Calgary Stampede - The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth!

Now that we have had our day at Banff National Park viewing beautiful lakes, it's time to take our guests back to the city. We're heading back to Calgary for a day at the Calgary Stampede.

This annual celebration is dubbed as the Biggest Outdoor Show on Earth, and they're expecting over two million people during its 10 day run. We've read about how crowded the city will be with all those extra guests, so we have taken the local advice, and we're riding the light train system into Calgary rather than driving the car.

It's a 15-minute drive to the Crowsfoot train station from the hotel, and then another thirty minute ride to the station right outside the grounds of the Calgary Stampede. Like usual, we arrived too early and had to wait for the 11:00 opening. But Denisa had our day planned, as we hope to attend all the free shows. We started with the Dog Bowl, where rescued pooches performed tricks like leaping over this 72-inch gate.

We also went to "Dundu," where six guys from Germany manipulated a giant lighted puppet around the auditorium. It was fascinating to watch the life-like movements of a twelve-foot marionette.

We especially enjoyed the performance of the Stampede Band on the front steps of the Saddledome. 160 of Calgary's finest high school band students have been practicing for months to perform these high-energy performances during the stampede. They were awesome!

We just finished the concert when we hurried to the midway to see the high wire performance of Nik Wallenda. Fresh off his high wire stunt over Times Square, he has dawned a cowboy hat and western shirt for this week in Calgary.

If walking across the slanted wire stretched over our heads wasn't enough, this seventh-generation acrobat also laid and then sat on the wire before he ended his show.

The girl trip has always included trying new foods, and the Calgary Stampede is a great place to do that. We started off with the Creamy Lobster Truffel Dumplings. A little pricey at $28, they were decorated with truffle mayo and edible gold.

We would also eat perogies, a ramen noodle corn dog, and a pulled pork sandwich. Other strange edibles available at the stampede (but not purchased by us) were snickledogs--a hot dog, snickers, and pickle deep fried together in a tortilla,

and poutine. We have tried this Canadian specialty a couple different times, and it seems to be available at most fast food and sit-down restaurants in this country. In its simplest form, poutine is a combination of french fries and cheese curds covered with brown gravy. But it can obviously be dressed up at La Poutinerie.

Other new items at the stampede food court this year are the octo-lolly (pictured below) and the purple sweet potato ice cream in a pineapple cup (picture that for yourself).

We went inside the indoor exhibit building to taste samples and buy some too. They also had photo opportunities that made interesting backdrops among the pink balloons, 

and the giant legos.

The Calgary Stampede is famous for its chuckwagon races, and we became fans during our Canadian summer. The Stampede Rodeo runs for the entire ten days, and we have enjoyed watching the summary report each evening on television since we arrived in Canada. It is especially fun since several of the competitors were on the rodeo team at the university where we retired in Oklahoma. This is the final day of the stampede, and we were proud that three of the cowboys and cowgirls that made it to the championships had SWOSU ties. We watched the results with interest as Sage Kimzey, the bull rider, won the $100,000 first prize, while Emily Miller (who is also a dental hygienist at our dentist office) won third in barrel racing, and Jacob Stemo also finished well. It made us wish that we had bought those $50 rodeo tickets! 

The Stampede also embraces the agricultural influence of the province of Alberta. We wandered through the animal stalls to see the steers and horses and donkeys and pigs and sheep and . . . Most of the animals were participating in some contest during the ten days of the Stampede. Some of the animals in the barns had familiar faces.

Denisa's Mother has ran cattle for most of her life, so it was fitting that she posed with the cattle.

We were almost wore out when we realized we hadn't visited the Elbow River section of the Calgary Stampede. They had tipi contests this week, and several were open to visit.

This group had walked many miles by this time, and as soon as they worked up enough energy, we headed to the final show of the day.

We wanted to see the heavy horse pull contest that started at 5:00. This is a big-time event, and the large indoor arena was standing-room-only as we welcomed the competitors into the ring. Each pair of horses weigh a minimum of 4,000 pounds.

The sled in the middle of the arena is stacked with concrete bars until it weighs 10,000 pounds. Then each of the eight teams of horses are hitched up to the load. If they can pull it 14 feet, they advance to the next round where 1,000 pounds more is added to the sled.

We picked out a team to cheer for during the first round. This set of Belgian horses is from Lumsden, Saskatchewan, and they were our choice because one of the horse's names was Mark. He and his partner Jeff went on to win the competition when they were the only team to pull 13,000 pounds.

We learned a lot about horse pulling. They both have to pull at the very same time as it is impossible for one horse to carry the load alone, and you have to have a good driver to keep the horses centered. There might be a life lesson somewhere among the heavy horses tonight. It had been another long day by the end of that competition, so we made our way to the gates for the train ride toward home. We enjoyed the Calgary Stampede, even without going to the expensive rodeo or night shows. The event reminds us of the Texas State Fair, but bigger. We had a good day, and we'd saddle up and go to the "greatest outdoor show on earth" again if we were in the area!