Fly High, Duluth

(And if you don’t know what that title refers to: please google it is worth your time I promise.)

Here we are! I will fully admit that I have been terrible about taking any photos so far in 2022, it’s been a gloomy, cold AF winter. Not much snow though (we’re tracking ~3 feet below normal, yeesh). Which is vaguely convenient (only old dirty snow cover and icy driveways to deal with!) yet also alarming…

ANYWAY MY POINT. I’ve cleaned up all my gear but have taken very few photos so this is likely my last update for awhile. Which is fine, give me some time to rest and recoup and deal with my new normal, which is not only the normal nonstop run-around with kids and classes and lessons and doctor appointments and homework, but also my own twice-weekly night classes and sticking to a new diet/workout plan but also living with Invisalign trays. Just got ’em this week and I feel… well, not so pretty.

ONLY A YEAR WITH THESE SWEET BABIES.

Anyway! Off to the actual subject at hand: this past summer, we hit up Duluth not once, but twice. We stopped on the way to/from our jaunt up Minnesota’s North Shore. And we were so charmed on those quick stops, we decided to tack another day onto our vacation and headed there after leaving our lake rental.

I know I shared the photo below already in the North Shore post, but here it is again because I was pretty bad at taking pictures of the actual lay of the land, ha. Duluth is right on the shore of Lake Superior, and is a port city (Duluth and Superior are twin port cities, in fact). The city was developed along the steep hillside, and up into the high inland elevation surrounding the lake (thanks to the nearby Sawtooth mountain range).

Duluth is considered, “the San Francisco of the Midwest,” which alludes to San Francisco’s similar water-to-hilltop topography. In fact, before World War II, Duluth also had a network of streetcars and an inclined railroad, just like San Francisco.

If there was one landmark that Duluth is known for, it’s for its aerial lift bridge. Located directly in the main port, it lifts straight up to allow ships to pass underneath. Kinda like a giant, slow moving guillotine action.

And while I would certainly consider the bridge and topography to be unique features of the area, it’s still very much Northwoods in other ways.

It was a hot, hot day to head to a city (low 90s and humid: ew). But also a 100-year heatwave for the area, thankfully not the norm at all! And also? We come from the Plains, so even though we aren’t fond of that weather, we can certainly handle it 🙂

We packed up the lake house, did the necessary cleanup (and did a good half a dozen walk-throughs after packing up the car because I was so paranoid about leaving anything behind…). By the time we locked up, checked out, and made it to Duluth, it was time for lunch. So our first stop was at DeWitt-Seitz, to hit up Northern Waters Smokehaus.

Lord have mercy – this place blew us away. Perfectly smoked fish and meats, fantastic sandwiches. I loooooove this place. One of my favorite restaurants we’ve ever visited on a vacation.

I got the salmon melt which was a salmon paté topped with melted cheddar and a crunchy pickled veg mix on toasty, buttery bread. YUM.

Real talk though – the sandwiches and smoked fish were superb but the cookies included in the kid boxes were mehhhhhh just okay. Pete didn’t even finish his and he loves sweets, if that tells you anything.

After lunch we rolled ourselves off the restaurant deck and explored the other shops in the building. When we came through earlier in the week we stopped in this building (but Northern Waters was unfortunately sold out for the day, womp womp) and also hit some of the shops. It’s a small, older building with a lot of character and 3-4 shops on each of 3 floors.

Last time we hit up a few of the art galleries and kitchen shops; today it was the souvenir shops and most importantly THE CANDY SHOP BABY.

So many options… We almost got some MN Moose truffles but then again: it was 90F out and also we’re not big truffle people.

After thoroughly exploring the shops, we decided to walk around Canal Park.

The sculpture/fountain below is titled “Fountain of the Wind”, and you can walk the stepping stones to “fully experience” the artwork, which includes sturgeon, lake trout, light towers, and a mythical being all symbolizing Lake Superior. (Or you can be like my kids and walk nicely the first time, then jump/run all over the slippery thing several times afterwards while I yelled at them that they were going to get impaled by a sturgeon tail.)

Next we walked down to the Lake Superior Maritime Museum. This museum is free to the public, and you’ll learn a lot about the history of the Great Lakes and Lake Superior itself. There are several hands-on exhibits to explore, the kids had a great time there.

If you don’t know every detail of the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald (and I, like many Great Lakers, grew up hearing a lot and still I learned some things in here), this is a great place to get your fill of information on this tragic shipwreck (yes, even some things that Gordon Lightfoot didn’t already teach you).

Watching the ships come into port. There was a volunteer there with binoculars who pointed out some ships coming in that were far out on the lake, really cool stuff to see.

I was kind of surprised how much of the hands-on exhibits were open during COVID, but not complaining! I had lots o’ hand sanitizer in my bag though so we were A-OK.

After throroughly exploring the museum, we went out to the harbor to take in the sights, including watching the aerial bridge lift for a big ship.

