Neither of us had been to Duluth MN before, so it was
interesting to compare our preconceived notions to reality. Liz
found a CNBC ranking that claimed Duluth is in the top 10 for
retirement cities on the USA. We found the city to be an interesting
mix of lakefront shipping ports and their associated stores of
material to be shipped. Duluth is the western most port of the Great Lakes.
Ships from around the world (called Saltys , the Paul Tregurtha pictured here) stop here to pick up
loads of Minnesota Taconite, (raw iron for steel) Montana coal, Wyoming spring
wheat, and deliver limestone, etc, etc. It is a busy port. From here these huge
boats, reaching 1000' move through Sault St. Marie at the lakes eastern end,
down Lake Huron, across lake Erie, then Ontario, and out the St. Laurence. A drop
of 650'! Of course many stay in the freshwater lakes (called Lakers) dropping
off their cargo at US steel mills (yes! the US AGAIN has
thriving steel industry,) Power plants, and other factories along the
great lakes shores. To those of us on the east coast who
think of the great lakes as just big blue spots on the maps, the commerce that
takes place her is astounding! Duluth is in the thick of it.
Dulth shares the shipping harbor with the WI town of
Superior, who for years had the only access to Duluth's great backwater ports
of the St. Louis River. There was a long barrier point of land
stretching down from the north. One night in the late 1800's someone blew an
opening in the land creating the Duluth shipping channel. This, of course made
the ship owners happy and the residents on the (now) island upset! An aerial
lift bridge was constructed, the US Army Corps of Engineers was called in to
keep the channel open, and Duluth began to grow - fast. For many years in the
early 1900's Duluth had more millionaires than any other city in the US.
Today the Corps run a visitor center with tours
and announcements of the ships passing through. It is also the home
of some great restaurants such as the Duluth Grill, a Guy Fieri "Diners
Drive Ins and Dives featured stop. since we try to take in a few
of these on our trips we stopped. The restaurant had a SUPERB Lake
Superior whitefish, and claimed to obtain their salad makings
from their parking lot! I shot this picture of the front, and you can see the gardens running the entire sides of their lot. There were lots of salad fixings growing
in their parking lot, although I am sure not in
enough quantity to satisfy the quantity of
customers they were serving. We also had a great, and super knowledgeable
waiter.
Duluth is between the "big lake" and
Spirit Mountain, so they created a skyline drive around the harbor
so I could get some nice aerial views to show you, very accommodating. We
could easily see into these little 1/2 size train cars on these narrow tracks.
They carry the coal or Taconite out to pour into the cargo hold. All of these
ships now are self-unloading, so it seems there is little
for their crew to do now except eat, and wave to
the tourists when they go under the bridge.
If you are curious about shipboard life, you can go back to some
of our prior trips when we toured the Soo , and Welland canal Locks, or
continue reading.
We took the opportunity to tour the Irvin a retired
ore carrier from the great lakes trade. She was short,
outdated, (built in the 30's) and going to be scrapped when the city bought her
for scrap value ($1MM) and remodeled her to her former glory. She was named for
the President of US Steel and had a quite comfortable
"executive quarters". You see her here with the Aerial Lift Bridge in hte backround.
We took the opportunity to tour the Irvin a retired
ore carrier from the great lakes trade. She was short,
outdated, (built in the 30's) and going to be scrapped when the city bought her
for scrap value ($1MM) and remodeled her to her former glory. She was named for
the President of US Steel and had a quite comfortable
"executive quarters". You see her here with the Aerial Lift Bridge in hte backround.
No comments:
Post a Comment