-The episode of "Culture Quest" you're about to watch is brought to you by... ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Engine revving ] [ Water bubbling, insects chirping ] -At RBC Wealth Management, we know you have ideas that can have you doing good or feeling great.

What ideas will you bring to life?

-Duluth, Minnesota, is a port city perched at the tip of Lake Superior.

It's one of those places that the deeper you dig, the more surprises you uncover, from centuries-old Native history to its turn-of-the-century heyday as a hub for shipping, mining, and industry.

It's the gateway to the largest freshwater lake in the world, Lake Superior, and the jumping-off point to a vast wilderness to the north.

It's also where I grew up.

I spent my childhood here in the 1970s and '80s.

And while I loved it, Duluth was a tough place back then, deep in economic decline, losing population and home to communities of color and Native populations that were largely underserved and too often unseen.

But in the decades since I lived there, Duluth has been busy changing.

Artists, artisans, cultural leaders, and entrepreneurs are breathing life into long-forgotten neighborhoods and trying to lift up those stories that have been left out of the narrative for decades.

It's now also a major destination for outdoor adventure.

You can go from hiking and biking in limitless wilderness, skiing at Spirit Mountain, and surfing on Lake Superior.

Yeah, there's surfing here.

You can watch giant freighters thread the needle of the iconic Aerial Lift Bridge, tour stunning turn-of-the-century mansions, you can attend Ojibwa powwows, listen to blues on the lakefront or Bach in Symphony Orchestra Hall.

So this episode is all about that transformation from the hardscrabble place I knew in the '70s and '80s to the thriving place it is now.

We begin with Babette Sandman, a respected Ojibwa elder and community leader.

She is deeply engaged in cultural preservation, in community healing, and efforts to honor and give voice to the Ojibwa that have called this place home for millennia.

We met with her in the park she helped name, Gichi-ode' Akiing, to talk with her about Ojibwa life here past, present, and future.

She started out talking about Chief Buffalo, one of the most important Native leaders in US history.

In 1850, as part of a larger effort to remove the Ojibwa from their homelands, the government, led in Minnesota by Governor Alexander Ramsey, ordered Ojibwa bands to travel more than 100 miles west, to Sandy Lake, to receive their annual treaty payments.

And around 4,000 Ojibwa made that roughly two-week trip.

But the promised food and money never arrived.

Stranded far from home in November as winter set in, around 400 Ojibwa died at Sandy Lake and along the journey back to their homelands around Lake Superior.

-And so Chief Buffalo, who was a warrior, didn't just sit back and watch that.

He did something.

He traveled from here to see the president of the United States.

-In his 90s, Chief Buffalo traveled all the way to Washington, DC, by canoe, steamboat, and train to fight for his people.

His diplomacy convinced the government to cancel the forced removal orders and eventually led to the 1854 Treaty of La Pointe.

And while that treaty was far from perfect, it secured permanent reservations and rights for the Lake Superior Ojibwa.

-When you asked to tell the history of this area, I wanted to tell you about the disconnection that we felt growing up in the '70s.

All we knew is we could feel something different about us inside.

We didn't know what that feeling was.

And our parents, we didn't know at the time, could not say who they are.

You know, today people say our Indian names, our clan, where we're from, all in Ojibwa language.

But back then, before 1978, no one would dare talk like that.

-Prior to 1978, Native religion was often criminalized, forcing many Native people to hide their identity.

Federal policies sought to erase Native traditions and sever ties to community and culture, a mind-set captured in Richard Pratt's late-1800s phrase "Kill the Indian, save the man."

In 1978, key federal laws finally restored Native religious freedom.

-So my dad, that was an enrolled member of White Earth, would say he was French-Canadian or Italian.

He was very dark, and he had kind of black, wavy hair because the Native people here were pretty much hated and looked down upon and it was frowned upon to be Native.

It was a really hard time for us to... to be proud of who we were.

So it was hard to pick ourselves up from that.

And we did not dream of becoming anything.

So one day he said we were going to this house in the morning -- early.

And we went in there, and it was real quiet, and everybody was sitting on the floor in a big circle.

So they are opening a big -- the biggest bottle of white port I've ever seen.

And that leader over there takes a big drink and gags, passes it to the next person.

Gag.

And it's going through the circle, and they drink and they gag, and it's going through the circle, and it's coming towards me and my dad.

I bumped my dad's arm like, "Come on.

Do something here."

[ Chuckles ] "I really don't want to experience this.

I am not like this."

Anyway, it gets to me.

"Oh, God."

I took a drink and passed it.

"Ugh.

That's it.

I am not gonna be like this.

Whatever this is, it's not me."

And I'm 16 years old.

So years later, I'm at a big drum ceremony, and there's that big circle of Native people.

But in the middle is not white port.

It's a drum.

And I really connect.

-Wow.

Yeah.

-You know?

But, you know, and I also have -- I'm not putting anything down either.

It's like we did not have religious freedom.

But I'm so proud of our ancestors, because they just said, "Well, I guess we just got to take this out in the woods," and they did.

They took it way out in the woods, kept it going.

We never missed a beat with ceremonies.

But they held it very secret for the risk of being arrested.

And so when it was 1978, it was a little hard to come out and trust people.

But we picked it all up again.

It was never lost.

-And what are you doing here?

-In Duluth?

-This... -Oh!

[ Laughs ] -No.

What are you doing here?

Sorry.

I could have been more specific.

I'm a brilliant interviewer!

Did you see that technique I used on you?

That was really good.

No.

What's... -Oh, I just told a really hard story, so I'm just sort of smudging just with sage and cedar, just kind of...Wow.

You know, I just put that all on camera, but you know what?

I'm at an age where if my story can help anybody, because from that, I rose into graduating with a four-year degree.

-From UMD.

-Yeah.

A BAS degree, which is amazing.

I was on the dean's list.

I'm very smart.

I didn't know that.

-So that brings me back to that image that's still stuck in my head about the liquor bottle getting replaced by the drum.

-[ Laughing ] Yes.

-But the liquor bottle is the absence of hope.

-Yes.

