Visiting Duluth
Located along the shores of Lake Superior is the city of Duluth. After the capital metro area, Duluth is the next largest city in Minnesota. I had expected a medium sized town, but Duluth was much bigger than I expected. The city is home to 85,000 people, with its center dominated by high rise buildings.
Duluth has enough activity to have its own city bus system, and even more impressive people were lined up to actually use it! I’ve gone to some medium sized cities in the mid west and often felt like I was the only person there.
My main motivation that brought me to Duluth was to see the Great Lakes. I spent most of my time along the water, but did a little bit of exploring in the city. This massive building above got my attention, and I figured it most of him some important historic building. It was crazy to find out this was Duluth Central High School, possibly the nicest high school I’ve ever seen! Meanwhile the photo below shows some homes in the city that belonged to a small neighborhood. Most of these were nice and cozy looking, but the one in the center might have been condemned.
Since Duluth is built along the Great Lakes, most of the city’s attractions are found here. The lake walk is an excellent place to start, especially on a perfect summer day like I had. The ivy covered building about is the historic restaurant and hotel known as Fitgers Below is a photo from the boardwalk which passes by shops, restaurants, and even a few breweries.
I didn’t stop by the Portland Malt Shoppe but it was pretty tempting. Minnesota never gets really hot, even in the middle of the summer, but its always enjoyable to have ice cream on a warm sunny day! I’m really curious what this city might be like to visit during the middle of the winter. I assume these guys would stay open by serving hot chocolate, but for all I know Duluth is a ghost town half of the year!
Two statues I came along during the lake walk were of Jay Cooke and Leif Erikson. Jay Cooke was a wealthy pioneer from the mid west, who fell in love with Minnesota. He is largely credited for investing Duluth which helped it grow to the large port it is today. I found the Leif Erikson statue a bit more interesting. Leif was a Viking who lived around 1000 CE and is seen as the first European to discover North America. This was the first statue I had ever seen of Leif Erikson since Christopher Columbus usually gets most of the attention. This is of course since the Columbus rediscovery of the continent is what led to permanent European colonies.
My favorite part of Duluth was easily Leif Erickson park. The lake walk will take you to the park, which was surprisingly crowded. The were plenty of rocky places to sit along the shore and boat watch.
Two last photos from Duluth! Despite some of my extreme cold expeditions I wasn’t brave enough to go swimming in Lake Superior. These kids didn’t seem to mind, but could only stay in the water so long. My highlight to the city was happening to be here when several sailing ships passed through. This is what drew the crowds, as these beautiful sailing ships participated in a race in the Great Lakes.
