Watching a Rodeo on a Northern Reserve, Alberta

We are only visiting this northern reserve, Alberta, for a little more than a week, however, we were lucky enough to be there when the rodeo was taking place on the same weekend.

This northern reserve has a few facilities which city folks like us have not even considered. For instance, we drove by a beautiful outdoor structure which is called the Pow Wow Ground. I learned that the Pow Wow is a huge three day event that happens annually.

Another place we city dwellers do not see often is the rodeo ground. Though having lived in Canada for more than 40 years, we had not attended a live rodeo competition until today at this northern Alberta reserve .

The admission to the event was not expensive at all. For $5.00, you could hang around all day watching the various competitions. We were there for about an hour and watched the women, the junior and the barrel racers’ competition.

These competitions could be exciting if you know some of the competitors and could cheer for them at the top of your lungs.

Though we had no one in particular to cheer for, we cheered for everyone, especially the young competitors.  

We were surprised at how long some of the young racers managed to stay on the wildly behaving horses without falling off!

Some of the records announced were something like 2.84 seconds, 3. 14 seconds before a competitor could loop a horse!

I could hardly get my camera focused and the looping had taken place already!

It was a mild sunny day with soft wind blowing across the viewing stands and we were watching the riders trying their best in the various categories of competitions. 

With a freshly cooked bowl of poutine fries in my hands, sharing them with my beloved better half and teammates, exchanging a few funny stories and having some good laugh, we had a ton of fun at this northern rodeo!

R.T.

A Nortern Reserve

Alberta