Around the Circle This Week: August 13, 2021

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Catch a Falling Star: Lovers of natural streaks across the sky – not the UFO kind – should get out to their favorite darkened corner of Lake Superior this weekend to watch the Perseid meteor shower. Marquette photographer Shawn Malone of Lake Superior Photo took this shot along M28 in Marquette. The Earth passes through the path of Comet Swift-Tuttle and its debris from July 17 to Aug. 24, this year. The peak through the most dense, dustiest part technically ended in the wee hours of this morning, but the meteors will continue. Best watching time, according to EarthSky.org is midnight to dawn. On the Minnesota shore, the Marshall W. Alworth Planetarium continues its Dark Sky Caravan today and Saturday. Stop in at the rolling planetarium tour tonight at the North House Folk School in Grand Marais and Saturday at the Chik-Wauk Museum and Nature Center on the Gunflint Trail. Meteor gazing should also be good up in Copper Harbor, Mich., at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge, which has applied for designation as an International Dark Sky Park. Quetico Provincial Park received its designation from the International Dark-Sky Association just this year. Also on that dark sky list in the Big Lake neighborhood is Voyageurs National Park on the U.S. side of the border waters across from Quetico.

Us, by the Numbers: The official U.S. Census numbers came out this week and proved we still have plenty of space for good folks in the Big Lake neighborhood. According to the percentage change map from the U.S. Census Bureau, most of local counties in Minnesota, Michigan and Wisconsin did not go up or down more than 1%. The exceptions to that were Cook County in Minnesota, which grew by about 7.5% from 5,176 in 2010 to 5,600 in 2020 and Bayfield County in Wisconsin, which grew by about 8% from 15,014 to 16,220 in 2020. For our major U.S. cities, according to Census stats, Duluth grew by 432 people to 86,697 (no big wave of climate refugees yet); Superior, Wis., declined by 593 to 26,751; Marquette declined by 340 people to 20,995; Sault Ste. Marie, Mich., declined by 807 to 13,337; and Houghton, Mich., increased by 678 to 8,386. and . St. Louis County, in which Duluth is located, added 5 people from 2010, which leads us to believe Duluth may have benefited from some shifting within the county. As to diversity, we still have a ways to go. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, if you randomly chose two people in our Big Lake U.S. region, there is less than a 40% chance they will be from different racial or ethnic groups. Duluth remains nearly 90% white (89.7%); Marquette 91.5% so and Superior was 91.4% white. Looks like room for comfortable growth, all around.

And the Winner Was: Completing a hat trick of Trans Superior wins, the yacht Stripes, skippered by Bill Martin of Ann Arbor, Mich., finished first this week. The Trans Superior open water race from Sault Ste. Marie to Duluth takes place every other year. Stripes also won in 2005 and 2011, this year coming in at just under three days: 2:23:24:47. Find full results, winners in all the categories and some nice race shots on the Trans Superior website.

Shipping Shape: The Port of Duluth-Superior marked its busiest July since 2015, the Duluth Seaway Port Authority reported this week. Nearly 4.2 million short tons of maritime cargo transited the Twin Ports last month, pushing the port's season-to-date tonnage to more than 15.2 million by month's end. "It marked Duluth-Superior's largest July float since 2015, helping nudge total tonnage 6% above the five-season average and 40.5% ahead of last season's pace," according to the Seaway. "Iron ore tonnage continued its climb, topping 9.5 million short tons to finish July 12.6% above the five-season average and 31% ahead of the 2020 pace. Coal and petcoke also moved briskly, topping 1 million tons in July and 3.6 million tons for the season. This total represents a three-fold increase over the 2020 pace." The press release quoted Deb DeLuca, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority: "It's been a good first half of the shipping season so far and a vigorous rebound from the COVID challenges of 2020. It's been especially good to see iron ore tonnage jumping back above the five-season average, because it's a bellweather of positivity for our port and our region as a whole. Each ore ship carries between $7 million and $8 million in ore value, so while they're moving a key raw material of everyday life, they're also moving a sizable amount of commerce for our communities and the North American economy." According to the Seaway, other notable bulk cargo highlights included cement and salt deliveries outpacing the five-season average by 59% and 9.5%, respectively. July general cargo deliveries included a shipment of heavy-duty mining equipment for iron-mining operations in northeastern Minnesota. Through July, vessel arrivals in the Port of Duluth-Superior totaled 334, which outpaced the 2020 count by 28.5%. The port's Rice Point terminal operations also recently received an upgraded rating on the Green Marine 2020 environmental performance report, improving 3.8 to 4.0 score on the 5-point scale. The annual report rates port authority participants in seven categories: air emissions, community impacts, dry bulk handling and storage, environmental leadership, spill prevention, underwater noise, and waste management. Duluth ranked #4 in the country and #1 in the Great Lakes this year. In this photo by David Schauer are two Algoma Central Corp. bulk carriers contributing to the Twin Ports tonnage: Algoma Discovery departing Duluth with ore for Hamilton and the Algoma Guardian arriving to take its place at Canadian National's dock.

