Every July the sleek skyscrapers of Calgary look down on a colorfully chaotic scene as business suits give way to western outfits - Stetsons, blue jeans, bolo ties, and hand heeled boots - and citizens join genuine cowboys in a ten-day celebration of the city's cowtown heritage. Billed as the greatest outdoor show on earth, the Calgary Stampede offers thrills galore: bronco busting, bull riding, steer wrestling, calf roping, and, most heart-stopping of all, chuck-wagon racing.
Organized by American rodeo cowboy Guy Weadick, the very first stampede opened on September 2, 1912, with a spectacular parade of 1,0000 cowboys and 3,000 Indians in full ceremonial dress, as well as veterans of the early days of the North West Mounted Police and even survivors of the Riel Rebellion. Rodeo stars flocked in from all over Canada and the united States. Skeptics had prophesied a flop, saying that the great days of ranching and cowboys were over, and that the future belonged to the sodbusters and their wheat crop. "All the more reason to stage a show," was Weadick's retort.
In fact, ranching survived while many homesteaders failed in the dry years of the Dirty Thirties. This first stampede was a great success, with an estimated 40,000 spectators at a time when Calgary counted only 60,000 inhabitants. A special thrill was the subjugation of the legendary black bronco Cyclone by the little-known rodeo rider Tom Three Persons, who outperformed established stars to win a purse of one thousand dollars.
This was a great start for what has become the "greatest outdoor show on earth".
For more information about the Calgary Stampede visit http://www.guidedtourcalgary.com/stampedepage1.html
For more information about Calgary Alberta visit http://www.guidedtourcalgary.com
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