Ore boats on Superior in the winter

[Ghost11]

Cool pictures Klaus. Thanks for posting them.

Duluth is a fantastic town. Lot's of history and a abundance of outdoor activities to keep you satisfied.

I have 2 kids up at UMD right now.

I have been going up to Duluth for 20 years or so. I do a fair amount of customer fishing trips out on Superior.....Great times....

 

[Uncle Meat]

That is cool. Did you see any wolves? That area is lousy with wolves. Something like 3/4 of the wolves in the US are between duluth and the border.

Iron rangers are similar to Uppers if you are from Michigan.

We did see wolves and bald eagles too! That week we spent up there was a "Get back to nature" kind of thing the old lady and I did. Really nice area up there to just kick back and enjoy the great summer weather.

Iron Rangers huh? Never heard of them before, but I sure as hell know what an Yooper is! I'm friends with more than a few.

U.M.

 

[CobraBob]

Fellas, I took some pics of ore boats running through the canal in Duluth Harbor that I thought you might enjoy.

For reference, Duluth is the main port on Lake Superior. Anything shipped east through the St Lawrence seaway begins its journey here. This mostly means wheat and coal from Montana and the Dakotas. Northern MN is where a great amount of Iron Ore is mined. This is known as "taconite."

This part of MN is known as the Iron Range and it is a very special and unique place. It is a world of its own. There are two things to do up on the range: play hockey and mine ore. It is THE epicenter of hockey in the US and the talent up here is incredible. The area was settled by Scandinavians and it is extremely insular. There are still pidgin languages spoken up here that are a mix of Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish/English.

The politics up here are insane and the three biggest issues are 1) guns (pro) 2) abortion (against) 3) healthcare (free) 4) trade (protectionist). There are counties up here that Trump carried by 30 points and Klobachar also carried by 30 points. The commercials are hilarious, Dems will run ads against Dems railing about what bitches the Dems are. There is no place like it.

But I digress.

The harbor has a canal in which the big ships come off of Superior, fill up with wheat, coal, or ore and then head back out to the big lake toward Marquette, Detroit, or the St Lawrence seaway to the Atlantic. Even though it does not get above 0 degrees for months at a time the shipping lanes are open through mid January and then close through March. I have been up there when it has been -45 below zero. It was -20 below when I took these pictures. Enjoy.

Here is the canal where the ships load. As you can see it is iced up. The elevators dot the shore on the far side. They do not look it but they are HUGE

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Here comes a ship.
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The ice breaker leads the way
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He does a couple of loops to chop the ice up. When the lake opens up it steams like a volcano as the water is 32 and the air temp is -20.

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Up goes the lift bridge that allows all of Duluth to get from one side to the other
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Here comes the boat. It is ****ing HUGE
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Here is the lake side. It is super eerie. You feel like you are on the edge of the earth. You can hardly see anything because of the steam that pours out of the lake. I shit you not there were people jumping in the water on the far end of the beach.

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All of Duluth waits patiently as the bridge is up. This happens several times a day and is known as being "shipped in."

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Down goes the bridge

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Off she goes to bigger and better places as life goes on in Duluth and the range.

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Now that was a really interesting and cool post. I can see why you'd feel like you're at the edge of the world in that one photo.

Growing up in Michigan I spent a lot of time in and around the great lakes. Soo locks is a cool place to visit if you're in the area. Lake Superior is a monster sized body of water!

Speaking of Minnesota, the wife and I spent a week up at Gunflint on the border. Did a lot of hiking in the area. You aren't kidding about the iron ore content! We found huge standing rocks that had so much ore a normal magnet would stick to them.

U.M.
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THAT is amazing, as well, U.M.

 

[1 Alibi 2]

Great pics Kluas.
People would be amazed @ the info shared on this " Mustang " site !!
.

 

[98 svt]

We did see wolves and bald eagles too! That week we spent up there was a "Get back to nature" kind of thing the old lady and I did. Really nice area up there to just kick back and enjoy the great summer weather.

Iron Rangers huh? Never heard of them before, but I sure as hell know what an Yooper is! I'm friends with more than a few.

U.M.

We have "Tin Rangers" in NH. The camping areas along the Kangamangus Highway are unsupervised mostly, so you just put your nightly fee in a metal box by the entrance to the campground.

 

[gimmie11s]

My mother grew up in Duluth-Superior. Im going to send her these pics... very very very cool and thanks for sharing.

 

[CobraBob]

Great pics Kluas.
People would be amazed @ the info shared on this " Mustang " site !!
.

You are spot on! There was a time back in the early days of SVTP that posting threads/info not related to SVT or Mustangs would have gotten you trashed. Now, it's welcomed and even expected. I actually get more info in general about current events than anywhere else, including the MSM. Yep!

 

[Blown 89]

Very cool. Thanks for posting.

 

[AustinSN]

I went to look at a truck up in that area some years back, around this time of the year.

It was hoodie weather in Colorado and it looked like it was only going to get down to around 5 or so degrees while we were up there. I opted to only bring the hoodie.

5 degrees in that area is a different kind of cold from Colorado. It can be -20 and you would prefer it to 5 degrees up there. I remember walking out of dinner and after like 10 steps I had to sprint to the car. It's like you're being attacked.