It’s not the sea, though it sure looks like it. In reality, Lake Superior — the world’s largest body of freshwater by volume — sits nearly 2,500 miles from the Atlantic Ocean. It’s  connected to it, however, via the Great Lakes and a series of locks that allow ships to move between them and their different elevations, making it possible for a ship to depart from half a world away before reaching the Duluth Harbor, the furthest inland point for an oceangoing vessel.

 

The Duluth Harbor has been a point of either departure or arrival for a lot longer than the salties and lakers (the two major types of ships that utilize the port) have been around. French-Canadian Voyageurs and Eurpoean explorers navigated these waters hundred of years ago, as did the over 100 bands of Indigenous Peoples who called — and call — the Great Lakes region home.

Learn more about the history of our port here and port statistics here.