Crossing the Canal:
An Illustrated History of Duluth’s Aerial Bridge    

Today we think of Duluth’s Aerial Lift Bridge as the gateway spot to watch the majestic big ships - or visiting Tall Ships - pass through the ship canal into Superior Bay. Or it’s the way to Minnesota Point and its Park Point community. But how many know how it came to be?

It’s a great story - the history and how development of this icon is closely tied to the city’s prosperity and growth. This book offers a nice overview, including the rivalry between Duluth and Superior. But what really grabs your attention is the artwork, from historic photos and paintings to the standout center section showcasing photographer Dennis O’Hara’s outstanding images, followed by Janet Karon’s fascinating black-and-white study of bridge details that, most likely, you’ve never noticed before.

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The Survivor of the Edmund Fitzgerald 

The Survivor of the Edmund Fitzgerald weaves into the human  drama, the harrowing story of the sinking of the once mighty freighter that sank with all 29 crew members on November 10, 1975.

Thunder Bay author Joan Skelton’s latest novel asks: What if there were a survivor of the Edmund Fitzgerald?

Joan’s answer is set on the rugged and desolate January shores of Lake Superior. Clarissa Wheatley returns to her family camp at Gull Rock after the death of her mother. While there, she reads her mother Clara’s journal and discovers that her mother, who is terminally ill, came to the lake and to the family’s camp in the dead of winter to die, disregarding her family’s urgings to continue with her medical treatment.

Clara then chronicles her meeting and short relationship with Gene, two individuals, seemingly with very little in common. Gene, a much younger man, has been tossed onto the shores of the mighty lake after stowing away on the Edmund Fitzgerald and surviving the wreck. Riddled with guilt, he presumes that he might have saved his fellow seamen. The commonality of Clara and Gene’s strength of human spirit weaves a story that contrasts them with the ferocity of Lake Superior.

The book is enriched with the mythology of Kitchi-gami and with the human and technical drama that provides a thought provoking and exciting read.

- Annette O’Brien

Joan Skelton explains the time of the latest edition of her novel, which includes additional characters and other revisions: “When my stage adaptation of The Survivor was accepted for production by Thunder Bay’s Magnus Theatre, I tidied up my second edition of the novel and fired it off to John Flood, publisher of Penumbra Press and publisher of the first edition. I greatly respect John's editing … he accepted it immediately and said he would have it ready for launching during the three-week run of the play.”ꆱ

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Lake Superior Rocks & Minerals:
A Field Guide to the Lake Superior Area 

Small size, bright photography, clear descriptions of rocks and minerals and even an entry on “junk” you’ll find on a Lake Superior beach … this handy volume has what rock pickers are looking for when they are looking at Lake Superior rocks and agates.

Bob Lynch, owner of Agate City in Two Harbors, Minnesota, and his son, Dan Lynch, make the perfect knowledgeable guides on a tour of lake stones. Besides a general section on rocks and minerals, the pocket-sized book has separate sections on each of the three Lake Superior shore states - Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan. It has a quick guide summary to rocks and to rock shops and museums. Fourteen pages are for the agate and its varied Lake Superior version alone. Each entry has information on where to look for particular minerals or agates. The photography, by Dan, makes it easy to identify what you’ve picked up off the beach.

This is a great guide, but the really cool thing is that after just a few sessions of comparing your beach rocks to this book’s descriptions, you’ll look like an expert yourself when you impress friends and family with your understanding of what you’ve found.

- Konnie LeMay

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Bayfield Lake Superior  

The first glance at this small volume by Don Albrecht might lead you to misunderstand it as a book of photography. It is, in fact, a book of poetry, done in prose and honed through decades of residency.

To view the photos without the words skews the meaning of the work. In fact, many of the images are blurred or darkened awkwardly (where are the faces?). As Don explains in his introduction, these images were made with a camera that gave him no technical leeway other than his own eye for composition and subject. His Holga box camera, Don writes, “has a cheap plastic lens, no light meter and a questionable focus in a 120-film format that renders nice, big, juicy negatives for beautiful prints.”

That limitation has allowed Don to concentrate on subject and moment rather than the distracting details delivered with, say, digital photography. For someone as literal as I am, the blurs and missing faces can be disconcerting, but more often the clarity is not in the image but in Don’s thoughts and observations. What he observes is a blend of “30 years residency” and of his continued “outsider” status. (Locals, Don writes, told him that as a transplant, he could not be considered truly local until his name was on a gravestone … just as is the unwritten rule in many small towns.)

As with any good book of poems, a reader comes away from Don’s book with a mix of new insight into an unique place and with mild confusion and questions from sampling an insider-outsider’s view of his neighborhood. This is not, in the end, a book for the casual tourist; it is, however, an intriguing facet of a Lake Superior locale that can deepen the understanding of the place.

- Konnie LeMay

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A Stren View … the Journey Begins (DVD)   

Why might someone get a DVD with images of maritime activity around the Great Lakes? “Boat nerd” comes as an immediate answer, but in watching this production by Edward Spicuzza (admittedly on my work computer) it came to me what a great “background” this would be on a big-screen television with a good sound system. The kind that you might find in a living room. It would be so great to be working on something at home, listening to the acoustic music on this DVD and then casually glancing up to catch a glimpse of either the open waters of one of the Great Lakes or the workings of a port, lock or, in one interesting segment, the Mackinac Bridge.

This visual and audio stroll among the working vessels and ports of the Great Lakes combines the high-quality regional music of Great Lakes troubadours Lee Murdock, Carl Behrend and Jill Jack with images that could only be taken by someone working on the lakers … someone like Ed Spicuzza. But this is not a gritty look at the maritime industry. The mood is more lyrical than that, with a brisk pace of fades between scenes that bring a sense of sailing on the big lakes but rarely shows the hardcore work of the boats and sailors.

Ed brings an artist’s eye to the project. The other aspect of his endeavors outside working on the boats is etching on glass and metal with images, again, of the region’s maritime heritage. Mostly well paced with a pleasing flow, there are a few instances on this DVD where someone who loves the big boats (like me) would have preferred more lingering shots of full vessels or longer images as the boats sail along.

The dark cover of this DVD does not really capture the actual video, which consists mostly of brighter days on open waters. For those who love the lakes and its lakers - whether boat nerd, resident or visitor - this production “bottles” everything but the fresh air and smell of cold waters for savoring at home.

A Great Lakes Adventure

Among the mostly “mugshot” images of vessels within this book are a few scenic views that give a sense of what an inland seas mariner experiences in working the Great Lakes.

Ed Spicuzza, who does work on the freighters that haul cargo on Highway H2O obviously loves all things nautical. His appreciative eye through the camera lens often focuses on the structural lines or interactions of the vessels. The images span the shipping season even into times of ice-clogged waters.

This book will is not for everyone. You must appreciate the maritime heritage of the Great Lakes to fully relish this work. However, I can imagine boys, even the very young, being fascinated by these views of the working fleets. All “boat nerds,” of course, male and female will enjoy this photo album of our maritime family.  Order from www.nauticaljourney.com.

- Konnie LeMay

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