Smelt Days returns to Pell Harbor with a new parade route and the same smelt

PELL HARBOR — Smelt Days opens Friday with what the organizing committee is calling the most significant change to the festival in four decades: the parade will turn left at Dunkel's Bait & Tackle instead of right.

The new route adds roughly two blocks and passes the harbor fountain, which committee chair Rhonda Teasley said "deserves to be seen by a float at least once."

The smelt are unchanged. They will be fried in the VFW lot from 11 a.m. until they run out, which last year was 1:40 p.m.

What to know before you go

Parking on Front Street closes at 9 a.m. Saturday. The pancake breakfast moves from the fire hall to the school gym because the fire hall is, for the first time, needed for a fire drill.

The Smelt Queen will be crowned Saturday at noon. This year's court includes three high-school seniors and, by unanimous committee vote, the harbor's oldest working rowboat, which has been nominated every year since 1987 and has never before made the court.

Notes from a folding chair

I will be live-updating from the VFW lot for as long as the folding chair holds. If you see someone in a Beat rain jacket eating smelt while typing, please do not ask about the mileage stipend.