Sweet Duluth

Gardens at Leif Erickson Park, Aerial Lift Bridge to the right

Duluth received the short shrift on our charge up the North Shore. The port city garnered its share of attention on our return drive. Refreshed from a quite night in the country, we dove into a hectic day running around Duluth. As isolated as Embarrass felt, it lies less than 90 miles from Duluth – mostly gently sloping highway miles, not the rugged, unpaved roads cut from the coast. Although both places lie in the same county, they occupied different worlds. Ore harvested in the Iron Range shipped out of Duluth’s harbor.

The city’s downtown sloped toward Lake Superior, its terraced streets dense with mid-rise buildings. With a population of 90,000, the terracing created the impression of a city much larger than its actual size. Along with its industry, Duluth houses the University of Minnesota’s largest branch campus and deals heavily in the tourist trade.Even on an August day steeped in temperamental autumn weather, people were out in droves, using Duluth’s Lakewalk trail system. Bikes and pedal cars joined the joggers and walkers.

At downtown’s north edge sat several restaurants and hotels that hearkened to an earlier era of Duluth’s prosperity. After a few drives along Duluth’s main drags to survey our lunch options, we chose Pickwick Restaurant, with carved wood booths and an ornate wooden bar to match. I opened the menu and the Lake Superior trout entrée chose me. Nancy had an amazing salad with Lake Superior Smoked trout, with cranberries, and Minnesota wild rice. Take note, foodies – Pickwick won a James Beard Foundation award in 2007 for being an American Classic.

The ties between Pickwick and Fitger’s run deep. Pickwick started as a tasting bar in the Fitger’s Brewery in the 1880s and later moved into the Fitger’s building it has occupied since the 1950s. When Prohibition ended, the owner of Pickwick tossed a glass of near-beer into the fireplace and stayed open 24 hours, serving thousands of beer-hungry patrons. That sounds like our kind of place.

Duluth Lakewalk on a rainy day

I apologized to the bartender for wearing an Indians shirt in Twins’ country – and for the Indians beating the Twins on the television behind him. He aimed his anger at team ownership not spending money to become a contender. Before the Indians entered win-now mode in recent years, I would have made the same complaints.

With time to burn before check-in, we wandered through Fitger’s Hotel and Shops, picking up a bottle of wine for later. It was a decent galleria, including a packed brewpub and a taproom drawing an overflow crowd. The hotel and shops only represent the past three decades of Fitger’s history.

Since the 1880s, the Fitger’s Brewery and its predecessors operated on the lakefront site, surviving Prohibition by selling soda and candy bars only to close in the early 1970s. A decade later, the shuttered brewery was adapted into the hotel and retail complex. The craft-brewery in its basement, Fitger’s Brewhouse, pays homage to the original.

We grabbed post-lunch coffees from the coffeeshop in Fitger’s, then checked into our hotel. Staying in Duluth, we could only end up at the sold-out, Voyageur Lakewalk Hotel, a quirky variant on our typical motor court. From the hotel we had easy views of downtown as well as the Aerial Lift Bridge, Duluth’s signature structure. Built into the hill, the hotel had three levels. With our room on the third floor, the hill allowed us to park 20 feet away from our room.

Overcast with occasional spitting rain, this day felt less than ideal for a visit to Leif Erickson Park. By waiting a day, we were rewarded with more accommodating weather for a picnic in Leif Erickson Park. While the original park fell victim to an interstate expansion, the city negotiated for a new park built on a capped portion of the highway.

Nancy enjoying the Leif Erickson rose gardens

The spacious rose gardens provide stunning views of Lake Superior and Duluth’s harbor entrance. People busied about this narrow strip of public space, some pruning the gardens, others walking through or merely admiring the views. Duluth’s other prominent park was a different animal.

I underestimated the scope of Canal Park, expecting a span of public land on a peninsula. What we encountered was row after row of old warehouses turned into buildings with first-floor restaurants, along with the Great Lakes Aquarium, an arena and a pair of piers on either side of the lift bridge.

