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It took a servant a day and a half to polish one of their chandeliers. It took three Norwegian craftsmen three years to carve their woodwork.
Still, it's hard to begrudge Chester and Clara Congdon their nice things, because apparently they were very nice people.
Chester gave 11 miles of Lake Superior shoreline to the people of Duluth and made sure it was preserved for them in perpetuity. Clara donated her time and resources to the Methodist church; her servants ate the same meals she did and were paid twice as much as others. The couple slept together in a small bed, took their six kids and nephew on vacations to historic sites and expositions and welcomed a constant stream of friends and relatives to the home they called Glensheen.
One March, I went up to Duluth but woke up in Siberia.
Twenty inches of snow had fallen overnight. A savage 70 mph wind was howling around the glass-walled lobby of the Willard Munger Inn. Swirling snow had turned the air white.
But then my niece and I noticed cars crawling along Grand Avenue. Then more cars. So we bundled up and got in our car, and to our surprise, made it all the way across town to Lester Park. Dozens of other skiers already had been on its Lester-Amity Ski Trail, creating tracks that we gratefully followed into the sheltering forest.
Once, a wind-whipped sand spit was not the most desirable address in Duluth.
The Ojibwe preferred the lush estuary of the St. Louis River, which flows into Lake Superior at what today is Duluth-Superior Harbor. The French explorer Daniel Greysolon, Sieur du Lhut, for whom the city was named, didn’t waste much time on the lakefront when he arrived in 1679. Nor did the early fur traders, who hustled straight up the St. Louis, which, via the little Savanna River, connects Lake Superior to the Mississippi.
The St. Louis looks sleepy, but it's the largest Lake Superior tributary in the United States. With Ontario's Nipigon River, it contributes about one-fourth of the lake's annual water input.
A few steps into the forest, and it hit.
The tang of cedar bark and pine needles, moistened by droplets of mist from waterfalls. The loamy richness of earth carpeted by ferns.
In Duluth, you can lead a child to water — but just try leading her away.
“Mom, it’d be worth moving to Duluth just so we could go to this beach a lot,’’ said my daughter Madeleine, jumping from rock to rock at Brighton Beach.
Duluth, once the ugly duckling of Lake Superior, now is one of the best places in Minnesota to take children. On Canal Park,
the lineup of tourist attractions can keep a family entertained for days. There’s the Great Lakes Aquarium, an Omnimax
theater, a skating and bicycle path, a castle-style wooden playground, a giant ore boat to go through and freighters to watch
going under the Aerial Lift Bridge. There are tour boats to ride around the harbor and, nearby, a railroad depot with trains to
ride along the lake.
On Duluth's Hawk Ridge, a bird in the hand is worth at least two in the sky.
They're impressive when spotted overhead. But up close, it's easier to get to know a bird — say, the northern goshawk, a fierce predator whose image once adorned the helmet of Attila the Hun.
As she held a young goshawk by the legs, naturalist Willow Maser struggled to make herself heard above its high-pitched screeches.
If Duluth wasn't already one of the best hiking cities in the nation, it definitely is now.
Creeks, ravines, bays and lakefront have given it spectacular terrain for the Congdon Park, Park Point and Western Waterfront
trails (See Walking Duluth).
Now, 39 miles of the Superior Hiking Trail stretch from Jay Cooke State Park to Hawk Ridge, roughly following the same ridges and glacial beach terraces used by Skyline Parkway. Along the way, the trail passes such landmarks as Ely's Peak, Spirit Mountain, Enger Tower and the Rose Garden.
It's a hot Saturday in Duluth, and Canal Park is jam-packed.
A line of cars waits to cross the Aerial Lift Bridge; people want to get to the beach or the art fair on Park Point. Tourists mill around the marine museum, shops and restaurants. Young men in souped-up trucks slowly cruise along Canal Park Drive, and young girls in town for a soccer tournament rove the sidewalks in packs, trailed by their parents.
It seems as if every tourist and teenager in town is in Canal Park.