Let's float this plan to save Duluth

I've finally figured out a way to save Duluth. With all due respect for Mayor Herb Bergson's call for a return to the positive attitudes of 1956 in his State of the City address last week, I suggest we return to Old Testament days for our, uh, salvation.

The idea came to me when I visited the site of that massive wood beam "crib" that washed up on the shore by Duluth's Lakewalk late last year. I'd read about it and seen pictures, but nothing short of personal inspection demonstrates the magnitude of the thing.

Everybody's wondering what it could have been used for before it spent all those years on the bottom of Lake Superior. Most of the speculation centers on Duluth's historic past when early settlers built a grain elevator nearby.

To that I say hogwash. (Gosh, that felt good. I haven't used the word hogwash since my days as an editorial writer during the Reagan years.)

Examining the beams of this mysterious crib, you realize they couldn't possibly be of our "modern" world.

So here's the deal that saves the city: We put out the word that the crib is a part of Noah's Ark. Yes, the biblical ark that God told Noah to build and stock with two of everything before he flooded the Earth so humankind and lesser orders, including mosquitoes, could start over.

I know, I know, the Good Book says that when the flood receded the wooden ark was deposited on Mount Ararat over by Turkey. Yet some 7,000 years ago there were no maps with place names on them. Who says Mount Ararat was where it is today? Besides, numerous expeditions to today's Mount Ararat in search of the ark have failed to find credible evidence of it.

Since no one has been able to find the ark in Turkey, who's to say it didn't end up around here --in Lake Superior? And who's to say that the crib by the Lakewalk is not part of Noah's Ark -- maybe the elephant pen. Yeah, that's the ticket.

I know there are those, especially biblical scholars, who will loudly dispute our claims. Let them. If this crib isn't part of Noah's Ark, then show me the ark.

If we spread the word that it might be, just imagine the tourists who would flock to the city to see it. Various miracles over the years -- Fatima, Lourdes, Fond-du-Luth Casino -- proved to be great tourist attractions. Nothing draws flocks of pilgrims like the discovery of some relic associated with biblical teachings. (See Shroud of Turin.)

Somebody up there (heaven above) must like us. This would be bigger than the Aerial Lift Bridge.

The tourist promotion agency known as Visit Duluth (formerly the Duluth Convention and Tourist Trap Bureau) should gird its loins for an influx of visitors unparalleled in human history.

As the late Gracie Allen put it: "They laughed at Joan of Arc, but she went right ahead and built it." Little did the Old Maid of New Orleans (or was it the New Maid of Old Orleans?) know she was doing a big favor for the descendants of fellow Frenchman Daniel Greysolon Sieur DuLhut, who discovered Duluth.

Hmmm. Discover Duluth. That's catchy.

JIM HEFFERNAN'S e-mail address is vheffernan@earthlink.net . For previous columns go to www.duluthnewstribune.com .