We went down to Duluth yesterday and toured the SS William A. Irvin, a lake freighter that plied the Great Lakes from 1938–1978 carrying iron ore, coal, taconite, and limestone. She’s now a museum ship on the National Register of Historic Places.
In the engine room, with giant turbines powered by a ton of coal per hour:
Apparently not paying attention, I took three grayscale pics:
The main galley was rather spartan:
As were the crew’s quarters:
But the 1% lived quite differently. Near the bow there were four staterooms. Never used for paying passengers, these were reserved for executives of U.S. Steel and its business partners/customers:
The captain’s office and quarters:
It’s a damn big ship:
But now obsolete. Ore carriers with at least six times its capacity are now standard on the Great Lakes.
Up front in the wheel room. The guy with the beard served aboard a sister ship:
Historical images from inside the holds:
After touring the ship, we walked a few hundred yards to the Great Lakes Aquarium which, oddly enough, has some saltwater species along with mostly displays of species from the Great Lakes:
Not a typical Western Painted Turtle, this one’s a rare albino which was as bright yellow as it appears in this pic:
The aquarium had some contradictory signage:
Okay, that’s enough touristy rambling, time for some beer! My wife and I went back up to Two Harbors to visit Castle Danger Brewing and my stepkids took the cars back to the Airbnb for a few hours before coming back to get us.
Two flights and a couple of pints of stout. What could possibly go wrong?
