“You’re lucky it’s not going to snow this week, then,” she said.
Puzzled, I gestured out the window, where a light dusting of flakes was already beginning to coat the road.
“Oh, that?” she said. “That doesn’t count as snow.”
In Duluth, I spoke with longtime residents who were delighted that the city’s growing popularity had raised their property values. Others expressed concern that, as Duluth’s housing market became more competitive, their children would have no choice but to purchase property elsewhere.
I also sat down with newcomers — from places like Denver, San Francisco and Santa Fe, N.M. — all of whom had contended with drought, wildfires and ferocious heat at home, and who had hoped to find sanctuary in Duluth. We shared craft beers in the Lincoln Park district, where trendy restaurants and breweries are popping up alongside outdoor curling rinks. They told me they had left everything behind to raise their families in a place they felt would offer them protection as the globe grows hotter.
They all shared a similar sentiment: Nowhere on the globe is fully removed from climate change. But as wildfires become more intense and sea levels rise, Duluth might be manageable.
But some new residents also had hesitations. Duluth may offer an escape from scorching temperatures, but its winters are long and gray. Many of the transplants I spoke with admitted they often felt homesick for the sunshine they’d left behind. One of them, a man in his 60s from New Mexico, told me he now spends half the year afraid of slipping on the ice and breaking a bone.
In my three days in Duluth, flakes swirled the entire time. During the March weekend that my article was published, the city was walloped with more than a foot of snow, in what the woman at the rental car counter surely would have counted as snowfall. Another one of my sources, a mother from San Francisco, tweeted that she was excited to see her story make The New York Times, but could someone please save a copy for her? Thanks to the snow, she was stuck at home.
