Parade kicks off 113th Calgary Stampede
The 113th annual Calgary Stampede kicked off Friday as huge crowds gathered to take in the Stampede parade, led by Canadian country-pop icon Shania Twain.
"I'm so happy to be here in Calgary," Twain said, before riding down the parade route clad in western garb and a white hat.
"It's a privilege to be the parade marshal. It's been a dream of mine for a very long time."
The 10-day festival will run from July 4 to July 13.
Highlights from the 2025 Calgary Stampede Parade
2 hours ago
Duration 1:37
Parade Marshal singer & songwriter Shania Twain led this year's parade through the downtown, marking the official start of the 113th Calgary Stampede.
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CBC
38 minutes ago
- CBC
Calgary Stampede: What the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth says about the economy
The purple toasted cob of corn shines under the afternoon sun as 25-year-old Allison Zhou lifts it up to show her friends on the opening day of the Calgary Stampede. It's ube-flavoured and covered in white and black sesame seeds. The cost? $15. "Overpriced, but it's my first Stampede," said Zhou, who moved to the city a few months ago from Toronto. "It's very unique, so I'm down to try it." At the midpoint of 2025, it's been a tough rodeo for Canada's economy so far, ever since U.S. President Donald Trump returned to the White House in January, sparking a tumultuous trade war with wide-ranging impacts on consumer spending, jobs and travel plans. For all the talk of a recession, there are few signs of economic hardship as the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth kicks off in Calgary — a 10-day long celebration with midway rides, bucking broncos and dozens of concerts. Splurging and hunting for deals Colton Denis, 17, bought a SuperPass and plans to attend every single day of the Calgary Stampede. Does he have a budget? "Heck no. Spend all of it," he joked, while walking to the midway looking for pizza. "10 out of 10. This is going to be awesome." It's not just teenagers in the mood to splurge. Doug Coleman, 64, is visiting from the Maritimes to take in the festivities, and he hopes to see singer Shania Twain, this year's parade marshal, who will also be performing. This week, Coleman is firmly putting aside any thought of fiscal restraint. "I'll be OK. It's just a tap," said Coleman, motioning how he'll be paying with his credit card. "I'll buy what I want. I deserve it." There's less talk about being frugal in favour of shelling out cash for a good time. Some of the menu items on the midway include a $26 bucket of crocodile-themed lemonade, a $13 jumbo corndog, and a $16 basket of garlic parmesan fries. General admission tickets are now $25 for an adult, compared to $18 in 2015. For all the extravagant spending and often hefty price tags at an event like the Stampede, some people feel like they can still find a bargain. Fred Parafina, 55, sports a big grin as he holds up two pairs of Lane snake-skin boots he bought for his wife at a western wear shop near the midway. They're her favourite brand, and he called the $200 he spent an "amazing" deal. WATCH | Why the Stampede can be a bellwether for the economy: What the Calgary Stampede reveals about the economy 11 hours ago Duration 2:03 Record-setting chuckwagon auction set the tone The Stampede is home to the most famous chuckwagon race in the world, known as the "Half-Mile of Hell." A few months before the race, companies bid on the chance to sponsor each team and have their logos displayed on the canvas covering each wagon. The 2025 tarp auction set a record for the highest average bid. The total tally of $3.84 million fell just short of the all-time high of $4.015 million set in 2012 — the Stampede's centennial year — which included 36 drivers, compared to 27 this year. At the April auction, reigning chuckwagon champion Jason Glass hauled in the top individual bid of $230,000 from Birchcliff Energy, surpassing last year's biggest bid by $20,000. At the time, Glass called the result of the bidding "a great relief," considering the economic volatility and trade uncertainty was prominently on everyone's mind on the eve of the auction. But the economic worries of a few months ago seem largely in the rearview mirror, at least in Alberta. Oil prices this year have repeatedly soared and plummeted, like riding the Outlaw roller-coaster. Resource-based provinces including Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador are generally fairing better than trade and manufacturing-focused provinces such as Quebec and Ontario. Staycations and American visitors a boon Stampede attendance soared to an all-time high in 2024, with 1,477,953 visitors, surpassing the previous record set in 2012. Organizers are expecting similar numbers this year, possibly even bigger ones. Various passes are selling well, while premium seats for the rodeo and chuckwagons sold out before Stampede began. "There are a lot of people staying closer to home this year," said Stampede spokesperson Julie Forget. "This is one of the biggest events in Canada, and I think it's on a lot of people's bucket list to come and check out." Fewer Americans are travelling north of the border to Canada this year, although Calgary is proving to be an outlier. In April, 8.9 per cent fewer U.S. residents made the trip to Canada compared to the same month in 2024, according to Statistics Canada. The number of Americans travelling specifically by air to major Canadian airports showed a drop of six per cent in April. However, at the Calgary International Airport, the figures were completely different, with U.S. arrivals up by 29 per cent. "We think people are going to be staying closer to home and perhaps going to the Stampede," said ATB Financial chief economist Mark Parsons, who is also expecting another record-setting year for attendance. "We also see Americans continue to come to Alberta and that bodes well for visitor spending." Despite the fact that Canada is in the middle of a trade war and consumer sentiment has been rattled by inflation in recent years, there's optimism in Alberta, Parsons says, with the first-ever liquified natural gas exports this week, renewed enthusiasm to build major energy projects in the country, and relatively low interest rates. Calgary's population is booming, too, with nearly 100,000 new residents in 2024. Parsons says the Stampede is a bellwether of the overall Alberta economy because "it really sets the stage for how people are feeling." And people like Calgarian Todd Scott are feeling excited. He's arrived at the Stampede grounds with four kids in tow. His budget is "unlimited," and with food, rides and carnival games, he expects money will quickly go out the window. "The whole thing is a splurge."
