The Other Side of the Lake

We're back from a rather frenetic trip to Duluth, Minnesota--36 hours of trip, that is. Since it's a 4-hour drive 1-way, you can imagine how things got. But a true change and a vacuum cleaner of the mind, it was, especially for Joyce and I.

We tried to find things to shop for and do that we couldn't get to do in our home city. Shopping was a particular challenge, as our economy had been a colony of the US for a long time, and many of the same goods are available anywhere. It is conceptually strange to be in a foreign country and find exactly the same cds, dvds, and books available at a given bookstore as at home. Clothes, much the same. Minor differences (linear measurements, mostly) in food. We were able to spot Canadians mostly by their accents.

Strangely, I found a little comix store that had something I'd never expect to find in Canada, the Lion Graphic Bible . It is the Bible done as a graphic novel, and what a novel it makes. Disregard the misleading blurb, "The whole story from Genesis to Revelation..." because anyone with more than a nodding acquaintance with the Bible knows that the Psalms are virtually impossible to illustrate (they're left out), as are Deuteronomy, Leviticus and most of the Epistles. But hey, it picks the choicest stories (mostly: left out Deborah and put in Gideon; I'd rather the other way round) and breathes some wonderful life into them.

And humour: the two guys trying to get their paralytic friend to Jesus are on the point of giving up, when one says, "I got an idea!" "Oh please! Not another one!" his friend groans. "You'll love this--start ripping up the roof!" says the first, with an impish grin on his face.

It's a conservative theological take, but with moments that stand out. In the Epistles, people are shown reading segments of Paul's letters to one another in sequence. You'll notice that one listener becomes the reader of the Epistle to another group of people, and so on. Two of the listener/readers are women.

Walks around the city (despite the heat), watching lakers and salties coming into harbour, a quiet evening.

OK, so what else? Well, the Great Lakes Aquarium, the only fully fresh water aquarium of its type (and size) on Lake Superior. Magnificent. We were a bit anxious about this one, as we had heard rumours and news reports that it was on the point of closing. No sign of that. We pet fresh water stingrays and watched fish being hand fed (the named one of the Lake Sturgeons "Hoover"; see him and you'll know why) by scuba divers. We loved the otters, but felt their enclosure was really too small. Many displays, and much, much education: the Lake is ecologically very fragile, in fact a Lake with relatively very little life for its size, because of its depth, cold, and the dearth of nutrient in the water. Parallel displays on Kenya's Lake Victoria were illuminating: two large, deep freshwater lakes in two continents, facing the same challenges. Victoria's fish are definitely more colourful!

The kids shopped while we putzed in another mall, then we drove back. Pizza at Sven and Ole's. Yes, the menu is in SwEnglish: you vant antsopees and mussrooms? Huge provincial markup on a bottle of Irish whisky at the border. Ah, the spalpeens, to be sure...

This morning, Sheba returned from the kennel, absolutely blissed out that we rescued her. We're exhausted. Renee is leaving tomorrow for the west for a week, while Em is attending a rock concert tonight --running on empty, for sure. Someone will be a real bear, tomorrow...

We're glad to be home. But home is now a larger place for the visit. And now we know that city well enough to hunt around for other things. There will be a next time.