 3, 1940 — 85 years ago today. (more…)
The Slice: Connecting Threads
Abstract artist Mary Mathews has an exhibition of original, contemporary quilts on display at Duluth Pottery until the end of May.
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.
Fun with Google AI Overview
Google search results are now summarized by an “AI Overview.” I tested it with three questions. (more…)
The Black Labels and Prince Paul and the Conscious Party
Above: Recently re-discovered video footage of the Black Labels and Prince Paul and the Conscious Party performing at the Twins Bar in Duluth.
Below: Prince Paul and the Conscious Party at Twin Ports Brewing, shot Dec. 3, 2006. (more…)
PDD Quiz: March 2025
Test your memory of this month’s headlines with this edition of the PDD Quiz.
A Homegrown Music Festival quiz struts your way on April 13. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at alisonlinnaemoffat @ gmail.com by April 10. (more…)
Bootleggers, bring out your kerchiefs!
One hundred years ago, the cellar of what was then the new St. Louis County Jail in Duluth, and now is the Leijona apartment building, was jammed with hundreds of confiscated moonshine stills. It was the time of Prohibition. The March 30, 1925 Duluth Herald reported that storing all the stills was becoming a problem. (more…)
Video: Duluth State of the City Address 2025
Duluth Mayor Roger Reinert gave his second State of the City address on Tuesday at the Ordean East Middle School Little Theater. The speech highlighted accomplishments in 2024 and previewed challenges and opportunities the community can expect in 2025.
Postcard from the Hotel Duluth in 1965
This postcard of the Hotel Duluth, now known as Greysolon Plaza, was mailed March 27, 1965 — 60 years ago today. (more…)
Loons Singing to the Northern Lights
Seth Trobec captured these sounds and scenes looking over Moose Lake, north of Deer River, on May 19, 2023. The video was released on YouTube last week. (more…)
Duluth East Symphony Orchestra – “Rabbit of Seville”
This video intertwines a March 13 performance by the Duluth East Symphony Orchestra of Gioachino Rossini’s 1816 opera buffa The Barber of Seville with cartoon footage from the 1950 Looney Tunes short Rabbit of Seville.
The FBI Paid for My Co-op Membership: Minnesota Food War 1975
Transcript of interview with former co-op volunteer / FBI confidential informant
Interviewer: How did you become an FBI informant during the Minnesota food co-op wars of 1975?
Name redacted: Well, when co-ops started forming in the late ‘60s, the FBI thought it was a communist plot. That theory got a lot of traction because many early co-op’ers were actual, literal Communists, mimeographing typewritten Leninist newsletters. You would’ve thought downtown Minneapolis was the Red Square. So it was a case of “let’s just keep an eye on these people.” But since there was a cooperative warehouse in Wisconsin serving as a distribution hub, when co-op-related violence broke out, it crossed state lines. So the FBI went from passive surveillance to active infiltration. When the Minneapolis co-op wars spread to the North Shore in ’75, I was on the short list to infiltrate the Duluth one. A native Duluthian, I had worked undercover before, and I was already a Co-op shopper. I was not a member, but knew some of the early Co-op’ers from church. I wasn’t on the anarcho-communist continuum, and I wasn’t a hippie — I just wanted better food. This made my handlers a little nervous. They started thinking I was a pinko. But I told them, “You couldn’t find a loaf of whole wheat bread in Duluth until the Co-op opened in 1970.” They were eating Wonder Bread baloney sandwiches with mayonnaise, but that convinced them. So the FBI paid for my Co-op membership. Then I signed up for member volunteer work shifts to get on the inside. I stirred buckets of nut butter with a drill attachment, but I heard stuff. I wasn’t the only one, the Feds had an informant in Grand Marais too, and some as far south as Iowa. Minneapolis was the hub, of course; the co-ops down there were popping off like popcorn. (more…)
The Slice: Making Seed Mosaic Art
The Seed AfFAIR is a meetup for people interested in crop art, the environmental art practice of using plants and seeds to create images, usually by gluing them to a background. The AfFAIR part of the name references the goal of entering pieces in the Minnesota State Fair’s juried competition.
The group began meeting at the start of 2024 and has been featured twice on The Slice; the 2025 part-two video is above, and the original 2024 video is below. (more…)
Postcard from the Voyageur Lakewalk Inn
Voyageur Lakewalk Inn was a Downtown Duluth lodging staple for about 60 years. It was demolished in 2022, along with the Hacienda del Sol and First Oriental Grocery buildings, to make way for the 15-story Lakeview 333 apartment building. (more…)
Alan Sparhawk – “Stranger”
Alan Sparhawk‘s second solo album is not so solo. The title, With Trampled by Turtles, explains that. It releases May 30 on Sub Pop Records.
Minnesota Film Festival focuses on diversity and understanding
The theme behind the fourth annual Minnesota Film Festival might not seem obvious when looking through the lineup. The selections represent a variety of genres and were submitted and scouted from local, national and international filmmakers. Still, there’s a certain something that connects them.
“The goal, to put it simply, is to inspire difficult conversations and find that common ground between groups of people, where they may not have realized there is that common ground,” said Vera Bianchini, the festival’s director. (more…)
PDD Quiz: St. Patrick’s Day
Press your luck and celebrate the season with this week’s (vaguely) Irish-themed PDD quiz!
The next PDD quiz, coming your way on March 30, will review the month in headlines. Please submit question suggestions to Alison Moffat at alisonlinnaemoffat @ gmail.com by March 26. (more…)
Big Into – “Patterns of the Heart”
Big Into‘s most ambitious video yet was shot over the course of four months. It is a companion video to the short film Patterns of the Heart, directed by Connor Mayne.