Lake Superior Days Highlights Preservation, Gets Kids Involved

DULUTH, Minn. —

Right in the middle of peak tourist season in Duluth, a festival is celebrating how important a resource Lake Superior is to this region.

Lake Superior Days is an annual event that highlights many of the aspects of living on the greatest of Great Lakes, full of information on how to protect the lake as well.

Informational booths are scattered all around Canal Park near the maritime museum.

Julie McDonnell, Coastal Program Specialist with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, says Minnesotans love their parks and lakes, and that Lake Superior is in preservation mode, not recovery mode.

“People are coming up here because they love this lake so much,” she said.  “And so we don’t want to love it to death.”

At her booth, McDonnell has a diorama where she demonstrates how pollution of all kinds can affect our waterways, and can negatively impact Lake Superior.

She says her demonstration is especially poignant for children.

“When they know what they have to do to protect this resource, they will do that for us,” McDonnell said.  “The future is theirs, and we’re in their hands, really.”

Lake Superior Days continues tomorrow with a series of educational talks.

Those programs will be going on from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm during the day tomorrow.

The festivities will move to Barkers Island in Superior on Sunday.