The Lake: Park Point Anishinaabeg

In Episode 4, I converse with Cory Coffman. Cory Coffman is a 1st-generation Fond du Lac Band of Ojibwe descendant. If you like music you can check out his music here or perhaps stumble upon him floating on a human-constructed lilypad in Lake Superior jamming out? (If you're lucky.) This episode is about the G-BOAT (greatest beach of all time...at least in an 100-mile perimeter) and what it's like to live on the G-BOAT and have historical roots there, too. 

Recommended reading:

Gichigami hearts

Linda LeGarde Grover

Buy it here: https://birchbarkbooks.com/products/gichigami-hearts

photo of park point by B Greenfield, 7/1/23

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

As expected, and I said way too good. Always surprises. Yep, yep, yep. So, hello. Welcome to the podcast called Home. This season is about Lake Superior. And would you mind introducing yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Yeah, my name is Corey Kaufman. Um I grew up in Duluth. My yeah, my family's been living uh next to the lake for most of for a long time actually. Um and then also I feel pretty connected to the lake through my uh connection with the Fond du Lac band of Ojibwe, um, which I'm a first generation descendant. Um and the the reason I mentioned that is because where my family's lived for a quite a little for generations has been down on Park Point. My grandma still lives there. Uh my grandpa, who's no longer with us, but he grew up down there, and then I think even before I think uh another, I think like his dad grew up down there as well. So like pretty far, pretty far back. So we've always been pretty connected and seen a lot of the changes that have taken place. So maybe I have something to say about I mean maybe you're like superior.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

I didn't realize your family lived on um Park Point.

SPEAKER_00 1:29

Yeah, yeah. So um and then yeah, so my grandma's still down there. Um she's the only she's the only current family member living down there now. Um at times it's fluctuated. I just moved off uh two weeks ago. I used to we were living down the last seven years or so.

SPEAKER_01 1:49

Yeah. Um and what's Park Point?

SPEAKER_00 1:53

Park Point is yeah, that's a good should start with that. Uh it is right on the nose of Lake Superior, right on the tip of the wolf's skull, as you will, and it's uh it's a sand, well it's a sand spit, technically, it's kind of a sandy island in a sense, because of the two canals put in on both sides make it sort of an its own unique little uh island vibe, I guess. But it's pretty uh it's a pretty cool place as far as well beaches go, it's kind of the nicest beach I mean you can find for sh uh in the middle of the country, you know, like that's such a a rare thing. But um as far as being on freshwater and I don't know the technical terms behind a a sand spit, but it's where the you know the where the river meets the lake and then it f it formed because of that, and then a bunch of trees grew on it and it stayed put, and then it's been here for a long, long time and was an important uh place for the Ojibwe for fishing and setting up camps in the summer and whatnot. And yeah. And then yeah, what I know uh about it is my own memories just being a kid uh down there and um back there were it seemed uh there were quite a few kids down there, actually. It was very family-oriented and very um working class. It's not what most people go down there and today you see like a lot of fancy houses and uh a whole lot of Airbnbs and Verbos or whatever you call them, and or a whole lot of the trend has been like, you know, people from the the Twin Cities or Chicago even. I've met some folks that just come up and you know buy a house and it's their summer home, you know. So it's kind of so a lot of so it's changed, uh yeah, since my lifetime, big time noticing that.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

Um what stories does your grandma tell you about uh life on Park Point back in the day?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, you should you should have her on this because there's some there's a lot of fun ones. Um uh what are I remember lots remember her always telling me about how grandpa's childhood home burnt down? Um and then she points out the things she remembered, and there's a house right there's a bigger a bigger house that's like a multi-unit thing now that was very on the same block of where I was just living, and she's pointing that out how that was a uh a whorehouse of sorts or whatever for the okay for all the like a brothel. Yeah, yeah. I forgot the she used a different word, but I forgot. Um I wonder what she called it. Maybe I don't know how the for all the the shipping and all the that those that type of people, I guess. There are places where they stay when they're in town and then there are places where they hung out. But she would tell me there were lots of they're kind of wild back then, it sounded like. Um there are some cool places along the point, like the is it called, was it called the boat club? Or something. Or the sailing club. Sailing club is like kind of a hub for hanging out and parties and dances and kind of an extravagant.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

Like where the rowing club is or where the sailing club is.

