Braid: Calgary Stampede Parade was a classic — and a great message to U.S. visitors

Edmonton Journal

5 hours ago

Can't help it, sorry, but over three decades of watching the Calgary Stampede Parade I've not just been entertained every year, but often deeply moved.
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It's so purely, utterly, sweetly, cornily Canadian.
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That means more than ever in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump.
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All of Canada was on proud display Friday — First Nations, dozens of ethnic Canadian groups, the Flames, the military, the veterans — together in one long, serpentine display of pride and goodwill.
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Many of the displays by ethnic groups (if that's even the right word anymore) carried messages of strength in diversity.
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The real world isn't always like that, obviously. But the Canadian dream endures. We do believe that people of many origins can coexist and thrive in one nation.
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It's ironic that this Stampede opening fell on July 4, U.S. Independence Day.
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Americans have always been welcome at Stampede. More than 40,000 came last year. They are almost universally friendly, cheerful folks who are blown away by the Stampede, especially the Grandstand Show.
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Many Americans are now reading about some of it in Rick Atkinson's book, The Fate of the Day, the second volume in his majestic series on the Revolutionary War, the great conflict with Britain over U.S. Independence.
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The new American nation and Canada (such as it was in the late 1770s) were bitter enemies.
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The Americans attacked Quebec and were driven off. The loathed British force plaguing the American rebels from the north was called the Canadian Army.
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That war was an orgy of slaughter, burned cities and devastated countryside. The ancient guns and cannons may look quaint in this age of military drones, but they were viciously effective. Few wars were more deadly until the Americans' own Civil War in the 1860s.
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It's admirable, therefore, that we've long since become two great and very large nations sharing a continent in relative harmony, and always in peace.