Absolutely.

And then in my life, I was able to replace all that with the drum.

-Which is the beginning of hope.

-Yes.

Yes, it is.

-That brings us back to the renaming of this park and Chief Buffalo.

Babette, a longtime chair of the Duluth Indigenous Commission, played a key role in renaming it Gichi-ode' Akiing, meaning "a grand heart place."

A muralist named Moira Villiard focused in on the history of Chief Buffalo and spearheaded a giant mural dedicated to him and invited Duluthians to come and help paint it.

-All kinds of people came and helped paint and artists -- the story of Chief Buffalo.

So we had a ribbon cutting for that, and then we had a naming ceremony, a huge naming ceremony here to name Gichi-ode' Akiing.

I've got an office in the American Indian Community Housing Organization, and every day I go there I -- -Is that AICHO?

-AICHO.

-AICHO.

Yeah.

Yeah.

-And I just smile, because it's just Native people running around, smiling around...[ Laughs ] -I've been in there.

Yeah.

It's a pretty vibrant place.

-We're all just smiling.

-Yeah.

-You know, and maybe we've been through a lot in our lives, but we have this gift of giving each other smiles and some kind of happiness.

It's amazing.

I love our community.

I love that about us.

We're there for each other.

-Yeah.

-And we know what we've been through.

And that's what I like about our ways, is that we always think about the next generation.

What we're doing today affects the generation next.

-Yeah.

-So they kept this secret out in the woods at the risk of being reported on or arrested to keep it going for us, and we're keeping it going.

We're grabbing the baton and keeping it going.

-My next stop is to Grandma's Saloon and Grill at the base of the lift bridge on Canal Park to hear an incredible story about a place that was once a literal dumping ground turning into one of the most iconic tourism spots in the Upper Midwest -- an honest-to-God Cinderella story.

♪♪ The year is 1974, and the story revolves around three people -- Mick Paulucci and his dad and multimillionaire frozen-food giant Jeno Paulucci and Andy Borg.

Andy and Mick wanted to open up a bar, and the business powers that be all said the place to do it was Spirit Mountain, a recently opened ski hill overlooking Duluth and Lake Superior.

But they needed a liquor license in order to make it all happen.

-When they approached this bar down here in the dilapidated end of Canal Park, where it was just scary, this guy said, "You can buy the whole business."

So to get the liquor license, they bought the Sand Bar, the building.

-The Sand Bar.

Gotcha.

It was at that moment that Andy and Mick made the game-changing decision to skip building at Spirit Mountain and instead make something of the bar they'd just bought on Canal Park.

-But Jeno was out of it, and Mick and Andy dove into the Sand Bar and started gutting it.

-And people thought they were kind of... -Goofy.

Like I say, the leaders of industry at the time -- the Goldfines, even Jeno himself -- "Spirit Mountain, that's where you go."

-And no question, it was a big gamble.

At the time, if you were looking around this whole area, you have the Sand Bar and then what else?

Paint a picture.

-Marine museum had just opened maybe a couple years beforehand.

I think there was a fast-food place across the street... -Uh-huh.

-...I think... -Mm-hmm.

-...and then... junkyard, junkyard, tow-truck yard, junkyard, scrapyard.

-There were four?

-Oh, they were everywhere.

-This was what Duluth looked like as you came sailing in here, was you were met with, uh, junked cars on the shoreline.

-World's largest lake.

-Right.

Beautiful bridge.

-It's mind-blowing to me.

-Right.

-As a young busser here -- so, I started, you know, in '76 -- to get to that lake when we would finish a shift, you walked through the junkyard.

-Fast-forward to early 1976, and Grandma's Saloon and Grill was open for business.

-♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪ -That's a pivotal moment, right?

-The catalyst for Canal Park was that investment right there.

And as soon as people saw that, "Geez.

A lot of people seem to be coming down there," well, then that attracts more attention and more investment down here... -Mm-hmm.

-...to the point where hotels, other restaurants, other services, other things came down here because they wanted to be part of the action.

-That's right.

-Thank you very much.

The '70s and '80s were not good to Duluth.

The '70s and '80s.

-Tell them about your billboard.

-Some great investor in the city of Duluth put up a billboard.

"Last one out, turn out the lights."

And that really did summarize our state of affairs in the early '80s.

-During that time, Duluth's population had dropped by almost 20%, from just over 100,000 to around 85,000.

The iron-ore industry was in trouble, mills were shutting down, and thousands of jobs just disappeared.

Even Mick's dad, Jeno Paulucci, moved his frozen-food business out of town, laying off hundreds and taking over 1,000 more jobs with them, all of that leading to Duluth often being mentioned as one of the most economically distressed cities in the country.

-And it was a tough time.

And so that could become, you know, really a pivot point where Duluth kind of leaned into the tourism industry.

-There we go.

Yeah.

-You know, where you see challenge, you hopefully see opportunity.

-And that next opportunity arrived in the form of a marathon.

Let's go Grandma's Marathon, because that's another major event.

-World-class event.

-World-class event.

It's a qualifier for -- one of the last qualifiers for Boston, isn't it?

-Correct.

-It is.

-Who's the guy that started it?

-Scott Keenan.

-Didn't he go to Andy and ask for a sponsorship for like 100 bucks or something like that?

-I think it's 600 bucks.

-Uh-huh.

-So, Scott approached Andy and said, "I want to run this safe long-distance run all the way from Two Harbors, follow the shoreline, and I wanted to end right in front of your boxcar so we can have a big party for the people who are gonna participate."

-And this is '81-ish?

-This is '76.

-Oh.

-'76.

-So you were just recently opened.

-Yeah.

It was our first year opening.

The first marathon was in '77.

-Oh, okay.

-And Andy said, "Sure.

We can take a chance on that."

And I remember him turning to Mick and saying, "Do you know what a marathon is?"

I mean, they really didn't know what they were getting into.

I think the first race was 150 runners.

There wasn't a lot of people involved.

There were tens and tens down here, you know?

-Tens and tens.

Yeah.

Exactly.

-Nobody knew what this was.

