We're at the starting line of Grandma's Marathon.

Starting this week on Saturday, it'll be the 50th anniversary of the marathon that sends a sea of spandex flooding down the Northshore to Canal Park.

And this is the start of the race right outside of Two Harbors.

It's also not just the start of a race, but it's the start of the summer tourism season as well.

Now, we could always talk about the tourist season.

We could say that in Duth they have 6.7 million visitors a year.

It's a $780 million a year operation.

Just up the road in beautiful Lake County, it's a $152 million a year operation with figures that are just a couple of years old.

Well, that's one way to talk about the tourist industry.

But you know what?

We're not like the other kids on the block.

We're in business.

I'm Ken Ber.

Thank you for joining us.

We're going to take a look at a tiny niche of the tourism industry, but a very important one.

It's the gift shop.

How important is the gift shop?

extremely important, especially if you're an attraction.

A lot of the money for an attraction gets made in the gift shop.

And that's why we always say exit through the gift shop.

This week on In Business, Welcome to In Business.

I'm Ken Ber.

This week we're looking at the business of gift shops.

From museums to historic attractions, these places make sure you have a good time, but more importantly, give visitors a way to take a piece of their experience home with them.

We begin at a local attraction that is preparing to sail into a new era for its gift shop.

Let's take a look.

One of Duth's most visible and long-standing tourist destinations of the Vista fleet.

This is in business and we are looking at different parts of the tourism industry, particularly the niche part of souvenirs and gift shops.

Now, the Vista Fleet all started back with Jimmy Oric and a couple of partners who started at the Flame restaurant and had a tour boat through the harbor of Duth.

That morphed into today's Vista Fleet.

The Goldfines owned it for many years.

And one of the things Monty Goldfine always used to tell me about his business was, "Thank goodness for us, we run a very successful gift shop across from a very popular cruise line to take people around the harbor."

Now, in 2011, the Steinbox, Justin and Sarah, bought the cruise industry from the Goldfine family and have operated ever since, and their gift shop has been a large part of that when you bought it.

Right.

Correct.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah, it's been uh many different variations that the Vista Fleet has taken, but yeah, it didn't really start to pop until my figured out how to enhance the experience with adding, you know, merchandise and souvenirs and sweatshirts.

And it's not just a boat ride.

It's it's how can you take the whole memory with you and that whole retail side of things with the gift shop and the you know the souvenirs make such big component to that.

And when you took over what percentage of the business was it?

Oh 35% easy.

Yeah.

Now over time that has changed and you've changed your marketing to adapt to that correct.

This wonderful gift shop here that's been in operation all the years that you have been running this organization and before that when the gold findines had it that's kind of shrinking down to something completely different.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So, what's what's fun about it is, you know, everything changes.

Everything evolves.

What's what's amazing with history, though, is, you know, when Monty and and Irwin bought the boats, they had the boats and they were just operating and they said, "Hey, you know what?

We should build this outside, you know, we have this great area in the harbor.

We should really embrace this whole experience."

And they built this little outside ticket office and area they could sell merchandise.

And that just kept growing and growing and growing.

And then all of a sudden, the deck harbor side was built.

Then they said, "Well, let's move it into this big space."

And and that's when we bought in.

It was great.

It was a huge part of our business.

But now where DUTH is evolving is um it's invested, you know, almost $30 million in infrastructure and rebuilding the seaw wall and making the waterfront plaza the best area of the of the the city to come to.

So embracing and growing that side of tourism.

So, as the city's embracing the waterfront plaza, trying to activate it outside and bringing more events in and and bands and venues, we've started to consider how can we move all of that operation to where that's going to be as well and really embrace that.

So, getting closer to the docks again and and really getting to where the people are and getting as much of that retail in front of it as possible.

With mobile coming together and e-commerce, I think it's really important that you meet people where they're at, right?

And not just get stuck in, well, this is how it always used to be.

And so it's funny how again how history repeats itself.

Monte Irwin brought these boats to this part of the harbor and uh they built an outdoor ticket office much like this one back then and they were they were selling tickets directly out of it.

Whereas with this, the goal is to activate it outside.

You're going to have merchandise outside.

So we're going to have sidewalk sales and we're going to meet people where they're at.

We're going to have music going and really make it like a lively fun experience.

you know, get as close to almost the the circus carnival atmosphere and make people, you know, let people have fun and and have one here, have one over there.

And with these, they're mobile, so we can go wherever we want to go.

