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You Can’t Take the Cowboy out of Cowtown

July 7, 2007

Some years ago, Calgary cancelled its Cowboy Festival of poetry and all things western. It's difficult to remember the reasons stated, if any, at the time, but it was one of those delightful little pieces of culture that had fallen out of fashion. It too easily reinforced stereotypes and was deemed unsuited to the "new West" image of a modern "sophisticated" city. It was very nice but, really, what would the neighbours think?Nothing new took the place of the cowboy poets. They were just left on the cultural doorstep - children deemed to have lost their legitimacy and about whom we were never to speak again. After all, a lot of us in this country - including nouveau Calgarians - have a certain amount of difficulty viewing cowboy culture as something "Canadian."It has always been viewed a little suspiciously because most of us formed our view of cowboys through the lens of Hollywood, which gave us a distinctly American view of the genre. Americans had cowboys but, well, we had Mounties, and let's face it: Within our culture, there is nothing more un-Canadian than something that might be American. Just ask an American immigrant how free he feels to celebrate his diversity, and you get the picture.The truth is, cowboy culture and this week's Stampede is to Calgary what Celtic music is to Nova Scotia - an inescapable part of its history and foundation. The Bar U Ranch, for instance, is not one of Canada's better known or promoted historical sites. Nestled in the foothills about 60 kilometres southwest of Calgary, it is a monument to those two generations who lived, loved and died before the barbed wire went up and the wonder of the open range disappeared both for first and second nations people. At one time, the Bar U's population of three or so dozen people constituted the largest settlement between Calgary and Fort Macleod. It had a post office, a Royal North-West Mounted Police detachment, and (not a lot of people know this) was for a time the home of Harry Longabaugh, who, after moving to Calgary and working in the saloon at the Grand Central Hotel, returned to the U.S. as the Sundance Kid.Another 150 kilometres or so to the south is Cowley, near where the John Hoise wagon train of 12 men, women and children, on their way from Fort Benton to Fort Edmonton, was massacred in 1867 by a war party led by Medicine Calf of the Blood First Nation. Legend has it that a Longview bar once displayed a rifle bearing a serial number that identified it as belonging to a soldier in the U.S. 7th Cavalry. Apparently, it was brought north by one of the Sioux warriors who had triumphed in the Battle of the Little Big Horn. In fact, in southern Alberta, we not only have people who can trace their heritage to those same Sioux warriors, but we have cacti, scorpions, and rattlesnakes.And yes, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it, we have cowboys.Their numbers are in decline, but the values they maintain - the ones that should not and cannot be abandoned - live on. I golfed with two of them recently. One was a chiropractor, the other an exercise kinesiologist. They were former bull riders, compact in build like Formula One drivers and fighter pilots. As it always is with cowboys, they were transparently honest, disarmingly friendly and in possession of more work ethic and intelligence - in other words, character - than the God, guts and guns stereotype that so troubles today's faux urban sophisticates.The Canadian cowboy way built this city. As cowgirl poet Doris Daley puts it: "We knew drought and fire and heartache, we knew fat and we knew bone/ But we were silver lining people and we never rode alone."