-And then, by the 10th annual, which was '86, we were 8,500 strong at Two Harbors.

-The marathon was another major moment here.

It began drawing thousands of visitors from all over the Upper Midwest to Canal Park.

And for many, it was their first real look at the beauty and potential of Duluth's waterfront.

By the late '80s, Canal Park was well on the rise.

New restaurants and bars started opening, the marathon kept bringing more tourists, and the old junkyards gradually gave way to parking lots and hotels.

The city launched an ambitious downtown waterfront plan to restore and reimagine public spaces, and that momentum just kept building -- more visitors, more shops, more restoration.

Fast-forward a couple of decades and Canal Park has become one of the premier tourist destinations in the Upper Midwest.

And in 2026, both Grandma's Bar and Saloon and the marathon are celebrating their 50th anniversaries.

Quite a legacy for a place that rose out of piles of junked cars.

To me, that, what was going on here, it does something for pride in citizens of their city.

-Where when you tell them you live in Duluth, and people say, "Oh, my God, I love Duluth!"

-Love Duluth.

-"I love Duluth, and we love coming to Duluth.

I used to come to Duluth when I was a kid," and that kind of thing, you can feel pride in that.

You can say, "Wow, I work in a pretty cool place."

-And people would not have said that in the late '70s, early '80s.

-They would've said, "Oh, I'm sorry."

-"Oh, my God.

Yeah, sorry.

I'm sorry for your loss."

-"Why can't you get out of there?

What's happened?"

-And through it all, there has always been one constant, one thing that has a role in so many aspects of life here, and that's the lake itself.

It's hard to explain to people just this presence of this lake, to have a lake that has a horizon on it, and that horizon goes on for 350 miles.

It's, like, come on.

-I mean, people refer to it as an inland sea, which it certainly is.

-Yeah, yeah.

-It's really the secret ingredient of everything we've talked about.

Hospitality -- it's water.

-Another T-shirt.

-Industry -- it's water.

-Yeah.

-Breweries and distilleries -- it's the water.

It's the greatest of the Great Lakes.

-It is, yeah.

-We love it.

-The lake itself is something that's hard to describe to someone that hasn't seen it, been out on it.

While it's of course not the Pacific or the Atlantic, there is something mind-boggling about it to see it in person, knowing it's a freshwater lake in the middle of the continent.

So I went out with United States Coast Guard's Master Chief Justin Olsen to give us a firsthand accounting of it.

-Lake Superior is no joke.

That is for one thing.

I've been stationed on it a couple different times now and got to see what it's pure fury can be, and it can hold a candle about anything I've seen, you know, in different spots.

And, um, the frequenc-- -And why is that?

Yeah.

-It's a deep lake.

-Okay.

-So, it's very deep.

And then I would also say the way that, uh, the lake is positioned and shaped, depending on your wind, you know, if you had a northwest wind blowing really hard, well, Marquette, the Soo, Whitefish Point, kind of where the Edmund Fitzgerald went down, like, that area could just get nasty.

-Oh, 'cause it's coming right across like that, yeah.

-Funneling all the way down, so you have tons of fetch.

You know, hundreds of miles.

-What's fetch?

-Fetch is like the distance that wind can have an effect on.

-Gotcha.

Yeah.

-Right?

Now we have a northeast wind here.

Now we're in that tunnel, and we're at the very end of what the, you know, all Lake Superior's fury can give you.

-And does it matter that it's also funneling, or...?

-It does matter.

It intensifies it, right?

-Yeah.

-'Cause you start dealing with refraction and reflection of waves and really pushing all that energy and condensing it from really, really deep water to a shallower and shallower point.

And it just, yeah, just funnels all that energy right down into it.

The waves in Lake Superior, in the Great Lakes itself, are going to be much closer together than what you would see on, say, the East Coast or the Gulf of Alaska.

-Oh, yeah.

-Because you have an entire ocean for them to cross, and they get in that frequency, and they kind of elongate out.

-Yeah.

So, periodicity up there, you could have 12 seconds between, you know, peak to peak, where here it's 3 seconds.

-3 seconds?

-Yeah.

They're just that close together.

But you can still have, you know, say 14 or 15-foot seas here at a 3-second or 4-second interval.

There's no backs to the waves.

Like, it causes severe challenges in trying to navigate through stuff like that.

I get so many people that have been in, even in the Coast Guard for years, and the first time they serve in the Great Lakes, they come to this station -- I just had a gentleman report in, you know, 16, 17 years in, was up in Alaska most of his career.

And he comes here, and they see Lake Superior for the first time.

We get underway on it, and it's -- they're awestruck.

-Yeah.

-You know, it's mind-blowing that an inland body of water is like this.

It's an inland sea.

-Yeah.

You know, for all intents and purposes, it's that big, it acts like it, and it has the dangers of it.

-Here are some Lake Superior stats for you.

It's the largest lake in the world by surface area and holds nearly 10% of all the freshwater on the Earth's surface.

It alone makes up around half of the water in the entire Great Lakes system.

It could cover all of North and South America in a foot of water.

Duluth is actually the farthest inland port for oceangoing ships anywhere in the world.

And when conditions are right, it can get waves up to 20 to 30 feet high.

And then you add winter to the mix.

-The ice packs, they'll form out there, and you'll get what they call pancake ice, or a different thing that will freeze in these big disks.

-Oh, yeah.

-And they'll push them in.

And then you get a really cold night, and it's calm out, and it'll kind of lock them together and freeze them out.

Well, they can be 12-, 14-inches thick.

So people are like, "Oh, it's safe."

And, you know, they'll go out there one day and they're fishing.

Next morning, that wind shifts out of the southwest, and they come out, and there's nothing out there.

What you don't want is to be out there ice-fishing when that happens.

-When that wind shifts, yeah.

-'Cause then you start trolling.

You don't want to troll when you're ice-fishing.

-Trolling on an iceberg.

-Yeah.

It's really nice when you get to see a lot of the surfers come out, too.

I mean, it kind of gets the pucker factor up a little bit because you're like, "All right, well..." -Oh, 'cause you guys -- yeah.