Justin Steinbach is with us on in business and we're talking about the marketing aspects of souvenirs and gift shops as it relates to tourism here at Duth and the Heaven of the Lakes.

And one of the things you also told me was that you are now doing more online.

Yes.

Yes.

Online has obviously grown immensely.

when we first bought the business and going back into the '90s online didn't exist.

So, you know, the boat the boats required and relied on all the people walking around and to get people into the doors and to then sell those tickets.

But with everything going online and everyone buying on their cell phones, you know, the business model has had to change quite a bit.

So, it's um you know, those souvenirs are such a key component of the whole experience.

you know, when you make it back home and you pull that sweatshirt out and it's such a good memory or even years later where you, you know, pull that sticker out or that card or that whatever and it's memory, you know, the memories of, oh, hey, we were in Duth and that was amazing.

And so, it's now utilizing online and e-commerce how to really continue to enhance that experience.

Get them before, get them after, and and make sure they really bring home memories with them.

Besides those memories that they take home with a souvenir, whether they buy it online or in a gift shop, how important is it that I'm wearing that Vista Fleet uh hoodie and somebody in my family or my next door neighbor or somebody at work goes, "What's that?"

Yeah, exactly.

And that I mean, that's how uh that's how tourism continues to go down through the generations, right?

You go back, you've had this favorite hoodie or t-shirt for years, you run into a co-orker, you're talking, "Oh, what's Fist of Fleet?

Oh, that's Luth.

Oh, I have young ones.

Maybe I should go up there and take a trip."

And it's really how you continue to pass that word of mouth on of what a great experience it was.

So what are some of your better sellers here in the Vista gift shop?

You know, it's always the stuff that features, you know, where they're here.

They're coming to Duth.

They're coming to Lace Pure.

They're coming uh from all over.

You know, they could be international customers.

So it's really embracing the lift bridge.

You've got the Minnesota.

You've got, you know, we're here in the trees and just really kind of embracing that outside angle.

a very vast inventory at the Vista Fleet, one of the best in the community.

How do you decide what goes into being on the racks or the shelves?

Yeah, great question.

Um, so I would love to own the success of the retail side of our company, but it really started when we bought the business.

My wife 100% handled that retail side of things.

And now we have a great marketing and brand designer, Katie Relle, who handles that side of things.

And it's really finding, you know, what designs work.

And it's it I mean it's it's not rocket science.

People are here.

You've got these beautiful boats.

You've got this amazing iconic lift bridge.

You've got Canal Park.

There's there's generations of history behind that.

So it's it's not exactly rocket science, but it takes somebody definitely with more taste than me.

So So you came up with this little modular ticket sales office.

Uh you've got the first one in for this season.

What do you envision for the future of this kind of modular construction along the waterfront plaza?

Yeah, I think what's great about it is, you know, the boats, they have this great docking location here behind the deck.

Um, you know, the city, uh, Mayor Reinert and Dan Harman have done a great job getting this project to the end and activating this outside.

So, what I'm really excited to see is what it now becomes.

Is it going to be activities and events year round and how can we use our modular retail centers to go with and enhance that overall experience and continue to bring the Vista fleet being a major part of the tourism components.

I need a t-shirt.

So, we're going to go someplace else to see if I can buy one.

I'll pick one up here as well.

Sounds good.

Justin Steinbach and his wife Sarah own the Vista Fleet here in Duth.

And their gift shop is changing as all things do.

This is in business.

From a boat tour business to a step back in time, Tom's Logging Camp has been sharing the story of the Northland's logging history for decades.

And just like many other attractions, its gift shop plays an important role in helping support the experience for their guest visitors.

America's love affair with the automobile began as a mild flirtation after World War II.

By the mid1 1950s, it was a budding romance.

And by the late 1950s, it was the love of the open road and the freedom the automobile brought.

And that brought about a change because now they had someplace to go.

You needed something to do.

And that spawned the roadside attraction.

And the weirder the better.

One of those roadside attractions still exists here in northern Minnesota and it's Tom's Logging Camp and we're going to go inside and visit.

Bill and his wife Lauren Weekman own Tom's Logging Camp here up the Northshore and it's a tourist destination because of its total uniqueness that goes back to the 1950s.

Tell us about the history.

Well, it was born in 1956.

A fellow by the name of Tom Debox started it and um he ran it for about 8 years, sold it to Bob Fiser after 8 years.

Bob and Judy ran it for uh 18 years.

