Icon, Brand, Myth

Makes you understand the pitfalls and the danger and the foolishness of it all and still want to shout out, "yippee!" -- Donna Livingstone, author of The Cowboy Spirit: Guy Weadick and the Calgary Stampede

An investigation of the meanings and iconography of the Stampede, an invented tradition that takes over the city of Calgary for 10 days every July.An investigation of the meanings and iconography of the Stampede, aninvented tradition that takes over the city of Calgary for 10 daysevery July. Since 1923, archetypal “Cowboys and Indians”are seen again at the chuckwagon races, on the midway, and throughoutCalgary. Each essay in this collection examines a facet of theexperience—from the images on advertising posters to the ritualof the annual parade. This study of the Calgary Stampede as a socialphenomenon reveals the history and sociology of the city of Calgary andthe social construc-tion of identity for western Canada as a whole.