-Yeah.

So, you know, people are in danger, you know.

It's a dangerous condition if we have surf conditions... -Yeah.

-...but like true Minnesotans, they're gonna take advantage of whatever it is.

If it's negative-30, we'll go ice-fish.

-Yeah, right.

-If we got 6-foot seas out here, we'll probably go surfing.

-"We're gonna go surf," yeah.

That leads us to the Aerial Lift Bridge, the gateway to the lake from Duluth.

I grew up here listening to the call and response salutes between the giant freighters and the bridge, their horns echoing off the hillside and across the city.

And there is no more iconic picture of Duluth than the lift bridge itself.

So, today -- [ Chuckles ] Well, today is a special day for yours truly.

So this is a total childhood dream of mine growing up in Duluth.

Always wanted to go up on the lift bridge with the big boat coming through.

It's happening right now.

So you can hear the alarm going off now.

The safety arms have gone down.

The last cars are getting off the bridge, and then it's going up.

That's awesome.

You can hear little kids -- "The bridge is going up.

The boat's coming through."

[ Ship horn blares ] Get to go blow the horn.

So, what is it?

-One round, just hold it down.

-You just tell me, yeah.

[ Bridge horn blares ] -[ Laughs ] -Yes!

Come on.

-Oh, you're the man.

-There we go.

Oh, my goodness.

Childhood dream fulfilled.

I love it.

Do you hear that?

The captain's on the loudspeaker... [ Crowd cheering ] ...getting them to cheer.

[ Ship horn blares ] Oh, I love it.

He knows how to play a crowd.

-The canal to the harbor was carved through in the 1870s, which gave much easier access to the Duluth side of the harbor, but it also cut off Park Point, the 7-mile barrier peninsula that extends from the city.

So, in 1905, they built a bridge that carried people across in a moving gondola.

A few decades later, it was rebuilt to lift straight up, giving road access to Park Point and a high span for all manner of boat traffic.

And there are all sorts of things that go on here, from Wednesday evening sailboat races, the Tall Ships Festival that draws thousands of people to the piers.

High-end cruise lines are now plying these waters.

And of course, the up-close spectacle of these behemoths that, in some cases, have made their way all the way from the Atlantic Ocean to this port.

To me, obviously, summer is beautiful here, and it's... -Oh, yeah.

-But, to me, the compelling moment is winter, when you've got, you know, icebergs flowing down here.

You wake up one morning, there's no ice on the lake, and the next morning, the wind's blowing right, and you've got icebergs.

-Oh, yeah.

It will pack the canal.

-Just visually, it's got to be... -To see the ship coming in off the lake and the whole bow on the front and the radar, and everything is just covered with ice.

You know, that's very cool-looking.

Where we have the sea smoke, we call it, the fog on the water.

-Yep.

And they literally just come out of this fog.

-Oh, man.

-You know, and -- -And your perspective, from sitting in here... -Oh, absolutely.

We watch -- I mean, we've got radars and everything.

We can watch them coming towards us, but you can't see them.

And then, all of a sudden, poof, there they are, you know?

Yeah.

I mean, it's sometimes something right out of a movie, you know?

-That's crazy.

Zeitgeist is a non-profit arts and community center right in the heart of downtown Duluth.

It's kind of the city's cultural hub, with an indie movie theater, a performance space, a restaurant and bar, plus community rooms and open areas.

At its core, it's a place where people of all backgrounds can come together, feel welcome, be heard, and know they're a meaningful part of Duluth's cultural fabric.

-In what we do, and in using art as a tool for social change and continuing to uplift stories, highlight stories that need to be heard, highlight histories.

And our history is varied and it's troublesome and it's challenging, but this is when we confront, through art and through stories and presentations and theater and visual mediums, that people are able to actually engage and have conversation and connection around really challenging subject matter.

-I'm very excited about what happens here.

Often, we find ourselves screaming and yelling at each other, but you're coming to a place to meet understanding versus just a place to yell and shout at each other.

To me, that's a part of the solution.

-A great example of their work is Duluth's Hillside neighborhood.

Once a stable, diverse, working-class community, it was split in half in the late '60s by Sixth Avenue, a four-lane road meant to connect the suburbs to downtown.

Like many cities across the United States, it fractured the neighborhood.

But in this case, Zeitgeist stepped in to help change the story.

-We actually have a grassroots leadership team called the Healthy Hillside Team that guides a lot of our work.

They have a lot of on-the-ground conversations with community members to find out, what are people really struggling with?

What do they want to see?

What are the solutions that they already know are going to work for them?

-That's such a -- Totally.

But that's such a critical -- Instead of you going in and saying, "Here's the solution."

-Yes.

-They produced a documentary that followed Hillside residents who told their stories about the impact the road had on their community.

Then they hosted a summit where there were panel after panel of community members speaking to an audience of policymakers and city administrators.

-So they had to sit through all these layers of storytelling, live storytelling from the stage, and then watch a documentary.

And within the next week, we had a commitment from the city to make change.

-You know, we're trying to help shine that light for the stories to come out, 'cause it's not just that everybody's in poverty and that everybody's struggling and, you know -- and that we need to feel bad for them.

There's really a lot of strength, a lot of beauty, a lot that people are doing to have amazing lives.

-And a lot of love.

-Yeah.

-A lot of love.

-A lot of love.

This is a beautiful area.

I mean, when you think of the outdoors, the opportunity to be at work, in 10, 15 minutes, to be in the middle of the woods... -Yeah.

-...or on a boat... Last week, we were out chasing the Northern Lights.

And the number of families who were also outside with their phones... -Mm-hmm.

-You know, gathering, looking at the Northern Lights, where else could you do that?

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

-Finish supper and go out and chase the Northern Lights.

I don't think you can really put a price tag on that.

And I still chase that thought, "Why can't it be that way for everyone?"

-Do you feel like that's moving in the right direction in Duluth?

-It's moving, but the cadence is slow.

In the great words of Dr.

King, right?

"How long?"

-Yeah.

