We left Banff in the morning of July 5 for a short drive to Cochrane, AB, in preparation for attending two days of this extravaganza that is the Calgary Stampede.

The Calgary Stampede is an annual, 10-day rodeo, exhibition and festival held every July in Calgary, Alberta. It attracts over one million visitors per year and features one of the world’s largest rodeos, a parade, stage shows, concerts, agricultural competitions, chuckwagon racing and First Nations exhibitions.

First, some unfinished business: I told you about Stacy and Amy, the two “girls” who handles all the food preparation and serving at the 5-6 cook-out dinners we had as a group in the various campgrounds; here I was finally able to get a picture of them, along with their dog, Hank:

Again, the meals were great and were enjoyed by all…

So on our first night in Cochrane we met for Happy Hours in the Rec Room…

The caravaners all seem quite excited about the Stampede. We were visited by an “ambassador” of the Stampede who talked about the history of Alberta and its cowboy days… And we were all bestowed with white cowboy hats…

So we returned to the Villa…

On Saturday, July 6, The bus picked up the caravaners for the drive to Calgary and the Stampede. All the caravaners, that is, except us…

I’ve attended a rodeo before. I saw terrified animals being chased, roped, hog-tied and being generally abused, including one being shot dead right in the arena. No thanks – we’ll pass on the rodeo. We will attend the stage show the next day…

So we had a leisurely day along in the campground, doing laundry, catching up on emails (great internet access here!), and relaxing.

Our original plan for this day was to visit Jarvie, the tiny town 80 miles north of Edmonton, where my Great-Grandparents and several other Dutch immigrants settled on homesteads in the early 1900s. The family included my grandparents (both families) and many cousins. My father was born a log cabin on the homestead outside Jarvie in 1918.

Alas, there are no relatives of mine left in Jarvie. My Grandparents along with four children left Jarvie and moved to Everett, Washington in about 1920. Four more children were born there. The Terhorst family moved to Los Angeles in 1936… Other Terhorst relatives moved away to various places until only one family (my great Uncle, Henry) was left. The last communication I had was with the widow of the last Terhorst, and she has moved to Edmonton. She has little contact with any other Terhorst relatives in the area…

Since it is about a 5 hour drive (one way) from Cochrane to Jarvie, and Jarvie is pretty much a ghost town, we decided to skip it…

We walked along the adjacent river… Unbeknownst to us this is an off-leash dog park… Lots of loose dogs running about…

Nice houses across the river.

Nice old bridge crossing the river…

That’s the RV Park on the left…

After our walk we drove to the town of Cochrane. We stocked up on cheap wine in the giant new shopping center just outside of town, then found this wonderful little restaurant in the historic downtown…

We shared a few appetizers and a nice bottle of Rioja…

We returned to the Villa…

Sunday July 7… Our morning was again free; at 3:00 we joined the others for the bus to the Stampede. Today’s program is what they call “Chuckwagon Races and Grandstand Show”; no rodeo…

And what a show it was…

But first we had a few hours to kill. The Midway was packed, with thousands of attendees and hundreds of fast food joints selling everything from ice cream to tacos to deep-fried pickles. Did I mention that it was hot?

We finally made our way into the grandstands. We had great seats!

We could even see some nice view homes across the way…

Lots of pageantry for the opening ceremonies, introducing lots of titled peoples…

And a band.

We enjoyed singing “Oh Canada” as the Canadian flag literally flew across the stadium…

I love good pageantry!

The first half of the show tonight was various forms of horse racing… This first event is called Chuck Wagon Racing.  The crazy thing is that these teams start the race facing backwards, (facing left), then they maneuver a U-turn, run between obstacle barrels, then the race is on… to the right…

These horses are retired thoroughbred racing horses that have aged out.  They are mostly 8-20 years old.. Very odd, very unusual… And lots of fun!

After 10 heats of Chuck Wagon Races we had “Indian Races”, now called Indigenous People or First Nations races… Young women bareback races… then relay races, also bareback.   

Next came the relay races, also bareback.   

Each team has 3 horses, 3 horse-holders, and one rider.  The race starts with the riders on the ground. Then the whistle blows, they jump onto the 1st horse, and they’re off.

After 1 lap the rider stops, jumps off the 1st horse, then jumps on the 2nd horse…

And hilarity ensues…

They do things differently here in Canada…

After the races they hauled a giant stage backdrop in front of us and the second half of the show began.

This wasn’t half as interesting as the horse races. They was LOUD music, mostly unintelligible. And fire works. Always fireworks. Some gymnastics, some motorcycle riding, more loud music. Anyone heard of the Hunter Brothers? Five farmers from Saskatchewan who formed a fairly popular singing group…

I hadn’t heard of them, either. They were the headliners…

One fairly interesting feature was the drone show. Each single light is a drone, flying around to make these various images (and others…)

The show finally concluded at about 11:15 pm. It’s the first time we’ve been out after dark in three weeks!

We walked our way through the 20,000 people on the midway, found our bus, and returned to the campground at about 12:45 am…

Next day was our last day on the caravan. We enjoyed a little happy hour with our new friends playing ukuleles and guitars and singing along.

Final banquet was at a brewery in old town Cochrane…

One last chance to hang out as a group…

We returned to the Villa. An enjoyable time was had by all…