Ahoy! Festival of Sail Coming into Port: Historic-looking schooners, a heroic retired Coast Guard vessel, a ginormous rubber duck and a Viking ship replica fill up the waterfront starting Sunday for the Festival of Sail Duluth. Lake Superior Magazine will have a table with all our festival-related merchandise and will be selling the "official program" (seen here). Yes, Festival of Sail launches Sunday morning with the spectacular Parade of Sail as the seven vessels featured in this year's event sail under the Duluth Aerial Lift Bridge. Over the course of the three-day event set at the waterfront near the DECC, there will be visits on boats, from the retired U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sundew to the tall-mast schooners, and a block or so of vendors – including us (so stop and say, "Ahoy"). The World's Largest Rubber Duck will be on display and nearby the 42-foot replica open Viking ship that sailed into Duluth in 1927 will also be available for viewing.
Winning Sails: Before the Festival of Sail this week, there was the race of sail thanks to the Trans Superior International Yacht Race that started last Saturday (Aug. 3). Despite a thunderstorm that traveled east from Duluth on Monday, the Trans Superior had a cracking good year. The 326-nautical-mile race from near Sault Ste. Marie west to Duluth occurs every other year in August. This was the 26th race with 39 entries from Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ontario, Ohio and Pennsylvania, covered under eight divisions. The 68-foot Arctos, owned by Charles Bayer from Grosse Point Farms, Mich., was first to cross the finish line after 2 days, 3 hours, 32 minutes and 23 seconds, earning it “line honors,” but another sailboat in the ORR (Offshore Racing Rules) division – Bill Peterson’s Chewbacca from Bayfield, Wis. – actually won the race, which, like a handicapped horse race, calculates time based on a vessel’s particular modifier. After that adjustment, Arctos logged 2:12:08:49 and Chewbacca logged 2:05:34:29. The Tailsman, owner Bruce Aikens from Birmingham, Mich. (crew pictured here), won the Tri-Lakes Challenge and the Barthel Trophy awarded to the vessel with the best combined performance in three races: the Trans Superior, the Bayview Mac (Mackinac) and Chicago Mac. Another noteworthy winner was Keith Stauber’s Papa Gauche, which earned the Bagley Trophy (seen here) as the top winner from Duluth. All category winners are found on the race website. Weather held up well, except for that thunderstorm, which presented a challenge. “From what we know, most boats made it through well,” the race Facebook page noted after the storm. “Gusts from 40-49kts (up to 56 mph) were seen on board. MC2 ripped their mainsail. Now they’re left with very little wind to continue the race with!” MC2, owned by Dan Lewis of North Oak, Minn., came in 4th place in the ORR division – one place ahead of Arctos, which came in 5th place after the race adjustment.
75 Years of Smokey: You may already know that Smokey Bear turns 75 today (Aug. 9), but you might not know about his Big Lake neighborhood connection. The famous firefighting bear sparked to life during World War II in fear of fire attackes from the Japanese, which launched fire balloons and other methods that caused fires on the West Coast, according to James Barber writing for Military.com. James writes, “Smokey Bear was named after Smokey Joe Martin, a hero New York City firefighter who suffered burns and went blind during a 1922 rescue. August 9th (1944) is celebrated as Smokey’s birthday because that’s when the Forest Service ordered his creation." Artist Albert Staehle worked quickly and delivered a Smokey image on Aug. 10. (One of Albert’s illustrations from the U.S. Forest Service collections is seen here.) For Baby Boomers, Smokey’s story is tied to the tale of a real-life burned bear cub, but that’s a later story version, it turns out, even though the cub was real. So how does our Big Lake region come into the picture? In her story about playing Smokey Bear for the Wisconsin DNR, Catherine Koele reveals this history: “The Wisconsin DNR has some unique history with Smokey Bear. In 1950, the Firemen's Convention Parade in Hurley, a town just north of Mercer, debuted a life-sized Smokey Bear statue mounted to a float decorated to look just like a 1948 Smokey poster with the quote: ‘... and please make people careful, amen.’ Wisconsin Conservation Department employees in Mercer loved seeing the amazement from children, which gave them the idea to create the very first Smokey Bear costume (seen in this photo). Back then, the suits were made from real bear hides. Now they've evolved to synthetic fur with battery-operated fans that circulate air in the ranger hat and ice-filled ‘cool packs’ for the body. These days, the DNR manages more than 40 Smokey Bear costumes across the landscape, with still more owned and used by fire departments, the U.S. Forest Service and other partners of the agency. Smokey is a popular figure in public appearances statewide.” This year, challenges between various state DNRs have resulted in witty and wonderful videos celebrating the bear’s long history. Michigan’s DNR produced “Wildfires are a Scary Thing” to the tune of Burning Ring of Fire by Johnny Cash’s song; Minnesota DNR came up with a story of Smokey and a ranger stopping a clueless drone operator who, while trying to video a great social media post, grounds a firefighting helicopter; and Wisconsin DNR’s birthday shoutout turns the Village People’s popular "YMCA" into F.I.R.E. Finally, if you feel any good birthday bash needs cake, the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center near Ashland plans a party from 1-4 p.m. Saturday) with a Smokey Bear Puppet Theater, games … and cake.
