By Eric Volmers
It may have happened more than 45 years ago, but drummer Kim Berly still remembers the day that the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth became an inescapable part of his counterculture youth, whether he wanted it to or not.
It involved his band, a fateful name change and a mysterious oilman named Mr. Nickel. Details are a bit fuzzy. Berly doesn’t even remember if it was 1965 or 1966. He was in his mid-teens and playing drums in a local outfit that was itching to leave town. While the six-piece band was practising one evening in the basement of Berly’s family home, its enterprising manager, Mel Shaw, descended the stairs with news that he had come up with a way to fund a trip to England.
He had found a financier. The mysterious Mr. Nickel had “lots of dough” and was willing to hand out $10,000 on one condition: the band had to become ambassadors for the city and its most famous draw by changing its name to The Stampeders.
For six boys who had visions of palling around with the Beatles in England, naming themselves after grandpa’s horse and bull show was about as hip as showing up to school in their grandmother’s frock.
“I looked at him and said ‘Not the Stampeders!'” says Berly, with a laugh. “I thought, ‘Oh God . . . well, maybe for $10,000.’ It was the least cool name you could have, as far as I was concerned, and the rest of the boys felt the same way.”
While all this may seem a minor footnote in the history of the Calgary Stampede, it’s an appropriate anecdote when talking about the event’s evolution during the 1960s. As they topped the charts and toured the world, the Stampeders would keep the name as unofficial ambassadors of their hometown’s most famous spectacle. But their initial reluctance is telling. In 1966, the Stampede may have been making waves internationally; it may have been able to attract a who’s-who of old-school movie stars; it may have been breaking attendance records – but cool it was not.
More than 50 rides and shows greeted visitors to the Calgary Stampede July 30, 1969.
That same year, the past president of the Calgary Stampede Association, Donald Matthews, told the Canadian Council of 4H clubs in Toronto that the average young Calgarian had become cosmopolitan and ashamed of the city’s cowboy image. He may have overstated his case. But, it’s true that a new generation was set to change things. And whether it be the old guard’s cautious acceptance of rock ‘n’ roll, wariness about “hooliganism,” or the creation of the Young Canadians in 1968, youth would play a major part of the Stampede in the 1960s.
Members of the Young Canadians belt out a tune at a Calgary Stampede grandstand show in the late 1960s.
Other changes were afoot. It was a decade of growing pains thanks to some controversial expansion plans in the city. It was a decade where a more Hollywoodized version of the cowboy became a big part of the Stampede’s esthetic. It was a time when the Stampede reached out to youth with the creation of the now renowned Young Canadians. In 1962, the Stampede celebrated its 50th birthday. But in many ways, it was still coming-of-age. And as with many coming-of-age tales, the decade was rife with change, triumph, conflict and even tragedy.
If there was one place where the old and new guard were comfortably aligned in the 1960s, it was in the popular sport of chuckwagon racing. This was a decade where torches were being passed to a new generation and family legacies were cemented. The dominance of names such as Glass, Dorchester and David began to take hold, in part due to the rise of a new generation of cowboys that were affectionately known as “the kids.”
“That was probably the first real decade where a lot of the ‘kids’ were starting up and starting to run their own wagons,” said Billy Melville, a chuckwagon historian who does colour commentary for the sport. “It’s funny to call them kids now, but a lot of them did start in the ’60s. Some of them may have started in the latter part of the ’50s, but started to come to prominence a little bit in the ’60s. I’m talking people like Bob Cosgrave. All the Dorchesters: Dallas, Denny and Garry. They all got going. Ron and Les David, their father Wilbur was driving. Tommy Glass, he started driving himself in the latter ’60s.”
While chuckwagon racing is not a sport prone to major changes, it too came of age at the Stampede.
Melville says his grandfather, Orville Strandquist, was the first to wear a hardhelmet in a chuckwagon race in 1961. Cardboard barrels were also introduced, for safety reasons, around the same time.
