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
Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway The Duluth, Missabe and Iron Range Railway (DM&IR) , informally known as the Missabe Road, is a railroad operating in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin that hauls iron ore and later taconite to the Great Lakes ports of Duluth and Two Harbors, Minnesota. Control of the railway was acquired on May 10, 2004, by the Canadian National Railway (CN) when it purchased the assets of Great Lakes Transportation. The DM&IR was formed by the merger in 1937 of the Duluth, Missabe and Northern Railway (DM&N) and the Spirit Lake Transfer Railway. The following year, the