-And when you look at our community, we had, you know, our first female mayor.

Right?

We have our first ever Black judge.

So we have all these different firsts, milestones, which are amazing.

It's breaking the ceiling, but how long?

-Mm-hmm.

-Right?

And then, how long before the next or the next?

-Mm-hmm.

-So, it's easy to get stuck in that story of one.

-Yeah.

-Right?

-No, I get what you're saying.

Yeah.

You want to have multiple stories.

-Yes.

-Yeah.

-And to bring it back to this space, you know, this is a space that's very special and near and dear to my heart.

-Mm-hmm.

-Because people often need permission to have a difficult conversation.

And the stage is set.

And we've had those hard conversations here about George Floyd, about some of the other challenges that we're faced with.

-Like you were saying at the very beginning of the conversation, people yelling at each other, it doesn't achieve anything, but people coming in and having a conversation and meeting one on one and getting to know someone with a different background, a different attitude, all these different things changes.

It's hard to get annoyed and escalate with someone when you're sitting down just having a chat.

And it doesn't have to be a chat about the issue that you're struggling with.

It can be a chat about that piece of art, and you find this commonality and this -- this common ground, and that creates this -- this basis for what comes next.

-And I see, when those things happen, we realize that we are really all a part of each other's success and each other's failure.

-Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

-We're in this together.

-But Zeitgeist isn't just a place for tough subjects and conversations.

It's also home to theater productions, film screenings, cinematography classes, comedy and improv.

It has a full restaurant and bar and community gathering spaces, art exhibits, youth camps, and festivals.

-As we understand who we are and we're constantly tailoring and adapting programming reflective of what the community is telling us or what's happening, right?

What we think or we feel that we're hearing, they want to see, they want to experience, to have the challenge, you know, a challenging experience potentially but also a hilarious, lighthearted, fun, you know, a space to just unwind.

But I think if we look at the last five years, we have been through a complete reconstruction of the street out front.

You couldn't get in our front doors.

Then we go through a pandemic, two years, and our space was dark.

We had nothing happening, and we didn't know what was gonna -- we didn't know what the outcome was gonna be.

We opened our doors, the community showed up.

They came back and they said, "This matters.

You matter.

Arts and culture, storytelling, shared connection, all of this is who we are as Duluthians, and this matters to us.

And it's validating to know that we have the support of the community that we exist in, in all the right ways, who are constantly showing up for all of this.

So it's pretty great.

-Yeah.

I mean, that was mildly inspiring, what you just said.

[ Laughter ] To say the least.

-For me, Zeigeist, through my mother's Southern cooking, is that pot of gumbo.

-Yes.

-Everything is in there.

And you can't do without one ingredient.

It all has to be there.

-Yeah.

-Right?

So you have those opportunities.

It's not one definition for me of what this place is, because it's always changing.

There's always other things that have happened.

And that's what keeps it fun.

-Right.

-You're never coming to the same place twice.

The art is never the same.

-Yeah.

-The venues are never the same.

So I think that keeps it fresh, and it keeps it an amazing place to visit.

-Just like gumbo.

You dip the ladle in, and you get a different scoop every time, yeah, right?

-But it's always good.

-It's always -- Yes.

Well done.

Our next chapter is a modern-day version of the Canal Park story from earlier, and it also answers that age-old question of, "Can beer help revitalize a neighborhood?"

And at least in the case of Bent Paddle Brewery and the Lincoln Park neighborhood, the answer is yes.

Yes, it can.

What you guys have done here when you arrived or when you decided to build here... Let me try it a different way.

Why did you decide to build here?

-Well, we decided to come to Duluth.

I'm born and raised Duluthian.

-Yeah.

-I was gone for 15 years.

I missed it.

The lake always calls -- calls us back.

And when we did it, we had been in the brewing industry, myself and my partners, and we really -- we toured all over looking at other craft breweries and different things all over the country, and it didn't really matter where they were.

At the time, craft beer was booming like crazy.

We would go to a farm brewery.

We would go to a brewery in a weird air park, and the directions were muddled and all of that.

So it really... -Yeah.

-We knew it didn't matter and that the -- the goal was to just get up and producing and all of that.

We saw Superior Street one block away from the brewery, and it was just empty storefronts, and we're like, "This place has a vibe.

There's something that could happen here."

-And this is the four of you.

-The four of us.

So myself and my husband, Colin, and then Bryon and Karen Tonnis.

So it's two married couples, multiple marriages intact there, if you think about it.

-I love it, yeah.

-And 50% female-owned, which is very rare in the industry.

So, yeah.

We all -- we wanted to come here, though, primarily because of the water of Lake Superior.

Completely blank slate water brewers all over the country have to add and subtract minerals, and ours is perfect.

-Blank slate.

Okay.

-Blank slate.

-Mimics the mineral content of the Czech Republic where pilsners were born.

-Oh.

-Yeah.

And it's 10% of the world's fresh water.

And as we know, it tastes delicious.

Like tap water here can't be beat.

And it's even better for brewing.

-100%.

No, I'm not kidding you.

My college roommates got so tired of me when I went -- And I was tasting the water and was like, "What is this garbage?"

-Everywhere I go, I'm like, "Ugh."

I can't -- I just end up getting, "Bleh," 'cause I can't handle it.

-I'm so glad you said that.

I feel -- I feel vindicated.

-It's a thing.

-Yeah.

So, at that point, Lincoln Park was still... -Empty storefronts.

-Empty storefronts.

-They had just redone -- The city had just redone Superior Street, so it was a nice, beautiful, new street... -Yeah.

-...and nobody on it.

And when we first started, we were doing everything, and I was working till like 10:00, 11:00 at night, and I'd leave, and it was dark, and I'd have to have a brewer walk me to my car and all of this.

And I remember the first year, Frost River was here and Damage was here, but those are retail stores, so they closed earlier than 11:00.

-Yeah.

-And -- or 10:00 or whatever.

And Tom, from Duluth Grill, he's the owner -- Tom Hanson is the owner of Duluth Grill.

-Which is just a few blocks down.

-And that's one of the original things.