1961 was also the year when a chuckwagon championship was shared for the first time. Dale Flett and Hally Walgenbach both won the top prize, which led officials to start timing races to the 100th of a second, rather than the 10th of a second.
“That’s when it really started to get a lot more competitive,” says Melville. “The wagons were starting to get a little bit closer. There was a bigger gap than what there is now in terms of how much better the top wagon was to the bottom wagon, but that’s really where the gap was starting to close. There were more guys who had a chance.”
Coming of age, of course, didn’t come without hardships. Most would argue that growth was a good thing, particularly as the Stampede’s reputation increased internationally.
U. S. politician Robert Kennedy and his wife Ethel ride in the Calgary Stampede parade in 1966.
The Stampede travelled to Expo 67 in Montreal. It even got a shoutout on the Ed Sullivan Show in ’65, when it was announced to a viewership of 50 million people that the Dave Clark Five would be headed to the Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth that summer.
After a high-water mark for attendance in 1959, the Stampede initially struggled to match it in the beginning of the decade. There were various excuses: a doubling of admission price in 1960; a transit strike in 1961; bad weather in 1963 and 1965, a mini recession.
But by 1966, attendance records were smashed with 654,120 making their way through the gates, surpassing the 1959 record of 591,715. Numbers continued to grow for the latter part of the decade. In 1968 the Stampede grew to a 10-day event, despite some puzzling warnings by columnists in this newspaper that such a change would kill off much of the event’s quaint appeal.
Growth issues led to what may have been its first whiff of dissent and backlash in its hometown, thanks to some controversial expansion plans that were derailed by a public outcry in the middle of the decade.
According to Max Foran, who edited the book Icon, Brand, Myth: The Calgary Stampede and teaches Canadian studies at the University of Calgary, the 1960s will be remembered by historians for the trouble stirred up by an expansion plan, which had the public thinking negatively about the event for the first time in its history.
In 1962, the board began eyeing the Canadian National Railway land as a way of easing congestion when rumours began to circulate that the CNR was considering shutting down its Calgary operations. For whatever reason, the land was never made available to the Stampede so the board started looking to Lincoln Park. The federal government planned to sell off its 170-hectare Lincoln Park airbase (part of which is now home to Mount Royal University) to the city.
According to James Gray’s book A Brand of Its Own, city commissioners initially approved a proposal for the Stampede board to purchase Lincoln Park for $750,000. But the land happened to be near a well-heeled, new residential development called Lakeview. Its residents, concerned with noise, traffic and the permanent smell of manure, were not as enthralled as the Stampede board about the plan.
The city reconsidered.
While political debate occurred over potential Calgary Stampede growth, its attractions, such as this futuristic demonstration of a power pack, were crowd-pleasers.
“The public got into it – the Lakeview residents – so they called for an inquiry,” said Foran. “The committee came up with five choices on what to do with that land and the Stampede ranked last. That was the first time the Stampede ever lost what it really wanted and was denied the opportunity to go west into Lincoln Park. The city then sent them to Victoria Park.”
“That’s the issue of the 1960s. That changed the ball game. The Stampede then becomes, for the first time, a bad guy.”
The city wanted to combine Stampede expansion with Victoria Park redevelopment, which also “didn’t work out.” Further unrest was caused among Victoria Park residents as the Stampede was made responsible for negotiating the sale of the houses and dealing with the community.
In 1968 city council approved Stampede Park’s expansion north to 14th Avenue S.E. Under this agreement, houses could not be removed without city approval and only after alternative accommodations were found for the residents.
Still, if it suffered some growing pains locally, there was no denying the Stampede’s growing international pull in the 1960s. The gate was not the only indication of the Stampede’s growing stature. It continued to attract big-name stars to the city as parade marshals, performers and special guests. Hollywoodization, in fact, was a growing theme left over from the late-1950s, when the Stampede had first begun to draw Tinseltown cowboys.