Bob developed it uh into what it basically is today.

He started had refined the the merchandise because he had owned a a shop over in Detroit Lakes with a friend.

He and a friend had gone into business and they owned Fort Detroit which was quite an attraction of its own.

So he had the experience to put together the gift shop properly.

In addition to that, uh, Graham Marray had a a logging business that had sold um to a mechanized logger and it provided a shed on the back property that nobody had the key to and they knocked the lock off the door and all of the things out in the museum came from that serum primarily.

So it was put into format.

There's a harness shop, a barn, a bunk house, a cook shack, a blacksmith shop, all the proper equipment with all of the proper pictures and lots of explanations.

It's it's a self self-inflicted tour, I like to call it, and uh that's been out there forever.

We have a trout pond, we have llamas, we have chickens, we have goats, and most of the animals are, of course, for the kids to to stay entertained with and feed, but there is a lot of history out there.

Well, some of these I had uh there's I probably had eight or nine pieces.

Uh over the years, people have decided one onesies, twoosies to to take things out of their garage and say, "I'd like to put them where people can enjoy them.

Have you got room?"

And of course, we just put them in.

Uh many of these, at least half came a place in Duth.

He called me and he says, "Uh, my wife told me either the saws or I would be gone when she got back from work, but she's not going to snag one more pair of panty hoes."

Long and short is uh he shot me a price.

I said, "Bring them."

So, here they are.

Gibbing apparently has quite a collection of of uh they've got a a lot of history up there and they're kind of a kind of an archival of of logging in and northern Minnesota, but these pictures are so unique and it's it's just so fun to fun to look at some of the some of the faces.

A lot of these guys probably weren't let out of the woods.

This is a wonderful attraction, very unique to this area.

uh a tribute to the logging industry which of course was huge across northern Minnesota.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's uh it it is a tribute to that.

The the uniqueness is is since 1956 since it was put into the into the finished product, per se, so to speak.

Um it hasn't changed.

We just haven't changed anything.

The decor is the same.

All the animal mounts and all of the all the all the antiques are are still here from then.

And the nice testimony to that is people who walk in the first time they came in they were eight years old and now they're 68 years old and they and they still say wow it smells exactly like I remember it which is an odd thing to feel good about but it's it's a testimony to you're doing the right thing when you when you when you have something people enjoy and you just let them keep enjoying it the way they remembered it.

We're going to come back to that, Bill, but the uniqueness of the gift shop and the curios and the chachkis that you have here, that's all by design.

You are unique.

Well, we we are.

Yes, we've got some things that we we kind of go for the things.

I call it high-grade stupid stuff.

In my case, I'm in charge of procuring that.

And it's a very narrow band.

It could be too much or not enough.

You're you're under the gun to find the right the right silliness.

Uh and we we We do that, but we we carry the same things that a lot of people would would naturally hope to find in a gift shop.

If it's still made, we still stock it.

And the uniqueness of the shop, I mean, you don't see gift shops like this because they've all modernized and they're all glitzy and they've got glass shells.

Uh, this is all handmade from the original.

Well, it is.

And we've kept even to the point of not not going to a barcoding system.

We don't do any of that.

Everything is uh mostly in my wife Lauren's head.

She she does a great job of of remembering where is what and how many you can find and who to watch and whether you have to reorder quickly because it goes out of stock from your supplier or or all of the little particulars are are stuck in her heads.

How important is the gift shop to Tom's Logging Cam as an a business?

Well, percentage- wise, it's huge.

It's it's it is the main part of our business.

We live and work here.

We've got a house on on on 10 acres here uh between the two lanes on the north shore 10 miles out of Duth is a really nice place to be because we're the first ones you see out and the last ones back for gift shops.

And we've got a house.

We've got the gift shop.

We have the museum.

We also have uh what used to be a soup and sandwich shop that helped us raise our children.

It's now just better restrooms than than outouses.

So, we're still running restrooms over there, but that could certainly be candy, ice cream, and beverages at at the drop of a hat with just sweeping it, turning on the lights, and and and you're in business.

What are some of the top selling items here at Tom's Logging Camp?

Oh, a lot of the shirts.

We do lots and lots of shirts.

We do lots of moccasins.

Um, things come and go kind of in popularity.

Windchimes are huge now.

We've got a limited selection of food.

We've got wild rice.

We've got uh slacks jams.

um a a few other things, but food's not really our our big deal.

We've got lots of coffee mugs.

