When I’m out west, I’m always seized by the desire, no need, (which I have to keep in check) that I need authenic cowboy boots and a wrangler shirt. That’s fun and all, but beyond the get-up, it’s celebrating a pioneering spirit, the possibility of pushing forward into new frontiers that’s truly worth celebrating. Happy 100th!

I would love the horses! Haven’t made it yet, but would love to!

I have never been to the Calgary stampede as I live all the way out East. However, I have seen parts of it on TV and watched highlights of it on the internet for the past years. I love watching to see all the horses in the stampede and those in the derby. I like the thrill of the competition and sport between the riders and horses. I think the stampede is a great tourist attraction for Calgary. For all these reasons, I plan to make it to the stampede in the next couple of years!

The cowboys.. they remind me of when I was a little lad and me and my friends played cowboys in the barn and surrounding fields..

I went once when I was 12, and was blown away – the people, the food, the obvious tradition…wonderful! Certainly a favourite childhood memory. I would love to go back!

What I like the most about Calgary Stampede is that eveybody has the chance to be a Cowboy (cowgirl) for a day!!

I’ve never been, but I love the history and traditions that surround the Calgary Stampede. And the cowboys 🙂

As a child,holidays for our family every year was a week at the Calgary Stampede. The excitement started in June, when we started getting our cowgirl/cowboy costumes ready. We always had horses at home, and would practice the barrel racing and pole vaulting endlessly hoping to one day be a part of the “Greatest show on Earth.” By the time we travelled across Canada, to the actual Stampede, our excitement was enough to give our parents breakdowns. To this day, I always get a certain excitement when walking through those gates. Horses will always be my favourite, but the entertainment is world class, and the food the best.

I love watching the Calgary Stampede through both of my teenaged daughters’ eyes. Having grown up on the East coast, I never really got into the whole Western thing, but now that our girls are old enough to go on their own and meet with friends and have a good old fashioned good time, I see the allure. It made me realize that for them growing up in Calgary, the Stampede really feels like their own. This year, our oldest daughter landed her first real job working as an usher for the Suprdogs show. You bet I will be there with my cowboy hat on!! Yahoo!

Wearing my Kenny Chesney hat & cowboy boots with one hand on my special Stampede belt & silver buckle and the other holding a mason jar of Jack Daniels & lemonade. Ready to party!

The best thing about Stampede week = pancakes and bacon, pancakes and sausage, pancakes and bacon. Repeat for 10 days in a row. oh. and beer.

I like the traditions and history that surround the Calgary Stampede. It’s wonderful to preserve the history of the sport as well as promoting the animals and their welfare at the same time. Saddle up!!

I was born, raised, and have lived all my life in Calgary, yet walking onto the grounds of the Calgary Stampede is like coming home. I don’t know these crowds, yet they’re my family; I don’t know these animals, but I’ve known them all my life. The Stampede reminds me that Calgary really is my home.

As I grow older, I appreciate new parts of the event. When I was young, it was the breakfasts, the parade, and the rides. In my teen years it was the concerts, fairway food, and the shows. Then it was the nashville tent and the beer gardens. Now I’m finally experiencing it as a whole and enjoying it even more.

I don’t know if I’ll live here forever, but I’ll always try to visit in July. The Stampede is part of me.

How everyone buys into it. That’s what makes it such a resounding success.

Some individuals view the Calgary Stampede as an opportunity to let loose, throw on a pair of cowboy boots, spurs optional, and a Wrangler shirt and have a good time – and that’s perfectly fine. However, the Calgary Stampede is more than just fun, it is a celebration of our heritage, what made Calgary what it is today. It’s the history of the west, the first nations, the cowboys and those in between. It encompasses the entire city, Canada as a whole, and allows for the creation of memories. Stampede means something different to every person. To me – it’s an involved way to continue the legacy of our history and to assure that the knowledge gets passed down from generation to generation.

I had to sweep away years of mind lint to dig up this little golden nugget from the deep, dark caverns of my brain.

Generally, I avoid going out late and partying during the Stampede. But “Kool and the Gang” was performing and that in itself is oh-so “kool.”

Now, I’ve always despised the scantily dressed Stampede women of Stephen Avenue, but something in me made me reach for my push-up bra that night. With my breasts hiked to the sky, I ventured out to a hot and sticky Stephen Avenue restaurant to catch the show. It was early, so I parked “my girls” directly front of the stage and waited for “the boys” to come out and play. Dozens of handsome men in white suits took over the stage. They sing, they dance, they even play trombone.

Now, I’ve always wanted to be “the girl” who gets pulled on stage at a concert, but I’ve never been close enough to the action to even get noticed. Well, that night, I was both close enough and noticeable. Remember the push-up bra? Well that little La Senza number got me yanked on stage. Kool got down on one knee and serenaded my beating heart.

I have the pictures to prove it and simply recalling this memory has put my ego through the roof. After the show, people kept coming up to me and saying, “Hey weren’t you the girl who got pulled up on stage?” This experience always reminds me that at the Calgary Stampede, you can be anything you desire…or despise.

All hail the Stampede Bar Star!

My favourite thing is the way that the entire atmosphere of the city is transformed – people are so much happier during Stampede, they relax for one magical week and enjoy everything Calgary has to offer. Whether it’s free pancakes or watching the fireworks, everyone is engaged in the local culture. It’s always an inspiration to see the entire city come together!

