Aside from five years in Montreal, I’ve lived all my life in Calgary. The announcement today that Stampede is being cancelled this year upset me more than I expected. It was inevitable, I know, but the Stampede being cancelled in some ways makes the effect of COVID on all our lives and this city feel all the more deep and real and intractable. As Mayor Nenshi said, this is tough—even the flood didn’t stop Stampede from going forward. I’m definitely not oblivious to the problematic things that crop up every year because of Stampede, and I loath almost all the country music I’ve ever heard, but this one still gets me. From the goofy window drawings, to childhood memories of having and ice cream with my mom and sister in Weadickville or watching the fireworks from Scotchman’s Hill with my dad, to getting to see bands I wouldn’t have been able to afford otherwise at the Coke Stage as a teenager, to enjoying a distracting day of fun when my dad was in the hospital, to chatting up the gardening people about what’s going wrong with my kale (everything!) and wandering around the art show, and of course, hiding from the the yearly hail storm no matter my age and eating mini doughnuts and watching the Powow dances, the Stampede is such a fixture that it feels like cancelling… I dunno. Regular life? Finding out in the same breath that Folk Fest was also cancelled was sadder still. I love Folk Fest and am very sorry and sad to see it cancelled too.
So, today it’s a Stampede book. I haven’t read this one… I think I got it at the CBC book sale, or my mom might have picked it up for me. I have a little collection of Western Canadian/Calgary community histories, and this is one of those. I think I might actually dig into this one on the weekend.