Boasting Ballast Testing: The timing and partnering seem to be perfectly poised for a rebirth of a University of Wisconsin-Superior facility that may encourage technologies to protect the Great Lakes and other waters from introductions and spreads of invasive species. The ballast water treatment testing facility on Montreal Pier in Superior first launched in 2006 and was most recently under ownership of a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit organization. It has lain fallow for a couple of years, but was purchased in April by UWS and now is being relaunched through the UWS Lake Superior Research Institute. The facility has attracted a lot of buzz, including visits by two U.S. senators, the most recent on Thursday by U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), reports BusinessNorth. The senator was in northern Wisconsin to bring attention to that facility, to a budget-boosted renewal of the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative she’s co-sponsored and to take a trout-fishing trip along the Bois Brule River. Friday morning, she hosted a roundtable with local officials from Ashland, Bayfield and Bad River on the need to rebuild roads and bridges that can withstand natural disasters, such as severe storms and floods and to introduce her Rebuilding Stronger Infrastructure Act that recently passed recently passed the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. Baldwin told the small troop of reporters following her on a tour of the UWS testing facility that she wants to make sure regulations being created under the 2018 Vessel Incidental Discharge law won’t be “developed by the salty coast and ignore the needs of the Great Lakes.” That law, a new subsection “Uniform National Standards for Discharges Incidental to Normal Operation of Vessels,” added to the Clean Water Act, charges the EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard with creating federal standards for vessels, a move supported by the Great Lakes maritime industry to avoid the hodgepodge of state-by-state regulations that were developing. “I’ve been a huge fan of something called the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative,” she said, pointing to bipartisan support of the GLRI. She noted that while Trump annual budgets have eliminated or substantially reduced the annual $300 million to be set aside to the eight Great Lake states through that initiative, the funding has been restored on a bi-partisan budget vote. She now has introduced a renewal of that current five-year program, which ends in 2020, that would increase the annual budget to $475 million a year. “Given the challenges our Great Lakes face,” Baldwin said, “this would be an important commitment.” Once Baldwin wrapped up her day at the testing facility, she canoed the Bois Brule River to highlight Wisconsin’s conservation efforts. The Brule is nicknamed “the River of Presidents” because five of them – Ulysses S. Grant, Grover Cleveland, Herbert Hoover, Dwight Eisenhower and most frequently Calvin Coolidge – trout fished on it. Reminded of that, Baldwin was asked if she, one, planned to fish trout, and two, planned to run for president. Chuckling, Baldwin said she “would very much like” to trout fish in the afternoon, and “I am not running for the president of the United States.” Read more about the new testing facility in BusinessNorth.
Fish Babies: The Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians recently partnered with the Michigan DNR and the Bay de Noc Great Lakes Sport Fishermen to help restock Bays de Noc near Escanaba with 464,800 walleye fingerlings. The tribal hatchery took over care of walleye eggs collected after ice-out on Little Bay de Noc by the DNR. The eggs first went to the Thompson State Fish Hatchery in Manistique and then were transferred. The larval walleye after hatching were reared in ponds operated by the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe, which stocked 135,000 fish, and the Bay de Noc Great Lakes Sport Fishermen, which stocked 329,000 fingerlings. “Working together with the DNR allows us to combine resources which complement each other, to increase the number of walleye fingerlings destined for the Bays de Noc,” Rusty Aikens, fisheries enhancement coordinator for the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians, said in this week’s announcement of the stocking. The tribe’s own stocking program placed 382,468 fingerlings in five St. Marys River locations, plus other areas around the U.P. for a total of 909,832 this summer. Or find information on where and when of stocking within the state of Michigan on the DNR's site.
Chute for the Best: A Grand Rapids, Minnesota, man, Matt Lehtinen who is president of Tacora Resources Inc., survived a July 27 airplane crash in Quebec thanks to the Cirrus Airframe Parachute System aboard his 2005 Cirrus SR22 G2, reports BusinessNorth. Citing CTV News in Canada, BusinessNorth notes Matt was flying his Duluth-made Cirrus from Wabush, Newfoundland, where his company owns the Scully iron ore mine, to Quebec City when his oil pressure and oil temperature warnings went off. Then the engine stopped and made grinding sounds that suggested it was permanently damaged. He engaged the parachute and his aircraft fell to the ground safely. Matt did a video after the crash while he awaited help.
Beers & Axe-Throwing : Blacklist Brewing Co. produces Belgian-style artisan ales, operates a taproom with a garage-door wall that opens to Superior Street for live music performances (sometime broadcast an NPR’s “The Current” channel) and evening sidewalk sipping. Now it’s introducing a new way to draw people through the street construction – an axe-throwing league. “I takes one stick in the wall and all of a sudden, your arms go up and they’re cheering and you’re hooked,” says co-owner Brian Schanzenbach. Brian and Jon Loss started the company with the help of a Kickstarter campaign in 2012 and have since been joined by partner TJ Estabrook. The taproom is at 120 E. Superior St. and Nik Wilson visits with Brian for our series featuring businesses within the 2019 Superior Street construction zone. Target this place for great entertainment … and a few tosses of an axe.
Photo & graphic credits: Larry & Linda Dunlap; courtesy Draw Events; Trans Superior International Yacht Race; U.S. Forest Service; Wisconsin DNR; Konnie LeMay; Sault Tribe of Chippewa Indians; Matt Lehtinen; Blacklist Brewing Co.