Lake Rescues: We've had a variety of rescues from the Big Lake recently. On Monday, two kayakers spotted a man swimming from Gull Rock Lighthouse off the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula toward the mainland. It was a not a joy swim; the man from Milwaukee County, Wis., has been missing for four days … apparently adrift, caught in the Keweenaw Current of Lake Superior. His car was found in Hebard Park, 15 miles around the peninsula from where he landed. After a day at the lighthouse site, he tried to swim to the mainland and the kayakers spotted him and reported it to law enforcement. Keweenaw County deputies and first

responders recovered him Monday, and he was eventually taken to UP Health System-Marquette, according to a story by Alissa Pietila for TV6. The condition of the 35-year-old man was unknown as of Wednesday. Last Saturday (Aug. 7) in Duluth, the city Fire Department rescued a 20-year-old woman sucked about 200 yards into the Lake by a rip current (see photo). "Two rescue swimmers from Rescue 1 were able to use a rescue surfboard to reach the victim and help her to shore. The woman was treated by Mayo Ambulance at the scene and transported to a local hospital for exhaustion. She is expected to recover," the department posted. “Over the last few years, we have done a lot of training and done equipment upgrades as a part of our water rescue program," Assistant Chief Dennis Edwards said in the post. "Today that investment paid off with Captain Gucinski and Firefighter Sarvi making an incredibly daring and dangerous water rescue. I am incredibly grateful that they were able to save this young woman.” Finally, on a more "wild" note, a group of kayakers at Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan were able to capture and save a fawn struggling in high surf beside the colorful cliffs near the end of July. A video by Danyelle Parris of the rescue was posted by TV6 (can you see the fawn with the back kayaker?). All of these rescues ended well, it sounds like, and we cheer those rescuers. Please take care, though, in our Big Lake.

Back to School: Tiny Larsmont – pop. 110ish – on Minnesota's North Shore will host its biggest bash of the year on Saturday. We wanted to give a shout out that the Larsmont Community Club Fun Day & Picnic at the Larsmont Little Red Schoolhouse runs 11 a.m.-2 p.m. and features all the nifty neighbors stuff you'd expect. It's not just for community members, so feel free to join in.

And a Corny Day: Yet another small community celebration worth dropping into on Saturday is the Corny Day get together that's also a fundraiser for the local Fire Department and South Shore Emergency Medical Services organization. During the all-day event in Cornucopia, Wis., will be a fun run, a fat tire race, a bake sale, flea market/craft fair at the waterfront, sand castle building, a raffle and lots more around the harbor and downtown area. We were happy to see that the Corny Day banner was found after a round of Facebook posts requested its return for the event. Good social media coordinating all. We're sure there's a great hometown event near you this weekend. Summer's short - get out and about!

Photo & graphic credits: Shawn Malone/Lake Superior Photo; U.S. Census Bureau; David Schauer; Duluth Fire Department; Danyelle Parris; Paul Hayden/Larsmont Community Club; Corny Day

Around the Circle This Week editor: Konnie LeMay

This roundup is also posted every Friday at LakeSuperior.com.