Iron Range parades, street dances and fireworks

PHOTO: Ian Ransley, Flickr CC

As a young kid I marched in the Keewatin Fourth of July parade as a patriotic penguin, Donald Duck, and other flag-festooned creatures.

As an older kid I remember piling into a car with my friends, touring Range towns for street dances and fireworks. Before cell phones we would often try to anticipate where we might find our other friends, and build a roving party as we found people in one town or another.

I’ve worked for campaigns in parades and covered them as a reporter. These events, popular across the USA but full of unique customs on the Range, mark the passage of time in Northern Minnesota.

For the past several years the most popular item on my blog has been my annual listing of Iron Range Fourth of July parades, street dances and fireworks displays.

The secret is simple. Many Northern Minnesota towns and chambers of commerce maintain poor web sites. Hard to read, updated infrequently. Individual towns often rely on printed flyers to get the word out. This makes it hard for tourists and people from nearby towns to know what’s up. So I create a simple listing that includes just parades, street dances, and fireworks for the Mesabi, Vermilion and Cuyuna iron ranges and other nearby towns.

You can read the entire listing at my new permanent page for Iron Range Fourth of July parades, street dances and fireworks displays.

Accept no substitutes. Share the link on social media. It’s one of the ways we can build community for this blog and Northern Minnesota.


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