The gateway to the Canadian Rockies — where the world's largest outdoor rodeo and festival draws 1.2 million people to ten days of chuckwagon racing, cowboy breakfasts, and country music every July, the Bow River runs through the city's centre, and Banff National Park's turquoise lakes are 90 minutes west on the Trans-Canada Highway
Calgary (1.3 million; metro 1.6 million) is the largest city in Alberta and the energy capital of Canada — a young, wealthy, and outdoors-oriented city built on oil and ranching money, with the youngest median age of any major Canadian city. The Calgary Stampede (10 days each July, since 1912) is the world's largest outdoor rodeo, drawing 1.2 million visitors and featuring chuckwagon races, rodeo events, chuck wagon breakfasts (free pancake breakfasts served by local businesses and organizations throughout the city), and a year-round commitment to Western heritage that makes Calgary unlike an…
Calgary was established as a North-West Mounted Police post in 1875 at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow Rivers on Treaty 7 territory of the Blackfoot Confederacy (Siksika, Piikani, Kainai nations) and the Stoney Nakoda and Tsuut'ina peoples. The arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1883 transformed the outpost into a cattle-ranching and grain-shipping hub — the ranching culture that persists in Stampede Week identity was established in the 1880s when American cowboys brought longhorn cattle north along the cattle trails from Texas. Oil was discovered in Turner Valley (southwest of Ca…