Duluth, Minnesota four Catholic schools with coverage up to grades 6 or 8, two Protestant schools, two Montessori schools, and six other charter and private schools. Due to its proximity to the Great Lakes, Duluth is the location for the Large Lakes Observatory. The Large Lakes Observatory operates the largest university-owned research vessel in the Great Lakes, the R/V Blue Heron. Built in 1985 for fishing on the Grand Banks, the Blue Heron was purchased by the University of Minnesota in 1997, sailed from Portland, Maine, up the St. Lawrence Seaway to Duluth, and converted into a limnological research vessel during the
Lake Superior Chippewa out of most of northern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota into the western plains. The Sioux (Lakota) were pushed to the west, where they eventually settled in the Great Plains of present-day Nebraska and the Dakotas. The Ojibwe successfully spread throughout the Great Lakes region, with colonizing bands settling along lakes and rivers throughout what would become northern Michigan, Wisconsin and Minnesota in the United States. La Pointe on Madeline Island remained the spiritual and commercial center of the nation. The island is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The Lake Superior Chippewa were numerous and contained many bands.