We've got lots of lots of salt and peppers and shot glasses and and and just whatever seems to be popular.

The toy section is is fairly typical, but again, we we keep trying to find the unique and the unusual and and uh that fits right in.

And you've done that.

Bill Wegman is our guest.

He and his wife Lauren own Tom's Logging Camp up the north shore between Duth and Two Harbors.

We're talking about gift shops and how souvenirs are important to the tourism industry on this week's in business.

Bill, what's the best part about owning an attraction that dates back to the 50s and hasn't really changed much.

What do you like about it?

Well, the fact that it doesn't change, the fact that it's unique uh unto itself to start with meant that you really didn't have to go anywhere with it.

You just had to keep doing the same thing the best way you knew how to do it.

We're seasonal.

We go May 1 through 3rd weekend of October.

We're every day.

And uh it's it's a luxury to be able to just show up and do the best you can every single day and and meet a lot of nice people.

And we've gotten to know a lot of families four or five generations deep now.

We've seen we've seen multiple generations come in the door.

So people make it a point to continue that generational.

I was here when I was a kid.

Now I'm bringing my grandkids here.

Uh, and it's so comfortable because nothing has changed.

How does that make you feel?

Oh, it doesn't get better.

It just doesn't get better.

And I'll ask you the question, Bill.

What do you see as the future?

I mean, this has been around since the 50s.

You've been here for a long time with uh your wife, Lauren.

And what do you see as the future?

Well, the future is uh you get up every day and you do this and you love it so much you don't even think about it until all of a sudden you realize that you're over 70 and and uh you only go so far and that's just a reality.

So, I'm certainly hoping that somebody uh feels strongly enough about it and finds it important enough or valuable enough at least to their family to uh to come and and purchase this and carry it on because uh there's nothing like it.

This is the last of its kind and uh yeah, people people enjoy it.

Before our next segment, here's a quick look at some of the business news from across the region.

A new restaurant has opened here in Duth.

Some more by Pedro is the latest venture from the team behind Pedro's Grill.

The new restaurant is located in Duth's Woodland neighborhood.

Highway 2 is closed again for construction in St.

Louis County.

The $5.5 million project includes resurfacing, traffic signal upgrades, and new turn lanes.

The work is expected to continue through midepptember.

The city of Duth is launching First Street Friday.

The new downtown event will feature street activities, entertainment, and business promotions on June 26th and July 31st.

Iron Range school districts are receiving nearly $1.9 million in one-time state funding.

The money was approved through the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board and distributed to 10 school districts based on their enrollment.

And the city of Virginia is pursuing a forensic audit after discovering that $3.7 million in sales tax revenue intended for the new Iron Trails Motor Event Center was spent on general city expenses.

City officials say they hope the audit will determine where the money was used and how the accounting error occurred.

Next, we visit the Richard Ibong Veterans Historical Center to see how its gift shop helps support the museum and its important mission.

In business takes you to another gift shop.

This one in Superior at the Veteran Center.

Richard Ira Bong was the ace of aces and his life, his story and World War II are all told here at the Veterans Center in Superior.

And John Giddy is our guest.

He is the executive director here.

We're in the gift shop and we're talking about gift shops.

But tell me about the center itself.

The Bong Veterans Museum is a place where we honor the story of Richard Ira Bong, America's ace of aces, and that of all veterans who have served our country from World War II going forward.

So, we have a unique kind of uh story to tell here, that of Richard, but that of a lot of local other local veterans who served and even people who were, you know, on the fringe of the mil military.

U we have some real life Rosie the Riveters from the Twin Ports area.

So, we include that story and and a lot of things from the home front as well.

And then with the the conflicts that have moved forward from Korea to Vietnam and even now to the Gulf War.

So John, this segment is about gift shops and how important they are to attractions.

Uh how important is the gift shop here uh at the Veteran Center to uh the operation as a business?

When I first started as the director here at the Bonster, I guess I didn't realize how important the gift shop was.

I just figured, you know, was part of part of the business.

Um but it's really become an excellent source of res revenue for us.

It's been an attraction and a draw for people from around the area to come in here.

We also serve as the tourist information center for Superior and Douglas County and uh we get people crossing states coming in and this um we're always looking for Wisconsin and Superior eccentric and Lake Superior um themed things.

So, we've kind of made a little transition and to cater to that audience as well and it's been a real boom for us.

One of the things that we've found as we visit different attractions with different gift shops uh for this week's in business, one of the things we've noticed is the unique items mirror the mission of the center itself.

