sleddog218
3T WIS
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Thought I'd post some pics from our trip around the Duluth/Superior Harbor for those who have never seen Lake Superior or Duluth. We went on a Family Fun Cruise, which is pizza and an ice-cream sundae bar to compliment the normal turn around the harbor and out into the bay. For those of you who weren't aware, Duluth is home to the Lift-Bridge, which I believe is the worlds largest.
Here is right after we've backed out of the slip, a pic of the mini lift-bridge that is for foot traffic between the DECC (Duluth Entertainment and Convention Center) and the rest of canal park.
Next we have a picture of the real Lift-Bridge while lowered. The area to the left is Canal Park, and the land to the right is Park Point, a 7 mile long beach that has houses lining it and a great city park at the end.
Just passed under the lift bridge, looking backwards.
This is the right side of the canal, looking back towards Canal Park. In the summer, this area is a great place to walk and is full of locals and tourist, as long as the weather is nice.
A couple of shots of the City. It is built largely on the hillside, and is long and narrow. Only during the last 20-30 years have the area over the hill started to grow more. At one point in the early 1900's Duluth had more millionaires per capita than any city in the world, due to the shipping, mining, and lumber concerns in the area. Northern Minnesota has huge deposits of very rich iron ore, and is the western most harbor accessible from the Atlantic in the upper part of North America.
I loved the light in this shot
Back into the harbor, and we have the Bayfront Festival Park stage. Great outdoor venue, starting to get some bigger name groups. People can drop anchor behind and hear the music, and the hillside area of Duluth can hear the music pretty well, even without a ticket!
A barge dredging the channel area
Tugboats for the big ships. We get up to 1000 foot "Lakers" and the occasional "Salty" coming through. Mostly loading up Taconite (iron ore) pellets, but also grain and coal.
Next we have pics of windmill parts. These huge blades and shaft parts are destined for windfarms in Minnesota, North Dakota, Iowa and Canada. Many of these parts come from Europe, but apparently most of the blades are made here in the US.
Next we have a picture of the "High Bridge", not to be confused w/ the Bong Bridge. Both go from Duluth to Superior, Wisconsin.
This area of the harbor is where the St. Louis River feeds into Lake Superior, and it is where the grain elevators, Taconite loading facilities and coal loading docks are. We were fortunate that a ship was just getting ready to head out. This particular ship was the first 1000' ship built to navigate the Great Lakes, and had just loaded 58,000 tons of low-sulfur coal to head to Detroit and Gary Indiana to feed the foundries there.
Here's a shot of the coal it had just finished loading. This particular "pile" is about 7 million tons of coal from Wyoming and Montana. This pile gets to be up to 10 million tons at times.
We actually got to follow it out to the harbor, and then watch it go under the Lift-Bridge. These ships run from March until January typically, and it is necessary to raise the bridge all the way to allow them through. Very interesting, this particular vessels sister-ship was just coming into the harbor, and you can see it off in the distance in the 3rd shot below:
Hope you all enjoyed, and I hope this wasn't too large of a post.
Almost forgot, have to get the shot with the kids in here :bouncy:
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Felt like I was there. 
