89th Annual Fisherman’s Picnic
Grand Marais
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GRAND MARAIS, MINNESOTA - July 18, 2018 (LSN) The 89th Annual Fisherman’s Picnic will be celebrated on Aug 2– 5 this year. The Picnic started with Commercial fisherman and their families having a picnic along the North Shore with families and friends during the slow fishing times.
The Grand Marais Lions Club made it an official celebration in 1952. It is a time when family and class unions are held. While giving opportunities for friends to come together and reunite.
The annual Fisherman’s Picnic is a classic local festival where you can find everything from softball tournaments, fishing contests to lumberjack exhibitions and a parade on Sunday. Some of the wackier events are the fish-tossing contest (participants throw herring back and forth), a loon-calling contest, minnow races and pickled herring-eating contest.
Grand Marais is a town of about 1,350 people, but it mushrooms during Fisherman’s Picnic weekend by as much as 10,000 to 15,000 people.
The Lions Club sells 800 to 900 pounds of its famous Fish Burgers at Fisherman’s Picnic. This wonderful treat is made with Lake Superior herring, hand-breaded and served on a bun. There’s even a song about fish burgers, which local musician and recording artist Michael Monroe sings every year at the festival. It’s worth attending just for them.
The picnic is the main fundraiser of the Grand Marais Lions Club, which typically nets up to $13,000 to $16,000 which is then donate to local groups and to Lions International programs such as diabetics, sight, youth and hunger. Lions International has more than 1.4 million members in 46,000 clubs in more than 205 countries around the world. The local club has 38 members.
Lineup for the weekend includes Lioness buffet and silence auction, kiddy rides, kiddie tractor pull, on stage entertainment, tennis tournament, trail run, log rolling, crosscut sawing, bingo tent, fireworks and ending with a raffle draw giving away $10,000 first prize and hundreds of donated prizes by local business.
By Millie Spry
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