“It’s organized chaos” 😸
A Neighborhood Tradition: The Annual Cat Tour in Wedge
Small cats. Big cats. Young cats. Old cats.
Whatever kind of cat you have, the people of Wedge, a neighborhood in Minneapolis, Minnesota, want to see them.
In 2017, John Edwards, the editor and publisher of Wedge Live, an online publication, launched the town’s first annual cat tour, guiding participants through Wedge to admire the neighborhood cats.
The Birth of a Unique Tradition
Edwards said the idea came from two things: his habit of taking long walks by himself, during which he took photos of neighborhood cats and posted them on Wedge’s X (formerly Twitter) page, and the town’s established walking tours of historic homes.
“I combined the popularity of the cat photos on Twitter with making fun of the idea of historic home tours,” Edwards explained. “The first tour we held was called the ‘Historic cat walking tour’ or something like that.”
The first cat tour was small, with only about 20 to 30 attendees. But over the years, the event has grown significantly in both size and popularity.
A Growing Phenomenon
“It’s gotten so large at this point that it’s difficult to interact with people on the tour and say, ‘Hey, you know, this is this cat’s name, and they are this many years old,’” Edwards said. “Now it’s basically a mob of people walking around the neighborhood, following me at the head of the line — but the crowd is so big that I can’t see the back of the line. It’s organized chaos, flowing through the neighborhood and spilling off the sidewalk. Street traffic gets blocked.”
Cat Lovers Unite
Cat owners who want to participate can register in advance for the tour to pass by their homes. However, many cat owners spontaneously join the fun by showcasing their cats as the crowd strolls by.
“Cat owners realize the cat tour’s coming through, and they’ll bring their cats up to the window,” Edwards said. “We end up with maybe twice as many cats as the ones who are pre-registered.”
While some people simply present their cats at the window, others take their cats outside on leashes, in shopping bags, backpacks, or strollers. Some even put on a show, holding their cats up “Lion King”-style from balconies, drawing cheers from the crowd.
An Unlikely Success
“It shocks me each year that people love it,” Edwards said. “It just started as a concept and interesting theme, and those don’t always work out to be great in reality, but this is beyond anyone’s wildest expectations for how successful something like this could be.”
Future Cat Tours
The next cat tour is scheduled for June 26, 2025, and interested residents can already register their cats to participate. When asked if he plans to continue organizing the tours in the future, Edwards said he couldn’t imagine stopping.
“I have to,” he said. “I’ve become known as the ‘cat tour guy.’”