North Shore Dragon Boat Festival

Grand Marais MN (Cloudy and Rainy High 77 Low 59)

One of the best things about traveling the country is that we learn so much. We did not know, for example, that Dragon Boat racing is the fastest growing water sport in the world and because of its extreme popularity in Asia that it is the second most popular water sport in the world according to Paddler magazine. In recent years the sport has taken off in North America with Dragon Boat Festivals throughout the United States and Canada during the summer.


Grand Marais hosts the North Shore Dragon Boat Festival each year on the last weekend of July to support area non-profit organizations. Visitors come from the United States, Canada, and around the world. The festivities take place in downtown Grand Marais and the races are in the bay so we were able to walk which helped us avoid the parking issues. We had to support the fund raising as best we could. We had heard the one thing you had to do is have a world famous fishburger so of course we did.

What is a fishburger you ask? It is a filet of herring on a hot dog bun. With a little tartar sauce it was quite tasty. We also had our first cheese curds and they were also good.


We then sat on a rock and waited for the next heat to begin. Friday night we watched the practices and it was funny the dragon heads were not on the boat then. Here are the boats lining up to start, right in front of where our RV is parked.

Here is the winner of the heat as it crosses in front of us.

Since the boats were starting near our RV and because it was a little hot sitting in the sun we decided to go back to the park and get pictures there and sit where we knew some shade was. Here are the boats lining up for the next heat.

We are glad that we were able to be spectators at the fastest growing water sport and the 9th Annual North Shore Dragon Boat Festival. It was fun and we got to support the work of a lot of good people.


Till next time,


Bob and Jo