A dad offers popcorn to a seagull while his daughter watches with a little apprehension at Canal Park in Duluth, Minnesota. In the background are the north and south pierhead lights that flank a canal leading into Duluth harbor.
Duluth is separated from neighboring Superior, Wisconsin by the St. Louis River, which had deposited an extremely large sand bar that effectively blocked Duluth's harbor from direct access to Lake Superior. In the mid 1800s, the iron mining and shipping industry was booming and Duluth was missing out on the action due to its lack of direct access to the lake. Over the objections of the folks in Superior, Duluth dug a canal through the sand bar to provide a path to its harbor that bypassed the established route through Superior's harbor.
Originally, only one light, the one on the right, marked the harbor. But the relatively narrow canal and the unpredictability of Lake Superior's weather caused some to think that marking the other pier would be a good idea.
Click on photo to enlarge. © 2005 James Jordan
3 comments:
Hi,
I want to compile a gallery of funny faces. Would you like to submit a picture?
Here's my idea:
You send me a picture of a funny face. This must either be your own face, or taken by you (of someone you know). I will then post a gallery of all the funny faces on my blog, along with links to each of the bloggers' sites.
You up for it? If so, e-mail the picture, along with the blog address you want me to link to, to eddykins@mejc.demon.co.uk
Thanks,
Ed.
I just saw the other day that a ship ran into the pier and almost took out the lift bridge. Here's a link to the story
http://www.wisinfo.com/postcrescent/news/archive/local_22330275.shtml
Application: the presence of a lighthouse does not guarantee safety!
But at least they saw the pier they hit. Good thing the lift bridge was not hit. It has a couple of 16,000 ton counterweights that would have made a big mess.
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