Smeltania Lives!

The Boyne City festival is back by popular demand

By Geri Dietze | Feb. 19, 2022

Boyne City’s Smeltania Festival, February 25 through 27, revives a storied time in Boyne City’s past, when a little fish came to town and helped it weather the Great Depression. 

Today, the festival does a bit of the same, giving an economic boost to Boyne businesses who contend with not only slow sales in the off season but also the economic burden of the lingering pandemic, says Lisa Luebke, associate director of the Boyne City Chamber of Commerce. 

“This is exactly how Smeltania came to be in the first place,” she says. “The economy is a very historical part of it.”  

Times being what they are, pandemic precautions are in place, but with most activities outside, organizers are confident in having people will come to town, Luebke says. 

Attendees can choose from a long list of things to do: ice fishing contest; pub crawl; food stalls; games and activities for the kiddies; music; polar plunge; retailer specials; and much more. Warming stations and a hot cocoa bar will make this outdoor excursion delightfully cozy. 

Because so much action is outside, all are welcome to bring their own shanty or shelter (such as a tent or car) to Veteran’s Park as a headquarters for family and friends to gather, share a meal, and warm up. 

For a complete list of activities and information, visit Boyne Chamber of Commerce and the Smeltania site, both on Facebook. 

Brother, Can You Spare a Smelt? 
The Great Depression was especially hard on towns that had earlier cycled through their boom-and-bust period, without much of a rebound. In 1910, with lumbering in full swing, Boyne City had a population of 5,995, not including another 3,000 transient workers. But by the early 1920s, with the forests wiped out and the timber gone, Boyne City became a shell of its former self. The population quickly sank to under 3,000 people, the town languished, and in 1929, the stock market crash dealt a cruel blow.  

That same year, however, the first smelt appeared in the Boyne River, leaving Lake Michigan and traveling up to Lake Charlevoix to spawn. The runs began appearing annually, garnering more attention with each passing year. By 1936, Detroit’s WJR was broadcasting the arrival of the smelt, and Boyne City was reportedly attracting thousands of visitors. Watching the locals dip for smelt was sport for some, but for those who needed to support their families, the smelt were simply a blessing.

By the late 1930s, with shanties proliferating on the thick lake ice about a mile offshore each February, Boyne City’s “smelt mania” hit its high. Legend has it that a couple of canny local journalists spread the word about the “city” of 300 ice shanties spread over frozen Lake Charlevoix, and in 1940, Collier’s magazine (rivaling The Saturday Evening Post in popularity) came calling, ultimately featuring the village in its March issue. 

Boom, Bust, Crash
Smeltania, as the shanty city came to be known, was hopping: Bill and Bea’s Smeltania Trading Post did a brisk business. Taxi service drove tourists out on the ice for 15 cents a ride. Local entrepreneurs started renting out shanties in an early version of Airbnb.  

Another boomtown, perhaps?  Yes, but much like the timber decades before, the smelt began running out — or, not running at all, as it were. By the 1940s, smelt runs up the Boyne River were less dependable, and by the 1950s, the smelt were gone entirely. Biologists believed that the die-off coincided with Lake Charlevoix’s minnow population, which was also declining at the time.

Though smelt reappeared for a time in the 1980s, giving Smeltania a brief revival, eventually the little fish were gone for good. Today, the Smeltania Festival, which the city resurrected once again last year, is a time to remember and celebrate the little fish that saw Boyne through tough times.

Smeltania Redux: Friends in High Places
Shanties are generally 6-by-6-by-6-foot wooden boxes set over a hole in the ice, but in 1979, Nord Schroeder, a Boyne city fisherman, builder, and retired Boyne City Fire chief, decided to upsize, adding a second story and making a bit of history in the process. In a Feb. 1, 1981, story about that year’s Smeltania revival, in The New York Times featured Schroeder’s handiwork.

It’s easy to see why. Schroeder’s shanty was no average wooden box. It was 8 by 8 by 12-foot, fully insulated, and had a second level. Walls on the upper floor boasted two huge picture windows, the better to see the comings and goings of his Smeltania neighbors. A leaded glass gable displayed an illuminated star, signifying Schroeder’s position as Smeltania Chief of Police. And the paneled interior had gas lights, a gas wall furnace, a three-burner cook stove, room for a beer keg, and a TV with antenna. “Believe it or not,” he tells Northern Express, “we got good reception.” 

The TV was powered by the same car battery Schroeder used to shine light into the water to attract the smelt. Schroeder and friends tallied their catches on butcher paper tacked to one of the shanty’s walls. “We might catch between 1,300 and 1,400 smelt in a day,” he says. And, because Smeltania also meant hospitality, Schroeder once hosted a group of 15 for dinner. 

His shanty journal has the signatures of people from all over the country who stopped by. Sadly, the structure burned in 1983 as it was being readied for the winter; hidden mice nests ignited inside the gas furnace. But there was one more chance at fame: Schroeder’s insurer sent a crack investigator with an international reputation to investigate the $10,000 shanty fire, unable to believe that an ice shanty could possibly be that valuable. Only in Smeltania. 

To learn more about Smeltania, visit:https://www.hsmichigan.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/12/Smelt

What’s a Smelt, Anyway?
Smelt is a slender, silvery fish (Osmeridae family) found in the North Atlantic and North Pacific, as well as rivers, streams, and lakes in many parts of Europe, North America, and Northeast Asia. Although none are surely as good as Boyne City’s Smeltania, festivals for the fish abound in other parts of the world, South Korea, Italy, and Russia included.