Today I write about the gifts my city can provide to this present moment. I am not writing about a political program or an economy or even necessarily confining myself to the city’s boundaries; there is some inherent blurriness on the edges. I am instead talking about a culture, a life that is possible here, and the general sentiments invoked by the very name Duluth.

For this enterprise, I am using the imprecise tool of the English language to capture the feeling of a place. None of these things on their own are truly remarkable; many cities share some of these traits. But few, if any, share all of them. Duluth is within American culture and Minnesotan culture and probably a dozen other regional monikers, all of which find a harbor here on the westernmost end of the Great Lakes. I’m not arguing that Duluthians have made any remarkable insights, but rather that the mix of things that come together in their city offer something interesting.

I am also spelling out an ideal. Obviously there are regular moments when Duluth and its people fall short, just as there are with any place. I recognize others may also have very different associations with Duluth, some rather less positive. This piece is certainly not an argument that the entire country should copy Duluth’s choices, or that its ways of life are for everyone. But I think I am getting at a core here, and I highlight the things I do because I think some of Duluth’s sharper edges have something to say to the rest of the country.

Duluth’s distinctive culture stems from its deep, intense rootedness. Visually, it is the Midwest’s most striking city, and its relative isolation and memorable weather set it apart from any easy comparison town. This place works its way into people for life, no matter how far they travel. Many fall in love with it, a few define themselves against it, others move on but look back wistfully. People who are from Duluth will always be from Duluth.

I will not sugarcoat it: rootedness can mean sacrifice. It limits options, from career advancement to the dating pool to some of the luxuries of life available at more urban (or rural) scales. I understand why some people do not want to make Duluth’s potential sacrifices and pursue other paths. But to have the conviction to choose, and then believe in that choice, can overpower an awful lot of existential uncertainty. People who have chosen Duluth have chosen something more than a city that someone chooses for a job or a school district or because it happened to have the right house. They have, consciously or unconsciously, slipped into a stream that will carry them in certain clear directions in life.

My list of what Duluth can teach isn’t exhaustive, but here, perhaps, is a start.

Duluth teaches respect for forces beyond. Duluthians get regular reminders that they are not in control, and that they cannot bend nature to their wills. There will be days when it is twenty below, or when the incoming snow makes travel nearly impossible. There will be gale-force winds and days of awesome fury on the lake. There are also just days of monotonous grey and fog. The woods are at hand, and they contain secrets, require some sense and preparation from people who explore them. Duluthians know these vagaries of nature are part of life, and while they are not above grumbling here and there, they know what a gift it is to have a day of absolute beauty, whether a still winter morning or among golden autumn leaves or a glistening day of summer sun and Lake Superior-provided air conditioning, will come. (I still have nothing nice to say about spring here.)

Those forces affect the city’s growth and economy, too. Rock and water constrain development, and will keep Duluth from ever booming the way some Midwestern small cities on the flatlands have, though they also should not be excuses for raising up the lift bridge against incoming traffic and locking this city in as it is. Instead, Duluthians can adapt to these natural challenges, build in ways that respect or even take advantage of them, but their lives will always be defined by them. In a city like this, it is hard to forget that in the long run, nature always wins.

Duluth invites reflection. The easy access to nature simplifies the context shifts that help to strip away thoughts that cloud the mind. No matter how grumpy or down I may be in any given moment, I am a short walk or run away from a good mood. This built-in reflection makes it easier to hone certain disciplines, to think of inward turns not as retreat but instead as pauses that renew and refine beliefs. I do not believe that simply walking into the woods can solve all mental ills, but it certainly creates more conditions to do so than sitting in traffic on a ten-lane freeway does.

Duluth spurs a human pace. So often I see friends in other cities, exhausted or run down by frantic work paces or the panicked need to choose the right school or neighborhood or otherwise trapped in a doom loop of achievement for its own sake and I just think, “you need a little Duluth in your life.” These attitudes exist here too, of course, but they are tempered somewhat by less glaring extremes and a sense of remove from the starkest national divides. It’s easier to remember how small all of these concerns are and turn off that striving upper middle class anxiety brain that has become the assumed default mode in so much of American media. While I have spent much of my life in or around that milieu, I am very happy to live among salt of the earth northern Minnesotans who help put things in perspective.

A Duluth life is an active life. Duluth is a city of outdoor recreation, lending itself to easy walks, runs, skis, skates, paddles, rides, or other forms of movement that keep people going. Getting outside and touching grass comes naturally here, and some version of the free-range childhood (or adulthood!) lamented as lost in other parts of the country still exists to some degree in Duluth’s parks and streets. I want that life, and I want it for future generations. Since I moved back here ten years ago, I have (somewhat improbably, for people who knew an earlier version of me) become a workout machine, doing something nearly every day, taking advantage of both Duluth’s recreational bounty and the free time I enjoy because my working life is at some remove from the all-consuming achievement machine in some sectors of the economy.

Duluth is on the trailing edge. No one would accuse Duluthians of being the first adopters of new technology; at times there is a skepticism of change or creative ideas that, more than any of the other items listed here, drives me nuts. But, when I step back and look at the grand sweep of things, I think that reticence is generally a healthy thing. Duluth is a place where people have time to stop and think about how to use tools well instead of adopting them blindly, to make sure we are putting them to our service instead of letting them dictate how we spend our time and money. This city may not be where the thrilling innovations are always happening, but it may have something to tell people who are always trying to optimize and integrate every technical tool they can but still can’t figure out why those tools don’t consistently make life better.

Duluth rises from ruins. Just as Duluth commands respect for the natural world, it commands respect for human struggle and failure, and it gives opportunities to rise up from it. The 1980s economic collapse and Duluth’s subsequent reinvention is the largest scale and most recent telling of this story. But there are many others: a resurgent local Native American population, a city willing to acknowledge and memorialize a lynching before any other in the country, even something as simple as the collegiality among neighbors after any blizzard. Duluth has conditioned me to enjoy visiting other cities and countries with deep and sometimes fraught histories, not because I see them as monuments to disaster or guilt but because I think they tell far more interesting stories of human achievement during and after our darker moments. Humans fail and do horrible things. But Duluthians go on, remember and rebuild, and can, with time and effort, write stories of triumph.

And, finally, Duluth has fun. This is not some staid retreat center: Duluthians get to live in a place where other people go to have fun, and someone who fully revels in it will, well, have a lot of fun. Its early years had some Wild West moments as it boomed and saw the arrival of sailors from all over, and it was ahead of the curve in building breweries. It is a college town, and that provides some life; its arts scene punches above its weight. I appreciate that Duluthians don’t usually go full-on into the culture of endless self-optimization and can enjoy a good time. Turn off the stupid trackers and go enjoy that precious summer day on the beach.