Duluth Cemetery Eroding into Lake Superior, Exposing Human Remains Near Glensheen

A family visiting Glensheen Mansion in the summer of 2024 wandered down to the beach and found a human bone. It was not an isolated discovery. A survey of the site revealed other bones had been protruding through the dirt, too, thanks to years of erosion. The source: Scandia Cemetery, a private burial ground directly next to Glensheen on London Road, where a crumbling clay bank has been slowly surrendering its dead to Lake Superior.

Scandia Cemetery, established in 1881, is located on London Road and is adjacent to the Historic Glensheen Mansion Estate. It pre-dates the neighboring Glensheen Mansion. There are upward of 1,500 graves. An estimated 60 bodies either have been exposed or are at imminent risk, without intervention.

Human bones were discovered below the cemetery on the shore of Lake Superior in the summer of 2024, shortly after the cemetery's aging caretakers wrote to the county saying they were giving it up. County Commissioner Patrick Boyle said that forfeiture legally left the nonprofit in the hands of no one. When the bones were discovered, the county stepped in. The county said it first learned of the issue in August 2024.

Although St. Louis County has no legal obligation or responsibility over private cemeteries, the county recognizes that the continued exposure of human remains presents an ethical and environmental dilemma that requires action and a permanent solution. The cemetery board that controls and operates Scandia Cemetery has no financial means to resolve the erosion issues on its own.

St. Louis County officials applied for a state Legislative-Citizen Commission on Minnesota Resources grant, or LCCMR, funded in part by Minnesota State Lottery dollars, after an unsuccessful attempt last year. An engineering firm hired by the county determined a $2.5 million retaining wall would be cheaper than relocating the graves. County staff, working with consultants from LHB, surveyed the eroding bank and concluded that a permanent retaining wall is the most cost-effective and least invasive solution when compared with relocating burials. That's on top of about $253,000 St. Louis County already has invested to hire LHB to recommend and design a fix.

The county is asking for roughly $2.55 million for design work, easements, and a concrete retaining wall to shore up about 300 feet of shoreline. If the county is awarded the LCCMR grant, construction of the wall likely would not start until spring 2027.

Boyle said the current application is the strongest the county has submitted. "We know it's a shovel-ready case, and this is exactly what we need. It's at the finish line. So that's, I think, what's changed," he said. His pitch to state funders is straightforward: "We want to do what's right for the families and those folks that are buried there, and do it in the right way where we don't have this happen anymore."

Commissioner Boyle also cited the support of Northland legislators who serve on the LCCMR board: Sen. Jen McEwen, DFL-Duluth, and Rep. Jason Rarick, R-Pine County. The bipartisan support gives Boyle hope that the grant application will succeed this time around. McEwen, however, offered a candid warning: "I still think that we are going to face some questions from the Legislature about whether these LCCMR funds are appropriate for a use like this." She framed the broader stakes in terms of climate: "We really do need to step up to make sure that we are protecting the public and addressing damage that is a direct result of climate change."

Erosion eats up to 20 inches of shoreline per decade at that point on the shore, and Boyle made clear the county sees no path forward that involves waiting. "So as we speak, it continues to erode. I don't think we can wait on this project any longer," he said.

If no action is taken, Scandia Cemetery will indefinitely require routine monitoring, collection and housing of human remains, identification research, and notification to family lineage. The proximity to Glensheen Mansion, which hosts thousands of visitors annually, adds to the project's urgency. The first burial recorded at Scandia was a 9-year-old boy, laid to rest in 1881 after members of the then First Norwegian Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church acquired the land. More than 140 years later, the county is asking the state to make sure that is where he and the estimated 1,500 others buried alongside him remain.