Gorgeous piece, absolutely stunning! Really hope I win. 🙂 Keep up the good work!

For myself, it’s just being home. I grew up with the Stampede – we went as a family each and every year and dressed up, ate tonnes of pancakes, and lived at the Stampede grounds. This year is the the first year I’ve been back in 10 years, and being the 100th anniversary makes it particularly sweet. I’m so happy to be back – it’s home being in this atmosphere and wearing my hat. <3

For me- it all comes down to the community spirit and volunteerism represented in being able to pull off such a large-scale celebration. It goes to show the passion behind and preservation of Calgary’s western heritage. I’ve lived in various cities across Canada and all seem to have their distinct events; none though come close to the Calgary Stampede in its reach. Committees of volunteers work together both on-park and well outside it’s gates reaching out to all parts of the city. It really is an all city ten day celebration and what we as Calgarians can feel proud to be known for the world over.

It’s been a 100 years since the first Calgary Stampede in 1912, and I love THE RODEO, the exhibition and festival, the pancakes, the music, the two stepping, the cowboys, the cowgirls, the YEEEEHAWSSS, the belts, the buckles, the jeans, the kids in the cowboy hats and badges… bang bang!, the rides, the games, the parades, the chuckwagon racing, the indian village, the food on a stick, the art, the horses, the Candian Forces! the shopping, the cattle, the beef, the leather, the ballons, the smiles, the laughs, the deep fried food, the fireworks, the tradition, the LOVE… The Calgary Stampede is the best place on EARTH!

Unfortunately I can not share any compelling comments regarding The Stampede because I have never been privileged enough to attend. I’ve read about it for years and it’s definitely on my “bucket list” but “life” has just kept me from being able to attend. To all of those who are more fortunate, I truly hope that there is at least something about this festival that grabs your soul and creates memories to last a lifetime.

We all like to remind the rest of the country that Calgary is a modern, hip, world-class city, but there’s something about the romance of the cowboy, the First Nations and the wide open range that makes this place truly unique. And the Calgary Stampede – with it’s wild rodeo events, whirling Native dancers and authentic cowboy roots – seems to encompass it all, like a burst of fireworks, all sizzle and flash, exploding in one crazy, festive, rebellious week.
We all have childhood memories of dressing up with our snapped shirts and six guns, playing wagon train on the back stoop or riding our hobby horses, and Stampede gives us permission to let loose and play again. When we pull on the cowboy boots and dust off our old hats, some strange spirit comes over us all. We drink, we drawl, we swagger and swing – work is sidelined for some serious summer socializing. No matter our age or appearance, our colour or creed, we’re all part of a western Canadian tribe in a city that’s really very different from any other place in the country. It’s summer and we go Stampeding, like a herd of wild horses.

There is a small corner of my heart labeled “Calgary Stampede.” It holds a lifetime’s worth of memories that flood back every year, along with an inexplicable craving for mini-donuts and ice-cold beer, the heady aroma of grilled onions mingling with the too-sweet smell of pink cotton candy, and the soft snuffling of cows and horses.
For as long as I can remember, the Stampede has brought joy to my life, starting at age four and the 1949 Stampede Kids’ Day. When the winning ticket for the bright blue CCM bicycle was drawn, my father gathered me in his arms and we swooped headlong down those long grandstand stairs. I remember how hot the tarpaper stage felt under my red sandals, and how my chubby little hands had to be pried away from the handlebars when it was explained I had won a boy’s bike, and it had to be exchanged for a girl’s. I was not easily mollified. Fifty years later, to the day, the Stampede allowed me to pull the winning ticket. The smile on the little girl’s face was as broad as mine had been.
I remember going on all the scary midway rides with my dad — Mother refused each and every one — and only once throwing up on him. He blamed the hot dogs, cotton candy and the heat. I blamed the Tilt-A-Whirl. Mother laughed because, as she said, my father never once went to the Stampede without some woman throwing up on him.
Years later, I spent the entire Stampede working at the grounds, thrilled at the chance to be a part of it all, being an “insider” because of my badge that allowed me entrance to any and all events. Another year, I rode in the Stampede parade on a chuckwagon, a decidedly different vantage point. One of the outriders “lent” me a horse to get back through the downtown streets to my car. I don’t know which was more of a thrill — to be in the parade or riding a horse through downtown Calgary.
In 1985, I listened transfixed as k.d. lang, in her early Patsy Cline “cow punk” style, wowed a standing-room only crowd in the staid Fairmont Palliser Hotel’s Crystal Ballroom, annually transformed into the Paralyzer Room for Stampede. The drink named for that room — a lethal mixture of vodka, Kahlua and milk (sometimes Coke) — would paralyze anyone.
But one single Stampede memory rivals winning that bicycle: One Stampede parade day, my father arrived home from an afternoon visit to the Legion, followed by an entire Highland pipes and drums band. Dad led them in full skirl down Joliet Avenue and up the driveway to my goggle-eyed amazement, my mother’s open-mouthed surprise, and the full attention of all the neighbours. I fell hopelessly in love with the snare drummer. I was five years old. To this day, a man in a skirt with a drum can cause a thin sheen of sweat to break out on my upper lip.
All of those memories are wrapped up in the Calgary Stampede and, like so many Calgarians, I joyfully return to them each year for the chucks, cowboys, civic pride and the entire city’s enthusiasm for the whole messy, wonderful party.