Duluth Grill has been here a long time and has been pretty famous and is excellent.

-Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

-And he just saw this -- That was his only restaurant at the time, and he saw what we were doing, and he said, I'm gonna put a restaurant over there.

And then he brought OMC, which is Oink Moo Cluck.

It's a delicious barbecue place.

-We ate there last night.

-It's very good.

-Yeah, it was really good.

-He brought it immediately, like within two years of us opening.

-Oh.

-And I remember the first night.

It was open and Frost River might have been open late.

Something was happening, and people were activating the neighborhood.

And I remember going, "Oh, something's happening."

-Yeah.

-So, we opened in 2013.

So 2014, 2015 where nobody -- nobody here.

-Right.

-And then it just -- After OMC moved in, it went boom, like, yeah.

And he only moved in because we -- -He saw what you guys were doing.

-And I had people on the East Side -- West Side, East Side.

-Oh, I know, yeah.

-Oh, you know.

-Yeah.

-I had them saying, when we were opening, and we told them where it was, they're like, "Oh, my!"

You know, "Oh!"

Clutch your pearls.

-Yeah.

-And we were like, "Are you kidding?

Have you been there?

It's -- The neighborhood is great.

There have been people who have been living here for multiple generations.

Solid neighborhood, ready to activate business district."

-Yeah.

"We're not worried.

We're here to make beer."

But the fun part was seeing the neighborhood and be like, "I think this could be something."

-So, Laura, along with Tom from Duluth Grill and Chris from Frost River, an outdoor gear store and workshop, had regular meetings trying to figure out development in Lincoln Park.

Laura thought that if they could bring in businesses that didn't have to rely entirely on foot traffic, that might give their vision for Lincoln Park a chance to find its legs.

-That was the type of entrepreneur we wanted -- people making things in the back and having a small footprint in the front, but the small footprint wasn't going to make or break them.

So we ended up calling it the Craft District.

-I mean, it's a lot of foot traffic coming from those little craft shops, or is it coming from the restaurants?

-Both.

They're all -- -So they're feeding.

-They all work together.

-A symbiotic relationship.

-You park in a spot, and you get to wander about.

And then, down the street, Ursa Minor opened and two cideries.

-Yeah.

-And Lake Superior Brewing, the old one, used to be down there, now Warrior.

And people would ask us all the time a few years ago, like, "Are you competition?

", and I was like, "Absolutely not."

We go to districts all over the country and wander around and try all the beer, and that is good for us.

We call it "co-opetition" in the beer industry.

-I like that -- "co-opetition."

Yeah.

I always equate it to the American craft brewery taproom is the equivalent of the Irish pub in every small town, because it's the community gathering space.

-No, I like that analogy, yeah.

-Lots of regulars at the bar.

-Right.

-Community building spaces.

I think they're America's community building spaces.

-Well, like, right behind off-camera there, there are kids, families hanging out.

-Yeah.

And that's one of the things we hear the most about the neighborhood is all the families, the young families, that live up the hill a little bit, walk their families down, meet other people.

So you're not just contained in your house because there's nowhere for you to go.

Your families can meet and friends can meet, and there's music and there's games... -Right.

-...and all sorts of other fun things.

-So, Duluth, in general, I know Duluth has, like any city in the world, has its fair share of problems, right?

-Yeah.

-But by and large, is the arc moving in a...?

-Positive?

Yes, absolutely.

It's a big small town.

-It is, yeah.

-And I love that about it.

But you can still -- So, you can, like, make your name happen as opposed to, in a big city or something, but you also -- you have all the benefits.

There's theater, there's restaurants.

Sometimes not enough for people.

-Yeah, but they're living in a town of 80,000 people.

I mean, it's not meant to be the theater district in London, you know?

-It's great.

-You now have, like, Viking Cruise Lines and a bunch of different cruises coming in here.

-They are cool to watch.

-You have business conventions at all of these different places coming up here.

It seems like it's a great place to obviously come as a tourist, but there's so much -- it seems like there's a lot of business potential and current business going on to move here and raise a family here, which then creates all this economic... -Absolutely.

And I think that's part of what drew us here for business.

-Yeah.

-I wanted to come back and have my kid have that same type of big small town experience.

-Yeah.

-And we have met so many people of our age group with kids my daughter's age that are moving here.

-And now the population numbers on the "City of Duluth" sign are -- are going up.

-They are, yeah.

-Yeah.

-I think that will continue.

I absolutely think Duluth's on a great trajectory.

-I hope so.

I really do.

-The artist Jonathan Thunder grew up in the Twin Cities before eventually making Duluth his home.

His work spans painting, animation, and digital media, and he has pieces in museums, universities, galleries, and private collections worldwide.

He's earned numerous awards and even appeared on PBS's "American Masters."

Jonathan grew up riding skateboards, reading Mad magazine, listening to Public Enemy, Tom Waits, and watching MTV, while also being an enrolled member of the Red Lake Band of Ojibwa and a lifelong student of Ojibwa culture and storytelling.

These two influences, edgy pop culture and deep ancestral heritage, shape his vision, each in its own distinct way.

To me, his work is a blend of surreal imagery with a touch of Renaissance spirit layered with symbolism, allegory, hidden meanings, and social commentary.

He navigates themes of tribal identity, heritage, displacement, universal modern anxieties, and our spiritual relationship to the land, while at the same time being able to convey these heady topics with a clear sense of humor and playfulness.

We started out at the Tweed Museum of Art at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, UMD, where three of his works were on display, and we jumped right into the gap between Western hero mythology and Native lived reality through the story of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox.

-So, here's the thing about this painting.

Walker is centered right in the middle of what I would refer to as Paul Bunyan Country, which is like, there's a lot of iconization of Paul Bunyan.

And to me, Paul Bunyan's a little problematic because he's sort of -- you know, he represents resource grab and land grab, which displaced, you know, a lot of tribes and communities.

Um, but he was like the noble face of Paul -- you know, that movement.

-I grew up with Paul Bunyan, of course.

-Yeah.

I mean, we all did.

-And I totally get what you're saying.