Kinda bummed that I only brought my wide-angle lens along because it really flattens the landscape and you can’t really appreciate the hillsides. Oh well, guess that warrants a return trip…

After our time at the harbor, we walked down to the business/restaurant area and checked out a few of the shops. My favorite was Duluth Pack, which has been around for 130 years and is the originator of the Duluth-style pack, a portage pack for canoeing. They have gorgeous leather and canvas pieces in their shop and while a bit out of our budget (that huge canvas bag Pete has on below retails ~$500) it was still fun to see all the offerings. We may have bought a few leather moose before leaving, too…

We checked out all the shops there were to see and the kids were ready to relax a little, so off we went to find our hotel for the night. I had booked a hotel well on the other side of the city, but Duluth is small enough where you can get from downtown to the far west side in 12 minutes.

Peep the incline on Lake Street (below), not sure how anyone navigates that incline in the snowy Minnesota wintertime…

Once at the hotel the kids rested for oh, say, 20 minutes and then announced they were ready to hit the pool. This hotel wasn’t the fanciest, but it did have a decent pool area, so they wore themselves out well there.

You can’t tell from my photos, but the white ball had a glowing LED light in it. I bought it before our trip and we went the entire time with it forgotten in the bottom of our packing baskets, whoops. At least we were able to enjoy it in the hotel before heading home.

They swam until they were pruney and hungry. I had looked up a few places, we wanted to get out of the touristy areas to grab dinner in an effort to see a little more of Duluth. We ended up driving back to the (far) eastside, into Superior, to try some highly recommended pizza.

Duluth at sunset is dreamy.

Back across the bridge – the bridge connects the two cities; Duluth to the west and Superior to the east.

Here is where we ended up: the Thirsty Pagan Brewing, located in Superior’s historic Soo Line Depot building.

The folks that started Thirsty Pagan cut their teeth brewing in the Pacific Northwest before moving to Superior in the 1990s, so they have a lot of experience at put out some good beer. They specialize in “wild” (sour) ales and I am sad to report: they were sold of all of them on our visit so we had to go with “normal” beers. I had their west coast IPA and it was fantastic.

They kept a lot of the details of the train station, which was pretty cool, and added their own brewpub style decor. They also have a small area set up for local bands, who come in and play nightly.

Our drinks came, a duo started up the evening’s acoustic set, and we sat back to enjoy while waiting for our pizza. This spot is a real gem, reminded us of the original Johnny’s Tavern, back in Lawrence. Not only because you could chill in an old historic building and listen to some good local music, but also: they had fantastic pizza, yo.

Pete got a huge pretzel (for like, two bucks) and Linus hogged the breadsticks, both of which were freshly made and delish. We were happy because that meant us adults had full charge of the pizza order, and we got the special of the night, their curry chickpea pie. It was basically Indian food on a buttery, chewy pizza base. SO GOOD. We smothered it in sriracha and took our leftovers back home with us, re-heated like a dream. If you find yourself in Superior, this is a prime spot to stop for a meal.

Tummies full, we bopped back from the far-east side to the far-west side (took all of 16 minutes). We slept well that night, and woke up to a rather foggy, overcast morning.

We drove around a bit, checked out the town, and picked up a final order from Northern Waters on our way out of town.

I was not ready to say good-bye to the Northwoods, but it was time. Sob.

Good bye, land of the good A&Ws.

Good bye, northern mesic forests.

We stopped at the halfway point at a random rest stop, and had a picnic of some of our Northern Waters treats.

I ordered the Hedonist, their version of a liverwurst sandwich: house-made liver paté with cornichon, onions, lettuce, and mustard. WOO-EEE it was good (and stronggggg) and super rich, I only made it through half and took the rest back home.

Pete got the Slammin’ Gordon, which was their salmon paté on grilled naan with a mess of veggies. Pete-approved.

Linus punked out and just got a bagel with cream cheese. Scott had their bahn mi I believe? Can’t really remember, been a hot second (and by hot second I mean ~6 months ago).

After our picnic we bit adieu to the land of the Northwoods and finished our drive home. We brought back some fine goodies from Northern Waters though, a tub of salmon paté and their fresh cranberry sandwich spread and also! Also! A whole freaking smoked whitefish that I hid away in the back of the fridge for a few weeks, until we got a nice cool weekend in Madison. I used the whole thing (well, what was left after we snacked as I de-boned it) in a big pot of smoked fish chowder with potatoes and fresh corn. THE BEST I TELL YOU.

Our trip to Duluth was so lovely. Lake Superior and the Northwoods, the whole thing, nothing but love. I feel a close affinity to the area and (especially given climate-change reports) Scott and I talk a lot about moving to the area in the near future. I love Madison and all a large metro has to offer us and our kids, but also: the Northwoods is calling. I guess time will tell if we end up there.