Lake Superior
Found Anthropological Artifacts from a Summer Beach Culture of Leisure
What strange, rock-skipping culture of leisure inhabits these Duluthian shorelines in the Lake Superior summers? This is a brief survey of structures and artifacts discovered in my anthropological investigations of 2013-2014.
Freediving for Agates
August of this summer. This beach slopes off sharply just past the surf to like a 45 degree angle, so swimming out in a succession of dives quickly takes you deeper. Max in this video 15 feet? Not far from shore at all, undisclosed location. The dolphin-y noise @ 19 secs is air escaping from the camera pole. The mechanical drone in the background is an ore boat a couple/few miles away in the shipping lanes, which can also be heard in the first couple minutes of my recent vid Diving Among the Boulders and What I Found There.
Diving the Breakwater Wall Ruins, 9/6/14
Duluth’s outer harbor, between the Vietnam Memorial and the red buoy, hides the submerged ruins of a hundred-plus-year-old wall (essentially stacked wooden cribbing filled with rocks) that predates the lift bridge and the canal. This is what they used to park ships behind for safe harbor — before its destruction in a gale. Been waiting to return here since last summer, finally got my window. Tried early in the day but the water was too cold. So I spent the day on Park Point beach, then hit it on my way back — water had warmed several degrees. Sun was going down so I had to act quickly. Similar imagery may be seen in my video of last year, “Freediving the Ruins of Duluth’s Outer Harbor.”
This current video represents going farther from shore (maybe halfway to the buoy?), and deeper than before (up to 15 feet or so as opposed to ~10). Next year maybe I will dive the buoy chain to the bottom (30 feet). It would have been nice to do this series of dives when I was fresher earlier in the day with more direct overhead sunlight (the water was clearer too), but it was simply too cold. By the time I got to it, I had walked several miles, was hungry, and had been given a beer and a couple slugs of wine (don’t ask). So I wasn’t as hardcore as I wanted to be — had to swim out far, then deep too, without benefit of a raft or anything, so I was pooped and not willing to risk any further depth. Next time!
Diving Among the Boulders and What I Found There
A series of dives one afternoon exploring a field of boulders.
Ark of the Anthropocene is coming to Duluth and needs support!
Minneapolis-based artist and musician Sean Connaughty has done many wonderful and interesting things. Among them are a series of self contained ceramic biospheres that he sculpts, fills with plant life, and then submerges in waterways to become free floating universes. He wires them with cameras so viewers can hit his website and see what is going on inside. Now he has taken on his biggest version of the project yet, a massive concrete ‘Ark’ biosphere which will be submerged in Lake Superior near the Aquarium. The image is of the Ark being hoisted in place for the Northern Spark Festival in June at the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis.
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Lake Superior: Ice in Motion
Video by Dawn M. LaPointe, shot at Brighton Beach in Duluth.
Water Film Fest at UWS – send in an entry
We will be having a Water Film Fest – films about water, life in water, importance of water, etc. Any season (winter through summer topics) would be fine. There will be local films, national, and international. We’d like the films to be under 10 minutes. The event will run from 6-8:30 p.m. on Feb. 13 at Swenson Hall Room 1012 (next to Yellowjacket Union). It’s free. If you’d like to submit an entry email grethenw @ ci.superior.wi.us. The film fest is sponsored by the City of Superior Environmental Services and the Lake Superior Research Institute. We love clean and healthy water.
Hey, it’s -13 degrees! Let’s head to Stoney Point! Surf’s up!
Hey, the water is a balmy 38 degrees, so you’d be stupid not to do this, really.
Video shot Dec. 29 by Erik Wilkie. Music by Evanescence.
Lake Superior doing its thing
Loyal Carlon captures “ice patties” on Lake Superior. (more…)
Wicked North Shore Icicles
Former Duluthian here, now a couple of hours further up the shore. My coworker (at the Cook County Visitors Bureau) snapped this photo in the Grand Marais harbor earlier this week. Too awesome to not share.
Photo from Grand Marais, MN on Facebook.
Slacklining and Swimming at Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vBVwXht9zQ
Duluth’s megalithic ruins. I’d taken a spot of footage late last winter, and I’ve been looking forward to a summer shoot just like this to complete a video exploration of the Cribs, aka Uncle Harvey’s Mausoleum. Sure enough these kind party people let me video their fun-loving attempts to best a wiggly slackline here on the late summer date of Sept. 9.
The water was very cold, it must be said, but I seem to have experienced a bodywide mutagenic change that can take it. I look forward to a shoot next summer with warm, crystal clear water; maybe I can get video even farther down in and around this quintessentially Duluth structure.
Monitoring Lake Superior
Interested in conditions on and in Lake Superior? UMD operates two buoys in the far western arm of Lake Superior about 15 miles outside Duluth, one near the McQuade safe harbor and one offshore of that location. You can see the data in real time by following this link.
Lake Superior’s chocolate color
I’m guessing it’s all the mud from the Wisconsin rivers that is causing our lake to turn a deep shade of brown. I’ve watched it slowly ooze its way across the lake all day. All that sediment can’t be good for anything. I wonder how common an occurrence this is to have this much water coming down rivers this time of year.
A Brief Survey of the Bottom of Lake Superior
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYamuV4MTIg
Lake Superior Surfing … Hang Ten!
[The post originally contained an embedded video that no longer exists at its source.]
Team Red Bull finds some nice waves on Big Sexy (aka Lake Superior). Never under estimate Big Sexy, she can be a real bitch.
Riding the Lake Superior Waves
Here’s what they were doing Sunday off Stony Point, just south of Knife River. 50 mph wind gusts, 21 degrees.
Lake Superior Waves Video
I’m new to the area, so I was really excited to see the waves and film some this morning. To all locals: what’s the biggest waves you’ve seen?
2011 Lake Superior Photo Calendar by Shawn Thompson
I wanted to share my 2011 Lake Superior Photo calendar with you as I think many of you will enjoy looking at the images found within. This Calendar features images captured by me and showcases the North Shore of Lake Superior and surrounding areas.
The calendar is $19.99 but can be had for $15 until 12-31-10 if you use this code: GREATGIFT355
Lake Superior Hand Jive
Does anyone else do this? When people ask where I’m from, I often make my hand into the shape of Lake Superior and say, “This is Lake Superior and I live here, at the western tip.”
I think maybe I’m just a tad jealous of the Michiganders (lower peninsula) getting to use their hands as maps all the time.
Love Lake Superior Artisan and Info Fair – Sunday, July 18
Over 25 local artists and info booths celebrating Lake Superior Day -3rd Sunday in July. Come shop. Come learn about the Lake. Come share your love of the lake via Open Mic- poetry, music, etc. Visit Tonya Borgeson’s WaterWorks exhibit at this event, too.