-I wanted to paint the corpse of Paul Bunyan just to -- -And Babe the Blue Ox.

-And Babe the Blue Ox, even though Babe didn't really do anything wrong.

-Right.

He was just hanging out, yeah.

-To signify that, no matter what happens during these times, you know, culture endures.

It finds a way, you know, and it continues.

And that's ultimately the basis for this painting.

This piece is called The Doctrine of Rediscovery, and the Doctrine of Discovery was a document that was, uh, produced by the church.

-The Doctrine of Discovery, really, a series of papal decrees, became the legal basis for Europeans to claim Indigenous lands by discovery, ignoring the sovereignty of the people who had lived there for millennia.

-So the Doctrine of Rediscovery follows the wake of that genocidal, destructive path that led to a lot of loss of culture, and that culture includes spirituality, includes our food systems as Indigenous people.

And it also includes our teachings, you know, from elders, which had to hide culture for a hundred years so that they wouldn't have their children taken.

In my lifetime, I've witnessed a lot of rediscovery, revitalization, repatriation, you know, of resources, culture.

I've been very lucky to be alive during this time because now we're getting our teachings back.

You know, we're getting our food back, which you see here, some government-issued food, government employee who, uh, kind of comes and goes, government-issued religion.

-And I love that they're all in gray, too.

-Yeah, it's -- for me, it's on its way out.

You know, it was imposed upon my community, and now it's not necessary.

It's not the law anymore.

This is the elder, kind of just, you know, like elder teachings, um... Kind of like our stories and our, you know, like, cultural teachings that we could only get from elders, so... This little guy right here, he's kind of like a new generation coming in to the world.

And I think things will be, you know, more readily available for them to, you know, understand their identity, as it was for me, and maybe a little easier than it was for my parents.

Here, like, these are called commod cans, which are government-issued rations.

When I grew up, my Grandma Juanita and my Grandma Patsy, they would have rows and rows of these cans, and it would just be like a picture of a cow or like a picture of a pear, you know, or something like that.

Nowadays, you know, you have the Indigenous Food Movement, which is talking more about like, you know, what kind of foods are better for somebody who has my -- whose biology I've inherited?

-Yeah.

-You know, what things are good for me.

So, that's kind of what that conversation is about.

And it was a heavy piece.

-We then headed down to his studio, which happens to be in Lincoln Park, to do a deeper dive into his work and what he has on the horizon.

-You know, this stuff, uh, that I make is not -- You're not gonna mount it on your grandma's shelf, you know, like, at Christmastime or something like that.

When I was at school, still studying, I remember being lucky enough to walk into an exhibit of Russian painters, and that stuff was bananas.

And it was the kind of work that I was interested in doing.

They totally just gave me, like, the permission, you know, to just go full blast and just say, "You know what?

It doesn't matter how... crazy this stuff is."

-Yeah.

-You know, the more the better.

Just keep going.

Hit the throttle.

Let's rock.

There are audiences who are interested in it.

And as a young artist, I didn't have faith in that.

But over time, I've had faith that, uh, my tribe was out there, you know, so to speak.

-Right.

-Um, and that they were just looking for me.

-Yeah.

-My next exhibit is kind of gonna be more about, uh, tales of joy, flirtation, double entendre.

-Yeah.

-Um, a little naughty, you know, a little nice.

-Yeah.

-You know, and it's kind of a -- you know, it's just sort of a way of saying, "Yeah, we've all been through a lot."

You know, like, "Here's a new vignette from me that will hopefully send you home feeling better than before you came."

Uh, to be honest with you, man, to keep this stuff up can be exhausting.

Like, it's important for me to flesh it out.

-Yeah.

-And I've really enjoyed working in the studio on this stuff and trying to figure out, like, what makes me happy, and, uh, sometimes, you know, like, my wife and I will be just talking about anything, and her or I can just turn anything into, like, an innuendo or a dirty joke or something.

-Yeah, absolutely.

-We're both immature.

It's also a cultural thing.

You know, like, growing up, I saw, um, adults in my family joke around, you know, and sometimes things would -- the jokes would be dirty, and that's how they would entertain each other.

And I think, uh, that probably goes back to storytelling, where, you know, there were, like, stories with, like, dirty punch lines to the end of them and stuff in tribal culture.

So it's not something that we didn't ever talk about or joke about.

It was more healthy to, like, have it.

People who are from the communities that we're from will get it, and they'll identify with that, and it will be endearing, you know, not harmful.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

The human spirit needs love, you know, and it kind of starts with a little bit of -- little bit of flirtation.

And the gallery owner who came to look at it, she said, actually, when she saw these paintings of flirtation, and the first thing she thought about was joy.

So I said, "All right."

-Done.

What more?

Yeah.

-"I think I'm doing it right."

-I think it's important to have something that's -- that's just fun.

-Yeah.

And I want to call it range.

You know, like, I think an artist should have range.

-Yeah, you're not gonna abandon these sorts of things, but it's... -No.

The next major world event, I'll be right back to it.

-Yeah.

You're back over in this direction.

-"Here we go again."

-We're closing this episode with a new arrival on the culture scene, surfing.

But as you can see, we filmed on a day with no waves.

So I'm going to lean heavily on my friend Ryan Rumpca, who's a big adventure cinematographer based out of Duluth.

When he isn't traveling around the world, filming, he's out on and literally in the lake, capturing incredible images of all the members in this cold water crew.

Surfing on Lake Superior isn't new.

A few locals braved these waves as far back as the '60s and '70s, but back then, it was little more than a rumor.

Growing up here, I never saw it, never even heard about it.

It was during the very late '90s and 2000s that a legit community started to form, in large part spearheaded by people like Bob Tema, Greg Isaacson, and Brian Stabinger.

Then, in the 2010s, it really found its legs when people like Erik Wilkie started to form a solid community.

Erik actually grew up surfing in Anaheim, California, but he and his wife Yvonne were eventually pulled to the North Shore in 2007, in Yvonne's case, back home, because she actually grew up in the region, after they discovered you could surf these waters.

