Audioguides Duluth

Duluth sits at the westernmost tip of Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake by surface area in the world, and the city descends in steep terraces from the hillside above down to the waterfront. The hills above Canal Park can be disorienting at first: you look down and see a Great Lakes port with ore boats longer than three city blocks, then beyond them an expanse of water that disappears into the horizon like a sea. Robert Zimmerman was born in Duluth on May 24, 1941, and grew up there briefly before his family moved to Hibbing. He came back to give the city the name Bob Dylan, which did not go unnoticed.

The Aerial Lift Bridge at the Canal Park entry is the most dramatic piece of infrastructure in Minnesota and one of the best-known in the Midwest.

When ore boats approach, the central span lifts the entire road deck 138 feet vertically on towers, and the boats pass beneath. The mechanism is enormous, elegant, and entirely functional, and watching it operate is free. Canal Park itself has been well-developed into a lakeside district with the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center, the William A. Irvin ore boat museum (you can walk through the actual vessel), and a collection of restaurants and shops on a waterfront that is genuinely handsome.