SPEAKER_00 5:31

Well, see, I've heard two things. I've heard there was something out towards the end of Park Point, which would be out, you know, where the yeah, not probably not as far as the sailing. Yeah, because it but that's a good question. Someone else might know that better than I do. But I do remember hearing about like way at the end, like kind of maybe not quite where the park is now, because it probably didn't go out that far back then, because they used to tell us too about like my grandpa, especially, would be like, you know, we it all their old road only went to here like back in the day, and then it you know, it kept creeping and creeping and now it goes way down. So like yeah, and it's just in their lifetime, you know, they saw that move quite a bit actually. But so somewhere near the end there used to be like a carnival kind of thing with like always sort of set up apparently, and then I think what I remember is like closer to the bridge hearing about what I want to say like a sailing club of sorts or something where it was like a hub for having fancy parties and stuff with all the ship captains and whatnot, and well, um I don't know, but and so my grandma and grandpa I think would go to some of those. Um my grandpa worked right in Canal Park um in like one of the grandma's buildings or well, I always thought it was like grandma's the sports garden building.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Oh yeah, okay, which is now a wedding venue. Yep. But um, been in there for a med school talent show.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Nice, yeah, nice, nice. But then uh that might have been because I remember hearing that, but then it might have actually been further towards downtown where it's you know the big one with like what hoops brewing and all those old Chicago but along that side there somewhere. Yeah, somewhere there where because all big industrial I forget who you worked for technically, one of the companies I've been there for a long time. Whether it was Enbridge or Bentec or something like something like such an interesting place. I know, because it was all industry then, you know, and and back, you know, in in the junk ear that was right down there too. Yours, you've probably seen some of those pictures before. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Yeah. Um so how did um like what's your relationship been like with uh the lake over time? How have you like gotten to know the lake and how has it changed?

SPEAKER_00 8:08

Yeah, uh I think I attribute the I think I attribute my staying here and being here to the lake. I think that's the most powerful force around. Um as far as you know, some some of my friends, you know, want moved away right after high school and I just never have felt that I wanted to. I just think we live in a really, really cool place. Um I think there's a tremendous amount of like uh creative energy kind of around it, and uh Duluth kind of reflects that, I think. And as far as with arts and and music, and we we happen to have like a pretty large uh original music scene um compared to the size of the city.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

You know, it's like what 80, 85,000 people or something. But the amount of like original music is like pretty wild, I think, for um for not being that big of a city. And I don't know, I think the lake has a big a big way a big reason. Is a big reason for that and how it's been dis Duluth's been described as like a mini little San Francisco and but maybe there's more to it. I don't know, you know, how we're right on the tip of the nose, so it's like I don't know, we attract a lot of birds because of that too. Oh yeah, I wonder if some sort of weird, yeah, because they don't want to fly over the big water, they gotta follow the land, but they or they follow the lake, and so they all come through Duluth when they're migrating, and maybe it's there's some sort of similar underlying for humans. Yeah, especially um but then the unique part too being um just the climate and being more northern and uh really the cold winters I think has something to do with keeps a certain type of person to to be here and put up with that and then to and then to well maybe enjoy it and not so much put up with it, but I don't know. I don't know if any of that made sense, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:35

Uh what's your favorite way to like be with the lake?

SPEAKER_00 10:39

Hmm.

SPEAKER_01 10:42

Probably swimming is a big thing. Is it time for swimming yet? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Okay, yeah, because it's what July 2nd and it's like 80 degrees out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:54

Oh yeah. Or a little less medical lake, yeah. And we used to like to push to see how long, um, you know, how long we could stretch the season, how early you could get in, oh yeah, how late you could, and um except I'm a little weaker in that regard, and I'm not crazy enough to, you know, go cut a hole in the ice or anything. Um I was doing that for a while. Were you really?

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Yeah, I had we had a retreat for all the um med school missions people from St. Cloud and here, and then I led us into the lake in March. In March?

