When the Calgary Stampede comes to town for 10 days in July, it seems like just about everyone in this city of 1.8 million in Western Canada becomes a cowboy.
Muslim women wear cowboy hats over their hijabs, police officers have special ones made to blend with their uniforms and farmers dust off their finest for the occasion. Even priests dabble in Western wear.
“Everyone is into cowboy mode,” said the Rev. George Diab, a pastor at Our Lady of Peace Parish in Calgary, who accessorized his clerical cassock with a white cowboy hat.
The Calgary Stampede, one of the biggest outdoor rodeos in the world, takes over the city far beyond its official grounds, embraced by everyone from new immigrants to corporate workers who show up at their offices in Western outfits.
The event — a combined exhibition, music festival and rodeo — runs for 10 days, attracts well over a million spectators and has become a prominent and important stage for Canadian politicians. Horses and riders are the main attraction, but much of the action for Canada’s power brokers happens at pancake breakfasts and private booths in the rodeo stadium.
The Stampede arrives at an important political moment for Alberta, an oil rich province crucial to Canada’s ambitions to become a global energy superpower. A long-simmering secessionist movement in Alberta, supercharged by anger toward Justin Trudeau, the former prime minister, over his climate policies, has laid the groundwork for a referendum on whether the province should secede as soon as next year.
But in the four months since he took office, Prime Minister Mark Carney has eased some of the tensions, repeatedly noting the importance of Alberta’s energy sector to the country’s economy, a message that has not gone unnoticed at the Stampede.
While Mr. Trudeau skipped the event last year, Mr. Carney and several of his ministers showed up, and local business leaders say they have been fielding inquiries from international investors interested in Alberta’s energy and agriculture sectors. Their mood under the new government is upbeat.
“It’s a very different Stampede this year,” said Deborah Yedlin, the chief executive of the Calgary Chamber of Commerce, scanning the sea of cowboy hats outside a government building hosting a pancake breakfast. “There’s a really high level of optimism.”
Three Conservative provincial premiers joined the breakfast assembly line: Scott Moe of Saskatchewan poured syrup, Doug Ford of Ontario served mixed fruits and Danielle Smith of Alberta handed out plastic cutlery before flipping pancakes, which she is famously skilled at.
For the politicians who flock to the Stampede, what they wear is as important as what they say.
Mr. Carney played it low key for his first Stampede as Canada’s leader, wearing a casual suit jacket, dark jeans and a straw hat.
His tame fashion choice is probably strategic, as Canadians never forget a Stampede style faux pas, like a former premier’s backward cowboy hat or a Conservative prime minister’s too-tight leather vest.
Most regular rodeo spectators revel in dressing the part for the Stampede, choosing choice Western accessories, including leather fringe vests, chaps, turquoise bolo ties, chunky belts and, crucially, a trusty pair of cowboy boots.
For Mona Royal, the Indigenous owner of Boy Chief Trading Post, a gift and clothing shop in the nearby Siksika Nation, the Stampede is the ultimate cultural crossover, with cowboys wearing traditional Indigenous designs of beadwork and turquoise.
The Stampede was founded in 1912 by Guy Weadick, an American cowboy who fell in love with Calgary while visiting for a ranching show.
Over the years, the Stampede has expanded its grounds and transformed from a cowboy sporting event to include agricultural exhibitions, amusement rides, Indigenous cultural performances, a music festival across four stages and the classic carnival food lineup of deep-fried Oreos, blooming onions, roasted corn and lemonade.
A record 1.5 million people attended last year and organizers say the Stampede was on pace to surpass that this year, thanks in part to an added influx of American visitors, some of whom attended to express their support for Canada at a time when President Trump has set his sights on making the country the 51st state.
“I’m not proud to be an American right now,” said Josh Pitre, a real estate agent from Atlanta, Georgia, who said he objects to Mr. Trump’s policies targeting trans people. Mr. Pitre skipped Fourth of July celebrations to attend the Stampede for the first time along with his son, Hunter, 10, who spent Sunday trying the carnival rides.
He said he admired Canada’s push back against Mr. Trump’s sovereignty threats.
“The way Canada is standing up and saying ‘That’s never going to happen’ is exactly what I think needs to happen when you’re dealing with a bully,” Mr. Pitre said.
While both countries share a deep cowboy culture, there are some differences. The cowboy holler at the Stampede, for example, is “yahoo,” not “yeehaw,” which is more customary in the American Southwest.
The professional cowboys at Stampede get to showcase their skills at various events, like riding bulls and broncos, wrestling steers and roping calves.
“Not that rodeo shows you where your food comes from, but it does show you the people that take care of the stock, and I think it’s important,” said Kathleen Davis, a first-time visitor whose family runs a purebred cattle farm north of Calgary.
Away from the rodeo action, a different kind of sport was in full bloom — nonstop networking.
A who’s who of Alberta business and politics milled about one pancake breakfast, swapping business cards, making introductions and hunting down political staffers and ministers, people it would usually take weeks to meet.
“It truly is a little bit like political speed dating,” said Jennifer Henshaw, a Calgary-based lobbyist, who traded her usual business attire for a bright pink Wrangler shirt and a straw hat.
“People from outside of Calgary underestimate the importance of the Calgary Stampede as being the greatest business networking opportunity of the year,” said Gary Mar, president of the Canada West Foundation, a research group.
“I can think of no other festival quite like this, anywhere.”
Vjosa Isai is a reporter and researcher for The Times based in Toronto, where she covers news from across Canada.
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