
Those of you in the know will notice an important number change this issue: Vol. 40.
In magazine speak, the volume indicates the age of the magazine, though unlike babies, a publication is counted as 1 (or Vol. 1) from the day that it is born.
That puts Lake Superior Magazine (born as Lake Superior Port Cities) into its fourth decade, and I’ve been on the crew for half its life.
I don’t believe I’ve ever told the full story of how I came to join this great staff dedicated to an amazing Great Lake, but I hope you’ll indulge me for our anniversary.
Most of my life (since I started the Birchwood Bugle in my Duluth Heights elementary school at age 10), I’ve been involved with newspapering. The reporting profession gets bad rap these days, but I – and most of my colleagues throughout my career – came to the work with a sincere dedication to keeping our communities informed and to sharing the stories of our neighbors. I have decades of newshound emotions, from annoyance (threats on my life for printing the small-town police log)
to deep sadness (the heartbreak of meeting a 3-year-old in need of a transplant that didn’t come in time) to amusingly mundane (my perennial winter reminder of a nose mildly frost-bitten while covering a sled dog race on a bright, frigid day).
Then one day a slight change of direction offered itself. Working as the interim editor at the Superior Telegram, I came across an ad for a “designer/editor” at Lake Superior Magazine. I knew of the magazine, and, like most of our readers, I remembered especially the stunning photos of the Big Lake. I sent in my hopeful resumé, assuring Paul and Cindy Hayden that I was “camera ready” for the job.
They invited me for an interview – and what turned out to be a six-floor hike in near dark stairs on the hottest day of the 1998 summer because the Canal Park building where the magazine was located had a power outage. They did the interview by the light from the windows overlooking the Lake. They offered me the job right then – perhaps giving me some added credit for the stair-climbing, though I’ve never asked.
I requested a day or two to think it over. Now that the offer had come I knew it meant leaving behind the daily newsroom. The answer seemed like an easy one – covering Lake Superior and its peoples – but I still felt a slight hesitation. I drove my concerns down to Park Point, parking at the community center and walking to let the beach and the pounding waves help me to decide. (OK, pondering Lake Superior and its glory seems a bit like stacking the decision deck, I admit it.) What transpired, though, as I stood that afternoon on the beach provided a more definitive push than I would have expected.
As I considered “Should I?” a strong smell of burning tobacco filled the air around me. I remembered well the meditative scent from Lakota ceremonies in South Dakota when I worked for Indian Country Today. I looked around at the few people on the beach, but none were smoking cigarettes … let alone offering a sacred pipe. For me, this was a positive sign.
Decision made – for me as much as by me – I trudged back to the car with my answer.
Twenty years and counting, I’m still here. Forty years and counting, so is the magazine, this celebration of a mystical magnificent body of water and the quirky and warm-hearted people who choose to live by it or to make regular pilgrimages to it.
So please turn these pages and join our 40-year-old adventure.
To newcomers, you’ll get the chance to see spectacular photography from the 23rd annual Lake Superior Photo Contest winners, and you’ll learn a bit more about this publication in our “State of the Magazine” retrospective look.
To longtime readers and supporters, you’ll recognize old friends now gone – like Jim Marshall’s voice again in “Lake Superior Journal” – and you’ll find news of the neighbors with the reopening of a century-old Duluth theater, ideas for weddings at historic venues and a modern home design that blends with its land.
To all of you, I’m so glad you’ve become part of our magazine family (some for much longer than me!), and as I’ve been privileged to do for 20 years, I welcome you to the Big Lake.