Winnipeg Free Press
2 hours ago
- Winnipeg Free Press
Some kind of magic
Every July, thousands of people descend upon the tall grass, boreal forest and poison ivy of Birds Hill Provincial Park for the annual Winnipeg Folk Festival. For some, this seminal and iconic coming together of people and music is ritual. It is church or ceremony. Festival goers tell tall tales of how many years they have been attending, who their favourite artists are, who they fell in love with and how many sleepless nights they have endured in festival camping. And folkies are also good for deep conversations as to whether there is too much banjo (or not enough), whether the festival has become too corporate or even the very definition of folk music. This ritual surely did not happen by chance. Like much of human history and the powerful connection between cause and consequence, the right ingredients, including some luck, are required for significance to emerge. DAVE BONNER / FREE PRESS FILES An aerial view shows some of the thousands of folk music fans who flocked to Birds Hill Provincial Park to attend the fourth annual Winnipeg Folk Festival in 1977. More than 24,000 people attended that festival; organizers said the three-day event was, at the time, the largest folk festival in North America. Local filmmaker and popular historian Kevin Nikkel (On the Trail of the Far Fur Country, Establishing Shots: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Film Group) attempts to capture the initial sparks that would erupt into 50 years of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. In Founding Folks: An Oral History of the Winnipeg Folk Festival, Nikkel suggests that the purpose of the history is 'both celebratory — coinciding with the fiftieth anniversary of the Festival — and exploratory; to contribute to the primary source knowledge of the Winnipeg Folk Festival and the broader understanding of culture on the prairies.' How did the festival start? What impact did it have on Winnipeg? What influence did Winnipeg have on the festival? These are all questions contemplated by Nikkel, whose inquiry began by happenstance — tripping over a box of Super 8 film at the Winnipeg Film Group with the late Dave Barber. Within the fragile Super 8 film, they found old footage of a 1975 failed documentary from the Winnipeg Film Group seeking to capture the second version of the Festival, in 1975. Sparks flew and Nikkel and Barber began to develop the idea for this book and an accompanying documentary, entitled When We Became Folk Fest (which was released in June). Framed around multiple 'semi- structured' interviews, Founding Folks is packed with interviews from those involved at the beginning, from 1974 until the early 1980s. MANITOBA ARCHIVES Winnipeg Folk Festival founders Mitch Podolak (left) and Ava Kobrinsky in 1977. 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Founding Folks It was fully molded on the Mariposa Folk Festival and on the ideals of its artistic director, Estelle Klein, who focused her program on the development of workshops — a critical ingredient to the success of the Winnipeg Folk Festival. Nikkel, through his commentary and his artful way of creating conversations with his interviewees, unearths why the initial decade of the festival was not only successful, but so influential to the cultural landscape of Winnipeg and Western Canada. 'For Mitch, his politics and activism were a source of motivation for the type of work he did before founding the Festival and in the work he did after he left,' Nikkel posits. Through interviews with other founders (such as Colin Gorrie, Ava Kobrinsky and Harry Paine) to legendary early artists including Bruce Cockburn, Tom Jackson and Big Dave McLean, Founding Folks is a story of brute determination and an obsession with Trotskyite ideals founded on respect for everyone — and sprinkled with maniacal and chauvinistic behaviour. For, as Nikkel comments, as a limitation to his methodology, his sources were full of lovely folks 'who are careful not to say anything derisive about their beloved founder, who was all too human.' FREE PRESS FILES A daytime workshop stage at 1983's festival. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. Founding Folks elegantly leaves space for the voices of those who were there — perhaps not all the volunteers, but critical participants who recall the rain, the care and the egalitarian nature of the festival. Big Dave McLean cleverly argues that Mitch Podolak was 'the only communist I know that knows how to work the capitalist system so well.' With over 100 photos (enough reason to grab the book) from the early years and fully wedded to the art of doing oral history, Founding Folks is a tribute to the early ideal, and as Mitch's son Leonard Podolak suggests, to the 'aesthetic' of what happens when audiences, volunteers and performers come together to treat each other well and dream of a new world. As Leonard surmises, 'You can sell lots of tickets. Anybody can do that, but the cultural impact on the community, in terms of how we behave and interact and will pride together, is by far the greatest lasting legacy.' Founding Folks brilliantly captures the early magic, idealism and courage that made Winnipeg just a bit better. Matt Henderson is superintendent of the Winnipeg School Division. PAUL DELESKE / FREE PRESS FILES 40 years of Folk Fest — A square dancing workshop at the Folk Festival on August 15, 1979. The program from 1974's Winnipeg Centennial Folk Festival.
Toronto Star
5 hours ago
- Toronto Star
‘What are you doing here?': Carney makes first Stampede visit as prime minister
CALGARY - Canada's new prime minister, best known as a buttoned-down banker, donned a cowboy hat and toured the stables Friday evening at the Calgary Stampede. Over an hour-long tour winding through the rodeo grounds, Mark Carney crawled into a tank, snacked at food stations and posed for dozens of selfies, marking his first visit to the Stampede as prime minister.
