CANADA TRIP AND THE CALGARY STAMPEDE - JULY 2008

Where to begin!!!!!

To sing at the Calgary Stampede is a dream come true for a Kiwi boy.

We flew to Hawaii via Air New Zealand and spent a couple of days there on the beach at Waikiki and also checked out the memorial on the site of the sunken battleship Arizona in Pearl Harbour - which has also been a lifelong ambition of mine (it was very eerie and I swear we could still hear the planes flying overhead).

We arrived in Vancouver, Canada at 9.30am and taxied into Vancouver city and soaked up the sights for the next two days. The city was great but we definitely do not recommend the Ramada Hotel if you are needing to catch up on sleep. The nightclub next door put paid to that and we were glad to pick up our rental car and get on our way. My folks had come with us and soon I was getting lots of advice on how to drive on the wrong side of the road. Straight into the rush hour traffic of Vancouver, and we were away. 

I got the hang of driving on the wrong side pretty quickly and two days later we pulled into Banff and spent a day in this beautiful little tourist town in the middle of the Rockies - simply awesome. 

We drove on to Calgary and the next day - 4th July - got us a good spot downtown to watch the Stampede Parade. This is a world renowned event, featuring every conceivable exhibit that moves - from pioneer settlers to dancing girls to army tanks and involving over 800 horses of every size and description. It takes half a day to pass by a given point and is truly a memorable experience.

The next day we met our host at Stampede Park - Kelly Wilson. I cannot say enough about Kellys' professionalism and attention to detail - she took care of our every need and was thoroughly wonderful. In fact everyone we had dealings with treated us like royalty.  Kelly had contracted me to perform a half hour set on the 8th July 2008. 

This day was set aside as 'Western Heritage Day' to commemorate the 'Spirit of 1912' - the first year the Stampede was held. The venue is an ex ice hockey arena and has tiered grandstand seating completely circling 360 degrees. I was announced in, walked out to the solitary microphone, stood in the middle and delivered my set, surrounded by five to six thousand people. 

For me, to come to the hometown venue of Wilf Carter, from whose 78 records I had learned to sing and yodel, and to stand where so many great people have stood before me, was truly humbling and a very great honour.

You've still got to do the 'business' however, and half an hour later it was all over, and thinking back to the audience response it couldn't have been too bad. In keeping with the 'spirit of 1912' I kept mostly to the traditional cowboy songs with a medley in the middle with no other backing apart from my own guitar. This worked very well - the crowd were wonderful. 

We finished our time at Stampede Park by taking in the rodeo - which is after all, the reason for the event. The rodeo runs for ten days. It is the biggest outdoor event in Canada, the biggest rodeo event in the world and has over a million people through the gates over the ten day period. 

There is altogether too much happening there to cover in a few short lines so for anyone who would like to know more visit the Calgary Stampede website www.calgarystampede.com

Once again my thanks go to Kelly Wilson of the Calgary Stampede Committee who had enough belief in me to extend an invitation to an unknown singer from half a world away.

Our trip to Canada was not over yet and we were determined to see as much of it as we could. The next three weeks were full of motels, wonderful sights, laughs and a whole lot of miles on the road. It is a big, big country.

After Calgary my Dad kind of took over as the singer of the group and the four of us sang and laughed our way through British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon territory, into Alaska and back to Vancouver - Fantastic!!!

Highlights - Dawson City - in the Yukon Territory - full of gold mining history and remains just as it was in the 1860's. Wooden buildings, dirt roads and wooden sidewalks. We took in a show there at 'Diamond Tooth Gerties' - dancing girls and all. It has long, long days there in the far north in mid summer - in fact it did not get properly dark at all.

Wildlife - We saw moose, elk, deer, bears, caribou, stone mountain bighorn sheep, coyotes, foxes, wolves, beaver, gophers, a marmot - I think that's it!!!

Not so good - thirteen and a half hours on a plane to get back to a freezing southerly storm in Wellington.

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