St. Urho's Day

By: © Nelson Taylor 2008

Festival Location: Hood River, OR, USA

Festival State: Oregon Festivals

Festival Type(s): Multicultural Festivals, Historical Festivals, Bizarre Festivals

Festivals celebrating a population's heritage are common. Festivals celebrating Finnish heritage are less common. And a Finnish celebration like Hood River's St. Urho's Day held every March is not common at all. In fact, it's a little strange. Legend has it that back in the homeland St. Urho recognized that grasshoppers were destroying grape crops. And you know what that means, right? Those damn grasshoppers were cutting down on the country's quantity of wine. It's enough to make a Fin go bonkers. So sweet St. Urho grabbed a pitchfork and successfully banished all of the grasshoppers across the sea and into Ireland. But it wasn't until 1981, when Felix Tomlinson noticed that Hood River had a large Finnish population -- Alajoki's, Lingren's, Kesti's, Lahti's, etc. He organized some of them (three) and pulled off the first parade the quickly retired to the nearest bar.

Now a Queen is chosen every year, who is paraded through town in a brightly colored Urhomobile. Other paraders include the Finnish Drill Team (breasty women holding Black & Deckers that swirl Finnish flags; the Iron Maidens, who are viking-clothed vixens holding hockey sticks and wearing horned helmets; and at the front of the crowd (well, the whole shebang, paraders and spectators alike, is only about 100 people) is Tomlinson himself in his signature lime green polyester leisure suit. If you are one of the folks in the "crowd," lucky you; you get to pelt the paraders with grapes. Good random fun...nowhere else but Oregon.