Duluth

So I’m from Duluth. The Finnish Riviera. To this day, most of my relatives live in Duluth.

And Duluth has very a very international heritage. Check out this demographic information from 100 years ago:

Pop. (1880) 3483; (1890) 33,115; (1900) 52,969, of whom 20,983 were foreign born, 357 were negroes; 5099 were English-Canadians, 5047 Swedes, 2655 Norwegians, 1685 Germans, and 1285 French-Canadians. And it hasn’t changed since then, today there are only 86,918 people and the demographic info is about the same.

I love Duluth…except in the winter.

Unless you live there, it’s hard to remember how cold it actually gets in the winter. In 1994, the Duluth Airport recorded a record number of consecutive hours of below zero temperatures. 186 hours. I remember growing up near Duluth and the thrill of being able to break your hair. It has to be cold to be able to break your hair.

In the past ten years, the governor of Minnesota (Jesse "The Body" Ventura would've been The Gov during some of these years) has closed public schools statewide twice because of cold weather. Here is a look at Duluth's weather for those days:

JANUARY 18, 1994

• HIGH TEMP: -21
• LOW TEMP: -33
• WIND CHILLS: -55 TO -65
• 
  

FEBRUARY 2, 1996

• HIGH TEMP: -21
• LOW TEMP: -39
• WIND CHILLS -50 TO -60

One of the reasons I so love this place is not for the beer, the bitter cold, nor for the John BearGrease Sled Dog Race but for the events that happen there. For example:

"For the fourth year in a row, a gull has made a pilgrimage to a Duluth motel to beg for doughnuts. It's an unlikely sign of spring.

"We're on pins and needles until he shows up again," said Jodi Chambers, the general manager of the Super 8 motel in Duluth.

Chambers was seated at the motel's front desk when she heard shrieks and then a tapping at the lobby door.

It was him - Steven Seagull.

This ring-billed gull has shown up around this time of year for the past four years. His routine consists of knocking on the lobby's glass door with his beak until Chambers offers him a doughnut.

"The other employees here keep saying, 'It's Jodi's bird,' but I catch them out there feeding him, too," Chambers said.

The gull has a penchant for the motel's cake doughnuts, but won't touch the cranberry muffins.

Bryan Olson, head of maintenance at the motel, has a soft spot for the gull, but also a grudge. "I have to clean up after him," Olson said."

God bless Duluth.