SPEAKER_00 11:30

Where did you go in at?

SPEAKER_01 11:31

Um right by uh in Canal Park. Okay, like right by the um uh Chief Buckland Memorial. Okay. That beach right there. Cool. Yeah, cool. So that's awesome. That's fun. Yeah. It was like ice the day before and then it was gone the next day night was like pew. Yeah. Otherwise, we're gonna have to, you know, cut holes.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Did everyone go in?

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Um, I think there were like four of us who went. Wow. Yeah. Crazy. Some St. Clouders, that was cool.

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Nice.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:59

Yeah. We I haven't pushed it too much where we were living uh most recently down there with we had a sauna in the backyard, so that was easy to to well you had to run up and over the dunes, and then so it's kind of a run, but um but it was nice. I mean by the time you got there you already were freezing, but yeah. But that was a fun still fun way to do that. And I always like I feel like I like swimming in the fall more. Come September, October. Really? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

What do you like about swimming at that time of year?

SPEAKER_00 12:33

Uh just the I don't know, the days seem sunny, nice, warm days, but it's way less humid, and when like fall's kind of coming, you can tell, you know, nights are getting chilly, but the water's still gonna be warm for quite a while.

SPEAKER_01 12:49

And then how do you feel? Like, what is it like? What's your experience like when you're in the water?

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Probably energized but and powerless, I guess, because especially uh if you're out there on a wavy day or something, which that used to be our favorite days to go swimming, or big lake wind lake wind days. And then as kids too, that was our favorite, and our mom would just Why was that your favorite? Because it was just so fun. We'd have boogie boards and we'd have different, you know, things. I we never my brothers and I didn't really surf much. Surfing seems to have recently taken on in the last like decade. So we were kind of there actually a friend of mine had a surfboard, and so but mostly we were just like to goof around in the waves and make our mom have a heart attack. And those are always the warmest days too, though. I mean the air is kind of chilly, but the water's the warmest because it's blowing all the warm top water in.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

So feels like California, Southern California, so California. Yeah, yeah. No, I don't know if it's warm there actually in the ocean. Just guessing.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

I've never been actually.

SPEAKER_01 14:11

Um, well, I don't want to keep you too long. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but I'm really enjoying hearing from you. So I will ask you one more finishing question. Sure. Um, so as you think about the future, what do you wish for yourself and the lake in your relationship?

SPEAKER_00 14:28

Well, I hope to always remain close to the lake. Um, even though we moved a little bit a few more miles away now, I think we'll still try to make a point to always go go be around it. And and I want uh now that I have uh well two and a half year old and then a couple more on the way, actually, and I'd like my kids to grow up in and around the lake. Um so visiting grandma, great grandma a lot then is what I hope. I also hope that it can continue to get cleaned up a bit from um, which I think slowly, slowly but surely that's happening and and then also hopefully it can be protected a little more, you know. So hopefully that uh they don't build that water pipeline down to wherever they're talking about at one point. Um that's probably a bigger thing. Do you remember hearing about that? Which one?

SPEAKER_01 15:35

Like the one in superior or like line through the room.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

They're wanting like to literally I mean, I don't know how serious it was, but I know it was like an idea proposed of to like literally running a water line out of like superior to like drought areas oh yeah, okay west and stuff.

SPEAKER_01 15:53

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

And I don't know if that would be a great idea, but if you want the lake, I guess you should just come move by it and put up with the winters. There you go. Yeah, but yeah, I think that's my hope for it. I think actually I would do out a try to get into surfing too.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Oh, in the future. In the future, yeah, if you want to like step it up and do that.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Get the wetsuit and do the whole do the whole thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:25

That'd be awesome. Right. Well, thank you so much for spending this time on the podcast. I mean, I really enjoyed our conversation. Um, yeah, and I hope you have a great summer and fall swimming in the lake.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Oh, thank you. You too. I hope you get are you going down in the summer or do you only swim in March?

SPEAKER_01 16:43

Um, I'm uh I'm up for swimming whenever. So yeah, I definitely in the summer I'm like, I need to get down there and be in the water and spend time on the beach, so I will be doing that.

unknown 16:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

All right.