Erik in particular is sort of the wave guru of the region, always getting out notice when a swell is on the way.

He's also the guy that had a big part in building the welcoming community this surf scene is known for.

-Erik is the guy that has had the foresight to be welcoming and saying, "Listen, let's all get along here.

We all enjoy surfing.

Let's all work together to make it safe out there for everybody."

-Erik started Facebook and YouTube pages as a place to post photos and videos of the people willing to brave the near-freezing waters here.

Then local fans started coming up to photograph the spectacle of surfers in snowstorms, posting them on social media.

Then local news outlets picked up the scent, then national media.

And after that, the word was out about the hardy winter crews surfing the north shore of Lake Superior.

But this place is not at risk of being overrun by people wanting to get into the water for a very obvious reason.

It's really, really, really cold.

-Whenever you get in the cold water, that's 33, 34 degrees or whatever.

It's a race against time, really, before your feet freeze, your face freezes, your hands freeze.

-Yeah.

Just getting into the water is an event in itself.

It couldn't be more of a contrast from a sandy beach and boardshorts.

This takes strategic planning.

So you have to think about, "What's the best system I can do in my car, outside of my car, to stay as warm as I can while I change into my wetsuit?"

-Yeah.

-And that's another piece of the puzzle, too.

-Leave the car running.

-Right.

-Leave the car running.

-Oh, yeah.

-Take breaks.

Bring a big jug of hot water and fill your booties up with it.

-You get out of your car with your booties, and as you're walking down, if there is snow, your feet are already cold.

-And even before that, you're sitting in your car.

Like, you're getting into a wetsuit in your car like a contortionist, right?

-Yep.

-In wintertime, the rocks were sitting on our solid sheet ice, and the easiest entry is over icy stones and a 3-foot ice shelf just to get into the water.

These four, and pretty much anyone else that's surfed here during wintertime, has done it in subzero temperatures, including wind chills of minus-30 and below.

-And there's hypothermia you have to be aware of.

You know, are you getting too cold that when you get out, your feet are like ice chunks and you can't really feel them as you're walking?

-Yeah.

-Hold down times are longer.

-Hold down times are longer.

-Would you guys agree?

-Yeah.

-And here at Stony Point, there's, just like it is up here on the shoreline, There's spaces between the rocks to get caught in.

You don't want to do that.

-But it's all for moments like these, waves that are a siren call out onto the lake for the hardcore surfing community here.

And that community keeps growing.

And yet it still seems to retain its welcoming nature.

Likely because if you're willing to show up in the middle of winter and brave the barely above freezing water temperatures, no matter what your skill level on a board is, that moment when you step into the winter water, you're officially baptized into the surfing community here.

-When you show up to a spot and there's 25, 30 people in the water, you don't know anyone, it's gonna be kind of scary.

-Yeah.

-And I see these friendly people on the shore, and I first meet them, and they treat me like I'm one of their best friends they've known for years.

-Well, we pretty much know each other by this much of our faces that are sticking out in the middle of the wintertime.

-Right.

"Oh, you got hair."

-Yeah.

Right.

[ Laughter ] This place also draws attention from top-tier international surfers.

-You know, we're really honored when the pros show up.

Like, Dylan Graves or Ben Gravy got to come here.

And, holy smokes, you can ride pipeline with the best.

-Oh, really?

-Yeah.

-He's very humble, but he's, like, the guy that seeks out, like, the -- -He's the godfather of the novelty wave.

-Yeah, I've seen his site.

Yeah.

No, I know who you're talking about.

Absolutely.

-Minnesota.

How did you do me so good?!

This is the guy right here.

This guy made it happen.

Thank you.

-You are welcome.

-I'm honored, dude.

That was -- that was it right there.

-Kelsey has also had a hand in expanding this surfing community, starting a local chapter of a surf group called Lake Surfistas, aimed at getting more women out on the water.

-It is really fun to be with men in the water, like, I think, but also there's something empowering about, um, we surf differently and talk differently, you know?

It's just, like, different.

So it's nice to, like, have that support and also, yeah, be able to create that here.

Like, I think a lot of people are really -- You know, Bonnie and I have talked about this.

Like, a lot of people are really, like, nervous to go out.

People don't just, like, tell you, "This is how it's done," or, like, "This is what you do."

And also, because it's few and far between here, you don't, like, just get to go to a surf class, you know, or... Yeah.

Yeah, it's not like you're on a beach where there's surf classes every three hours and stuff.

-Right.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

[ Laughter ] -It shows, and I love that.

Totally.

-Yeah.

-The waves here are all wind-driven, so it's not like a normal break on the ocean that's consistent day by day.

-Conditions always change, too.

So, like, if you drive by one spot and you see waves, it's like, "Oh, what does this, that, and the other spot look like?"

It's like, "I've gone to this, that, and the other spot," and then you drive back down, and it's flat.

And that's another piece of the puzzle, too, is like, when you -- when you see it, you should probably get in the water.

I've learned -- I keep learning that lesson.

-Stop thinking.

Get in the water.

We're close to the border of Canada, in the middle of the country, and talking about surfing still kind of blows my mind.

I don't know if it blows your guys' mind.

-Oh, for sure.

-It does, yeah.

-I mean, it's awesome.

-Back in 1868, Thomas Preston Foster, founder of Duluth's first newspaper, coined the phrase the Zenith City of the Unsalted Seas, imagining the heights Duluth might one day reach.

And while this place has seen its share of highs and lows, and still has challenges to grapple with, it feels like Duluth has been on an upward arc toward a new zenith for a while now.

There wasn't one singular moment, person, or event that set it on that course, but thousands of moments over time, created by people from all walks of life who believe in this place, in its potential, and who have been and still are willing to put in the hard work to make it all happen.

♪♪ -Log on to culturequest.tv for more information about this and other episodes and for links to follow us on social media.

"Culture Quest" is brought to you by... ♪♪ ♪♪ [ Engine revving ] [ Water bubbling, insects chirping ] -At RBC Wealth Management, we know you have ideas that can have you doing good or feeling great.

What ideas will you bring to life?