Ben Madilynn
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, started the town’s first annual cat tour, taking participants through Wedge to admire the neighborhood cats.
Edwards said the idea sprang from two things: One was his habit of going on long walks by himself, during which he took photos of neighborhood cats and posted them to Wedge’s X (formerly Twitter) page. The other was the town’s preexisting 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 told The Dodo. “The first tour we held was called the ‘Historic cat walking tour’ or something like that.”
The first cat tour was small. Edwards only remembers about 20 to 30 people in attendance. But over the years, the tour has grown tremendously — both in size and popularity.
“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,’ and stuff like that,” 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 really see the back of the line. It’s organized chaos, flowing through the neighborhood, spilling off the sidewalk. Street traffic gets blocked.”
Cat lovers eager to show off their felines can register in advance for the tour to pass by their house. However, according to Edwards, many cat owners spontaneously join the tour by showcasing their cats as the crowd wanders 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 bring their cats to the window, others take them outside on leashes or in shopping bags, backpacks and strollers. Some go the theatrical route, presenting their cats “Lion King”-style on their balconies, which results in loud cheers from the crowd of walkers, Edwards said.
“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.”
The next cat tour is scheduled for June 26, 2025. Interested residents can already register their cats to participate.
When asked if he’ll continue to organize the tours in the future, Edwards said he couldn’t imagine doing otherwise.
“I have to,” he said. “I’ve become known as the ‘cat tour guy.’”
