Monday, July 30, 2007
Duluth and the North Shore
This installment covers Thursday (July 26) through Monday (July 30).
Thursday was our “free day” in Hinkley. Carol and I drove to the North West Fur Trading Post, the southern-most of the fur trading posts in Minnesota. Our tour of the stockade-like post was with a group of 8-12 year olds. The tour itself was interesting, as was watching the reactions of the kids.
Tonight was steak night at the casino buffet – following the lead of Bill Morrison, one of our group members, I devoured two steaks, along with the usual side dishes and, of course, dessert.
I played a little more video poker, and won back what we lost last night – for two days at the casino I believe we finished dead even.
On Friday, we left for Spirit Mountain Campground, just south of Duluth, Minnesota and (across a short bridge) Superior, Wisconsin. In the afternoon, Carol and I drove along Skyline Drive for some good views of the city below.
Our group had dinner at Grandma’s, a restaurant housed in what was formerly a bordello operated by Grandma in the late 1800s. The dinner was excellent and generous – we left with enough food for a left-over’s dinner later in the week.
Saturday morning our group toured Glensheen Mansion, a 27,000 square foot, 15 bedroom, 10 bath house built between 1905-1908 by William Congdon, a local lawyer who made his money dealing in mining property.
The house was built at a cost of $850,000 (about $30 million in today’s dollars). When Congdon learned how much it would cost to furnish the house, he bought a furniture company and had all of the furnishings custom made. The bedposts in the guest rooms were topped with removable, carved wooden pineapples, a symbol of hospitality. If a guest returned in the evening to find the pineapples removed, it was a not-so-subtle hint that they had overstayed their welcome.
On Sunday, we had another “free day”. Carol and I started the day with a tour of an iron ore lake freighter, the William A. Irvin. The 610’ ship is 32’ wide and 60’ deep. Until it was retired, it made week-long trips on Lake Superior, carrying 14,000 tons of iron ore. Its coal-fired steam turbine engine burned a little over a ton of coal and hour and propelled the vessel at about 11 knots, fully loaded. It was efficient but slow by Great Lakes standards. Below the pilot house there were 4 large guest rooms, each with a full bath. These luxurious quarters included a fine dining room with one of the first fan light combinations, and an elegant lounge. Both guests and crew were well fed – the cook had a budget of $10,000 per month for the 32 crew.
Duluth has nice lakefront walk. Carol and I walked part of it, then rented a two person bike surrey and rode for about 45 minutes up and down the waterfront. One of the waterfront features is a lift bridge with an unusual superstructure. In our later tour of the Maritime Museum, we learned that the bridge originally did not have the lift level, but instead a tram car was suspended from the superstructure by cables and carried passengers back and forth across the river.
Today (Monday) was a trip along the north shore of Lake Superior to Grand Marais, about 50 miles south of the US/Canada border. En route we stopped at two state parks. At the first, Gooseberry Falls, we walked mostly paved trails to see the Upper, Middle and Lower falls. The second stop was Tettegouche State Park. At this park we packed a picnic lunch and walked about ¾ mile (1-1/2 mile roundtrip) to Shovel Point. The trail offered great views of the Lake Superior shoreline, which at this point features some high cliffs that are very reminiscent of parts of the Oregon coast. There were even two groups of people scaling down the face of the cliffs. With a modest breeze from the lake, it was at least 10 degrees cooler along the trail than in the rest of the park. Although our entire group stopped at the park, I believe we were the only ones to walk the trail.
Tonight we will have a wine and appetizer get-together with the other members of our group – we had such get-togethers each of the three evenings in Duluth.
Thursday was our “free day” in Hinkley. Carol and I drove to the North West Fur Trading Post, the southern-most of the fur trading posts in Minnesota. Our tour of the stockade-like post was with a group of 8-12 year olds. The tour itself was interesting, as was watching the reactions of the kids.
Tonight was steak night at the casino buffet – following the lead of Bill Morrison, one of our group members, I devoured two steaks, along with the usual side dishes and, of course, dessert.
I played a little more video poker, and won back what we lost last night – for two days at the casino I believe we finished dead even.
On Friday, we left for Spirit Mountain Campground, just south of Duluth, Minnesota and (across a short bridge) Superior, Wisconsin. In the afternoon, Carol and I drove along Skyline Drive for some good views of the city below.
Our group had dinner at Grandma’s, a restaurant housed in what was formerly a bordello operated by Grandma in the late 1800s. The dinner was excellent and generous – we left with enough food for a left-over’s dinner later in the week.
Saturday morning our group toured Glensheen Mansion, a 27,000 square foot, 15 bedroom, 10 bath house built between 1905-1908 by William Congdon, a local lawyer who made his money dealing in mining property.
The house was built at a cost of $850,000 (about $30 million in today’s dollars). When Congdon learned how much it would cost to furnish the house, he bought a furniture company and had all of the furnishings custom made. The bedposts in the guest rooms were topped with removable, carved wooden pineapples, a symbol of hospitality. If a guest returned in the evening to find the pineapples removed, it was a not-so-subtle hint that they had overstayed their welcome.
On Sunday, we had another “free day”. Carol and I started the day with a tour of an iron ore lake freighter, the William A. Irvin. The 610’ ship is 32’ wide and 60’ deep. Until it was retired, it made week-long trips on Lake Superior, carrying 14,000 tons of iron ore. Its coal-fired steam turbine engine burned a little over a ton of coal and hour and propelled the vessel at about 11 knots, fully loaded. It was efficient but slow by Great Lakes standards. Below the pilot house there were 4 large guest rooms, each with a full bath. These luxurious quarters included a fine dining room with one of the first fan light combinations, and an elegant lounge. Both guests and crew were well fed – the cook had a budget of $10,000 per month for the 32 crew.
Duluth has nice lakefront walk. Carol and I walked part of it, then rented a two person bike surrey and rode for about 45 minutes up and down the waterfront. One of the waterfront features is a lift bridge with an unusual superstructure. In our later tour of the Maritime Museum, we learned that the bridge originally did not have the lift level, but instead a tram car was suspended from the superstructure by cables and carried passengers back and forth across the river.
Today (Monday) was a trip along the north shore of Lake Superior to Grand Marais, about 50 miles south of the US/Canada border. En route we stopped at two state parks. At the first, Gooseberry Falls, we walked mostly paved trails to see the Upper, Middle and Lower falls. The second stop was Tettegouche State Park. At this park we packed a picnic lunch and walked about ¾ mile (1-1/2 mile roundtrip) to Shovel Point. The trail offered great views of the Lake Superior shoreline, which at this point features some high cliffs that are very reminiscent of parts of the Oregon coast. There were even two groups of people scaling down the face of the cliffs. With a modest breeze from the lake, it was at least 10 degrees cooler along the trail than in the rest of the park. Although our entire group stopped at the park, I believe we were the only ones to walk the trail.
Tonight we will have a wine and appetizer get-together with the other members of our group – we had such get-togethers each of the three evenings in Duluth.
