Departing the port of Duluth on the 1,013.5-foot Paul R. Tregurtha is an exhilarating experience.
The freighter makes a grand starboard turn to line up with the canal in a slow-motion ballet before the wide-open Aerial Lift Bridge. As the boat closes in, it fills the waterway, with its five-story superstructure seeming just barely to clear the bottom of the bridge span. Dozens of onlookers in Canal Park wave — and plug their ears when the boat and bridge blare horn greetings — as they marvel at the spectacle on a cold, sunny afternoon. They look like bugs from the boat's pilothouse, 95 feet above the water.
And then you get far out on Lake Superior. And the longest vessel plying the Great Lakes suddenly feels like a speck in a vast freshwater sea.
That viewpoint becomes even more real the next morning, as a gorgeous purple-yellow sky comes to life at dawn …
And then slowly turns into a serene sunrise, as seen from the bow of the Tregurtha.
Thanks to the Interlake Steamship Co. — and especially PR manager Chrissy Kadleck and Capt. Bob Thibodeau — for making this classical journey possible.
Playlist
Duluth departure:
Maurice Ravel: Bolero
Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Antonio de Almeida
Dawn on Lake Superior:
Gustav Holst: Hymn to the Dawn
Hanover Girls Choir
Sunrise on Lake Superior:
Mussorgsky: Dawn on the Moscow River (Prelude from Khovanshchina)
Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Edward Serov
Courtesy of Naxos of America Inc.
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