Northwoods Experience: First City of Lights Tour of Homes Celebrates Xmas in Bemidji

The First City of Lights Foundation welcomed the holidays with the return of their Tour of Homes, where area residents could make use of a map to find the most illuminated homes and holiday displays in the area.

This year, the foundation hosted their first ever bus tour that took spectators around to each home that participated.

“Our community puts together a map of all the different lights and houses that go all out, and so we’re going to stop along the way at all of those,” said Mikaela Clyde, Bemidji Community Education Adult Enrichment Facilitator.

55 people signed up this year ready to tour the First City of Lights.

“It turned out better than I expected, Bemidji really loves Christmas and they showed up for it,” said Clyde.

“It’s a great ride, it was so much fun,” said Celeste Cermak, who said she has already booked her time on a tour for next year. “Enjoyed all the people that we were with and the lights were amazing. It was so fun to go all the way around the city and see how many people have participated in this great event.”

Based on this year’s turnout, the plan for next year is to have a couple of tours during the season.

“If we could double that, we would definitely do it again this year,” added Clyde. “We’ve been talking about it. I’m not sure if it’ll happen, if we have a bus available for it or not, but we would like to see it continue to go on in the future.”