As we headed toward Canal Park, we caught the Aerial Lift Bridge in action. A ship approached the bridge, which stopped admitting cars and its main span crept up the frame. Had we missed this crossing, we would have to wait till morning for another boat entering the harbor (estimated arrival times for ships are posted).

Up close with the Aerial Lift Bridge

Admittedly touristy, the Canal Park District is still intriguing, and serves Duluth well as an attraction. Several decades ago, as industrial decline left Duluth with dozens of empty waterfront warehouses. Without that adaptive reuse, Duluth would be uninviting and an unworthy gateway to the North Shore of Lake Superior.

If anything, Duluth followed the same path as our beloved Chattanooga, recognizing the decline of prominent industries and converting its abandoned buildings to new uses. Canal Park provided the only access to Park Point (also Minnesota Point), a seven-mile long spit connected to the mainland before the Duluth Canal was cut to allow shipping traffic into the large harbor at the mouth of the St. Louis River.

As the afternoon stayed blustery, we retreated into the Lake Superior Maritime Center, a free museum. For the flak the Army Corps of engineers receive – much of it well-earned – they operate an excellent museum about ships that plied the Great Lakes. The museum recreated cabins of the 19th century and display models of the vessels that operated on these waters for the past two-plus centuries. The display of three cabin rooms illustrated the changes lake travel underwent in a few short decades.

Vikre Distillery in Canal Park

After a while the shops grew somewhat repetitive. We bought some gifts including some Minnesota wild rice, an always popular staple from these parts. I couldn’t take the chance that the wild rice would become harder to acquire further south.

One of the more interesting tenants in Canal Park was Vikre Distillery, which runs a spacious tasting room at its distillery near the Aerial Lift Bridge. During our travels, we already bought a bottle of their spruce gin. Fortunately they had several more iterations of gin – juniper and cedar - as well as several whiskeys and their spin on aquavit, a Nordic spirit made with caraway seeds or dill. Vikre’s interpretations includes a barrel-aged aquavit, which is further revisiting.

Distilling aquavit, a nod to Minnesota’s Scandinavian roots, is the sort of bold move distillers need to take to stand out in a crowded spirits market. We were thankful that Vikre avoided the easily made white whiskies present all across the Southeast. In the tasting room, we wrangled a portion of the giant community table and worked through a flight of spirits while playing many spirited games of Connect 4.

Enjoy spirits while losing at Connect4

With the lift bridge in place for the night and us emboldened by our visit to Vikre, we walked across the bridge into Park Point and back again. Only a few cars passed, along with a handful of pedestrians headed into Canal Park.

After hours of Canal Park, we returned to downtown for a low-key dinner. We settled on the 7 West Taphouse, a burger joint on Superior Avenue. We worked through several local pours and dynamite burgers with Parmesan-dusted French fries. We sampled a few more Duluth beers over burgers then walked home.

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If I recommend the Voyageur Lakewalk for a single reason, the patio is a clear perk. Staying on the third floor, we were a short walk away from the public deck with unobstructed views of Lake Superior. Any sunset missed upon Lake Superior the previous night would be remedied here. Guests were welcome to stay on the deck until quiet hours. How could we sit in the room with our Rhone and not enjoy the hospitable weather and a final display of light dancing across Lake Superior? On this trip, we exhausted our supply of twilight on Lake Superior.

We were the only non-Minnesotans. We talked with a retired woman and her husband, a southeastern Minnesota farmer and his wife on break from their lands. Everyone just watched the sun creep toward the horizon, then watched the light’s spectacular flight once the sun vanished.

The Minnesotans wondered why we came. I answered the only way I knew – “Because it’s beautiful up here.” The lady kept the conversation moving. She also poured us her homemade wine, wishing she brought more. We agreed, finding the Merlot as palatable as we found our night among amiable strangers on the Voyageur Lakewalk’s patio.

Canal entrance from the Aerial Lift Bridge