Lone Dog Tour Archives | Page 4 of 5

Day 3: Drury Lane Books

9 Comments / knerburn / June 2, 2025

Grand Marais

This is a tiny jewel — both the town and the bookstore.

Drury Lane Books could be right out of hobbit land or a children’s book of nursery rhymes.

It sits right on the edge of the Grand Marais harbor, which is one of the few places along Superior’s rock coastline that offers sailors and boaters a place to launch and live out their seafaring dreams.

This is not a land of deck shoes and big yachts. These are outdoors folks — REI and hiking boots and cars with canoes strapped to the tops. Families, too, who are willing to drive the 100 miles of rocky shoreline through the forested landscape of northeastern Minnesota for a stay in this one bright little town that almost hints of New England or the generous seaside towns of Lake Michigan. But this is neither. It is the great and unpredictable Lake Superior, and no one and no place here can put on airs.

Drury Lane was truly a jewel. Another small, brightly lit, intimate store with colorful titles on wooden shelves. Stores like this and Zenith are such wonderful antidotes to the manufactured literary pretentiousness of Barnes and Nobles and other chain stores. Those stores had their day, shocking everyone with comfortable seating and coffee bars. But now they are little more than shops for greeting cards and puzzles and flavor-of-the-day chick lit and romances. If they serve any purpose, it is as display units for books that people then go home and order from Amazon. They are reaping their just deserts.

But these quirky little gems like Drury Lane are not just bookstores, they are experiences. You want to go in them, not get out of them. They beckon you to linger. You feel you are among friends.

Our reading was at 6. I expected four people and a random dog. But we again had over 30 people jammed in, making it standing room only. I am learning how to present this book, though I fumbled the ball on my choice of readings. But, no matter, I was among friends and the talk and conversation went swimmingly, and I am learning.

I cannot express how much I love these small venues and the folks who show up. I also had the bonus of an intimate engagement with a small sweet dog who was willing to indulge my dog love and dog hunger. Truthfully, I think he enjoyed it as well.

So now it is across the northern forests on the winding two lane roads to my old haunts in Bemidji. 25 years there — almost enough to grow roots that cannot be pulled. And Red Lake, the reservation and people that stole my heart and set me on my writing journey.

I can’t wait.

Day 3: Drury Lane Books Read More »

Day 2: Zenith Books

Zenith Books. Duluth

Ah, Duluth. One of the most confounding cities I have ever known — equal parts rust belt industrial grit and magical child of Lake Superior, the most brooding, most changeable, most spiritually powerful of the great lakes. People compare Lake Superior to the ocean, but it is actually a completely different beast. The ocean has moods, Superior has a personality. And that personality is one of a wild animal.

Today the animal is benign — shimmering waters gently rolling beneath cerulean blue skies. A joy to be in its presence, overwhelmed by its vast embracing calm.

Zenith, the bookstore where I am reading, sits at the lower tip of Superior in the industrial end of Duluth, a part of town that is trying to cast off its ground-in history of mining poverty and sailor bars to become a place of life and energy and youthful hope. With the help of establishments like Zenith, it stands a good chance.

I love bookstores like Zenith. They have such interesting characters and personalities. Zenith has a delightful fierceness about it. Gritty on the outside, it is beautiful inside, with shiny pine shelves and a well-curated collection of titles tastefully displayed. It’s almost like a guerilla establishment, fighting its battles from behind an unassuming exterior, and winning them one by one. It stands as a model for the other businesses and establishments in the area that are fighting their part of the struggle. Not quite an anchor, not quite a hub, it feels more like a mentor, showing the way that an establishment with a vision and a large heart can stand against decay and lethargy and lead the way to a creative and exciting future.

The reading went well. We had about 30 people — a good crowd — engaged and animated. We went on for about an hour and a half, with talk and readings and stories. This was the first day out on my own with Lone Dog Road and I had no idea how to present it. But the Zenith crowd helped with their genuine enthusiasm and attention. I’m feeling good about the book now, and ready to head north up the shore of Superior to Grand Marais, a tiny beloved harbor town at the jumping off point for people going to the interior and the great northern Boundary Waters and Voyageurs National Park. This is going well.