Quote:
Originally Posted by GGG
It started in 1912 as a marketing gimic to celebrate cowboy culture and a fading way of life by a guy from New York
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/calgaryh...on-earth-2/amp
It’s always been faux nostalgia for a time passed by that never existed. That was the whole concept. It was offered to Winnipeg. It’s based off of wedicks experience with Buffalo Bills Wild West show. |
But irrespective of the Stampede's origins, after more than 100 years of smashing success in Calgary it absolutely has become an integral part of the cultural fabric of the city, and by extension the Western culture that it celebrates. It seems silly to me that anyone would attempt to hand-wave away something that is undeniably an essential element of the identity of the city of Calgary.
It's not "fake." It may have been in many respects manufactured, but this only as an honorific exaggeration of something that was always imprinted upon the region—in this case, the agricultural and ranching roots behind Calgary's settlement and growth. It is to the point now where the origins don't even matter anymore—certainly, they matter much less than what the Calgary Stampede has become, and how important it continues to be to the identity of Calgary.