Destination Up North UpNorth-Spring_20_030920_B | Page 10

The City of Lights festival has been scheduled in Nisswa annually for the
last 39 years on the day after Thanksgiving. (Submitted photo)
BY SUE WEBBER • CONTRIBUTING WRITER
Nisswa:
A resort town
with a thriving
downtown area
10 destinationupnorth.com
W
hat can you expect from a town that allows
turtles to take over the downtown once a
week for two-and-a-half months every year?
The answer is, “Plenty.”
Nisswa, a town of 2,100 in Crow Wing County, counts
its weekly turtle races as just one of countless pluses. At
2 p.m. every Wednesday from early June through mid-
August, people of all ages throng to the “Turtle Track” in
downtown Nisswa, where they can rent a turtle for $5
and enter regular heat races, plus five specialty races.
Amazingly or not, the races have continued for 56 years.
“I’ve been announcing the races for ten years,” says Mark
Ulm, owner of Zaiser’s, located at 25424 Main St. “It’s a
blast. Over the Fourth of July, we had just shy of 1,000
racers. We never have less than 200 or 300, and often it’s
500 people.”