So, what items do you have here that just fit right in with what the veteran center is trying to accomplish?

Yeah, that's been a conscious choice.

One of our more popular um items, believe it or not, is a um the replica hang grenades.

We have three different types of replica hand grenades.

And uh um basically they're attracted to to all ages.

But um other than that, just basically 40s themed uh um old uh aviator hats, things like that.

Um our t-shirts are all P38 centric or bong center ccentric.

And then we also do have uh Lake Superior and that sort of thing.

But the unique items here um basically are military fringe sort of thing.

The the the military veterans and their families are um have a kind of a unique take sometimes.

they there's different things that they like.

Um they're very proud of the branch of the service they served in.

So we catered to all those branches of the service.

They're very proud of the jobs that they did.

So we kind of sometimes will have, you know, tanks, we have tanks, ships, airplanes, that sort of things.

All things that they may have used over their course or been a part of um over their course of service.

So that's kind of what we try and tailor to.

One of the things at the Veterans Museum that makes its gift shop so unique is the special work of one particular volunteer.

One of the reasons the Bong Center gift shop is unique is Bob Hoy.

They call him Gramps.

And Bob makes a contribution to the Bong Center through his artwork.

Explain how this all started, Bob.

Well, I needed a co hobby and uh well, it was pinned down there and then once I started painting, I had to have a way to get rid of them.

So being a volunteer here, I suggest that I let them donate them and then they can get whatever donations they want for the pictures.

So So you paint the painting, it goes on display at the Bong Gift Center and then I can come by, make a free will offering and take home a piece of original art from Bob Gramps Hoy.

Right.

What a great idea.

How's that make you feel to be a part of uh keeping the Bong Center open through its gift shop?

Well, I love it.

I in fact I enjoy I've seen many kids that would come in and take a painting with a smile on her face and that makes my day and anyone that that takes it and enjoys it is it's worth it.

It's a different kind of momentto of a visit to the Northland.

And there's a PBS connection here, is there not?

Where did you get the idea to do this style of painting?

Well, Bob Ross, of course.

And there's the happy little cloud that proves it, right?

This tree has got a happy little space as well.

That's right.

We love Bob Ross.

And Bob, we love you for doing this and helping out the Bong Center.

That's very kind.

All right.

Thank you.

Just another reason why gift shops are an important part of attractions across the Northland and certainly here at the Bong Center.

Do you see the role of the gift shop uh increasing?

Uh you have some limited space, but you obviously have a lot of trademark items in there.

Would you go more that way or would you still try to be uh more of a uh just kind of serving that audience?

Yeah, you you said it.

Space is an issue.

It's we do have limited space, but we try and and and maximize the the space that we do have.

And uh going forward, we're going to try and increase um things.

We've found products that have sold well that we hope that continue to sell well.

We'll continue to carry them.

We're always initiating new products into the Bong Center.

We're changing things out and making change.

If it's stagnant, people notice.

and uh um they want what they want and we kind of pay attention to what trends are and that sort of thing.

I do a lot of stop at a lot of other gift shops in the area, especially museums and that are kind of like us that our clientele or have similar clientele and look and see what is selling for them and and see pick their brain a little bit and we uh we we trade secrets um pretty pretty well.

It's it's a nice um give and take that we usually have.

So, your trademark items, uh, those t-shirts and items that have Richard Ibong on them or the P38, uh, those are your best sellers.

Yeah, those seem to be our best sellers.

People want to come in and they want the connection to the museum and what's better than a t-shirt that says Richard Iraong on it.

And we love it.

I love being out of town and I've been in southern Wisconsin and Illinois and seen people with Bong t-shirt.

So, there they they spread across the country and they spread the word about Major Bong, which is ultimately what we try to do and hope that the gift shop reflects as well.

And that could be a form of marketing for the uh Veterans Museum.

Absolutely.

It's a great form of marketing for us.

It's most of our marketing is is word of mouth.

And when people see someone wearing a box center t-shirt, they ask, "What about that place?"

And and that's, you know, we we try to give them a great experience here.

And if we do, then that that just helps the process.

John Gidley is the executive director of the Veterans Museum here in Superior, Wisconsin.

And this is in business.

I'm Ken Giller.

Thanks for watching In Business.

Now, if you missed any parts of tonight's show, you can always watch it at pbsnorth.org or listen on Mondays at 5:30 on the North 1033.

Thanks again for watching and until next time, let's take care of each other.