DULUTH — After a two-year hiatus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Magic Smelt Puppet Troupe brought back the "Run, Smelt, Run!" parade to the Lakewalk on Sunday afternoon.
Attendees of the 10th annual parade, clad in silver hats, leggings, skirts, jackets and glasses, gathered across from the Lake Superior Maritime Visitor Center to kick off the jazzy parade up the Lakewalk to Zeitgeist Arts for a smelt feed.
The parade celebrates the running of the smelt: small, silver-colored fish that swim in Lake Superior up to rivers to spawn. In honor of the fish and to celebrate the end of winter, the parade encourages attendees to wear silver and dress up as or carry silver fish on sticks as they make their way on the parade route.
The parade started with a performance by the Brass Messengers, a Twin Cities-based second-line band. Sunday's rain subsided as the parade began that afternoon, and the Brass Messengers chose appropriate selections: "Raindrops Keep Fallin' on my Head," "My Favorite Things" and "Singin' in the Rain."
Parade organizer Jim Ouray, dressed as Neptune, then addressed the crowd and introduced the Smelt Queen and her royal court and guard.
ADVERTISEMENT
"For me, it's a chance to meet up with all my buddies and be a bunch of delightful weirdos," said Dennis Lloyd, a member of the parade's stilt-walking Royal Guard, which walk alongside the Smelt Queen leading the parade. "It's amazing to see people outside celebrating again. It's been a long time and I'm glad to be back."
Lloyd has been walking on stilts with the smelt parade for about six years. He took a stilt-walking class from Ouray and said he enjoys the chance to be part of the parade every year.
Superior resident Alison Moffat said she loves coming to the parade because "it's such an amazing celebration of community and being deeply silly." She and her children have been attending the parade for at least six years. When there wasn't a parade in 2020 due to the pandemic, she and her stepdaughter still dressed up and headed to the Lakewalk on what would have been the parade day.
"We told our friends to watch the harbor cam at like 12:45 and we got all smelted up and waved and danced," Moffat said. "We missed it so much and it's amazing to be back."
Some attendees were seeing the parade for the first time. Oliver Swenson, of Duluth, said he'd heard about it from Ouray, but hadn't attended until this year.
"It's blown all of my expectations out of the water, like the smelt," Swenson said.
