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New Location​: Knife River, Minnesota!

(2025)

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We have relocated our main shop space to Knife River–20 miles up the North Shore from Duluth! There's a lot going on, so come by to lend a hand and see everything that we're up to, stay tuned for updates online, and follow us on Instagram (@duluthfaeringproject). Tuesday Community Build Night workshops are ongoing and there are many irons in the fire.

 

Please check in by email or call ahead before visiting.

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Missions:

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● To build traditional wooden boats with community volunteers

to row and sail on Lake Superior and beyond.

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● To make creative work with hand tools accessible to anyone

who is interested and willing, and to foster interest in

making things by hand with the broader community.

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● To get community members out on the water and help connect

people with the waterways and with the other living things

around us–which we all depend upon.

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● To breathe new life into the tradition of community boatbuilding and integrate it into contemporary life in order to bring people together, help them build life-long creative skills, and hopefully bring them joy.

 

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What is Nóatún?

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● Nóatún is the home of the deity Njørd in Norse Mythology.

Njørd helps to oversee the settled shores, coastal seas, and the prosperity

of fisherfolk and all those that travel about the waterways in their daily lives...their boats, barrels, nets, sails, huts, homes; and the green river deltas, sandy beaches, fair weather, seagreens, and shoals of fish that sustain them.

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● In Old Norse, Nóatún means “boat home” or “boat enclosure.” It is pronounced “no-ah-toon” and rhymes with “row at noon.”

The accents or diacritic marks above the O and U mark long vowel sounds rather than syllables of emphasis. This means that, in the old tongue, Nóatún would be pronounced rather slowly, its vowels savored.

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● Njørd resides in a great, though humble, seaside hall of this name, though he is most often said to be standing in the nearby lapping tides all day long–therefore earning him bleached hair and sun weathered skin, except for his feet and ankles which remain pale as they stand in the surf. While Thor reigns over harsh storms and war parties plowing across roiling seas in spear-filled longships, Njørd’s domain is that of peace and plenty; of simple abundance, fresh food, favorable winds, warm fires in the cool night, hewn boats swathed in pine tar, earnest adventure, and safe journeys home.

 

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