DULUTH — It's only apt that when discussing the future of the Magic Smelt Parade, Jim Ouray is very Minnesotan about it. "I'm not begging. I don't mean to be desperate," he explained last week.
"I'm not like, 'Please, someone, do this!' You can't force it." "This" would be taking over the organization of the Magic Smelt Parade, an annual Duluth tradition since 2012 (with the exception of a two-year COVID hiatus). The jubilant costumed march along the Lakewalk, accompanied by the Brass Messengers in the style of a New Orleans second-line procession, has become a perennially popular event celebrating the annual bounty of silvery fish.
Ouray, the event's co-founder and organizer, is setting the project aside after this year's parade and smelt feed, scheduled for Sunday. At 65, Ouray said, he's ready for "more napping, gardening, skiing, camping, bicycling." Also, spending more time with his grandchildren.
"The typical retirement type of goals," he said. ADVERTISEMENT It's not unreasonable to imagine that community members might step up and take the mantle of the larger-than-life Smelt Queen. Ouray was also a longtime organizer of the Summer Solstice Pageant in Grand Marais, and that event has been successfully handed over to a new group of leaders.
Even the May Day celebration in Minneapolis, which seemed doomed after In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre could no longer sustain the huge endeavor, has been revived as a collaborative community project. "I worked on .