“These people were entertainment stars,” says historian Max Foran. “You begin to shift the myth into a more Hollywoodized dimension. Before that . . . the old-timers, the whiskey traders and Hudson’s Bay people would march in the parade and it would have a genuine link to the past.
But when they died off, you went Hollywood. And that’s what has created the modern myth. I think the ’50s and ’60s cemented this.”
Roy Rogers and Dale Evans ride in the 1969 Calgary Stampede parade. In between them sits a dog named Teppi; it belonged to the Herron family that owned the car they rode in.
After cancelling due to illness in 1960, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans helped celebrate the Stampede’s 50th birthday two years later with 10 sold-out performances at the Corral. The decade’s parade of cowboy-hatted stars also included The Cisco Kid (a.k.a. Duncan Renaldo), singeractor Rex Allen, former rodeo champ turned actor Slim Pickens, TV’s “Tonto” Jay Silverheels and James Drury of The Virginian.
But they weren’t all California cowboys. The Stampede also attracted extremely famous, if not particularly edgy, entertainers during the period. Walt Disney was a parade marshal and helped open the festivities in 1965. Cary Grant made an appearance in 1967. Crooner Bing Crosby and comedian Bob Hope both showed up in 1963.
Bob Hope entertained a sellout crowd at the Calgary Stampede July 14, 1976.
Hope flew in on a oilman’s private plane to a cheering mob of 4,000 at McCall Field and quipped, “I can’t tell you how happy I am to be in Winnipeg.”
Burl Ives made a 1966 appearance and hockey great Gordie Howe was parade marshal in 1964, despite admitting to being “plumb scared” of horses.
In 1963 the Stampede scored comedy trio Three Stooges, who headlined numerous shows at the Corral. Unfortunately, this was long after their prime and long before pop-culture revisionism made them eternally hip. Despite a number of giddy stories in the Herald announcing their coming, an aging Larry, Moe and Curly “failed to show the drawing power” expected by the Stampede, according to the annual report to shareholders.
This all seems to suggest that organizers were happy to cater to a tried-and-true older demographic. But youth certainly weren’t ignored, although not always for good reasons. The Herald had more than one story about fears of “hooliganism” in the 1960s. In a Herald column dubbed “Rowdyism,” the writer described a Stampede-week scene of bottle-tossing youths, drunkenness and drag-racing. A dozen firecracker and egg-tossing “hoodlums,” mostly teenagers or young men, were arrested in 1961 on the eve of the Stampede. Still, there were indications the Stampede was keen to boost youth involvement in the 1960s. A Calgary Herald contest in 1964 invited young readers to choose a headliner for a Stampede concert in a “teen poll.” Ontario crooner Bobby Curtola beat out singers such as Paul Anka, Connie Francis, Ricky Nelson and Roy Orbison. The “swinging, singing, shimmering, Curtola” was a big hit for 2,000 screaming fans at the Corral, according to the Herald.
Calgary ballet teacher Madame Olga Valda gets into the Stampede spirit and takes a turn at twisting with teenage singing idol Bobby Curtola at the Calgary Stampede July 11, 1964.
The following year, even more teary-eyed kids showed up for a concert by the Dave Clark Five, who were at their peak of popularity. Faced with the possibility of what the Herald described as “teenage hysteria,” the police stationed extra officers at the Corral.
It was all for naught, as the nearly 7,000 youths remained well-behaved during the show.
A Herald review suggested the band’s “cacophonic vocalizing pulverizes the eardrums,” “their lyrics are incoherent, their music at times non-existent and the screaming adulation of their teenage audience a rather disconcerting obbligato to the whole business.”
The Who, Britain’s famously ferocious live act, unbelievably, opened for Herman’s Hermits at the Corral in 1967 before nabbing their own headlining gig the following year during Stampede fever. The Who were described in an ad as “excitingly different, pop art music.” Tickets started at $2.
Yes, the Stampede was changing with the times, sometimes by design and sometimes not. In 1966, the event strayed further from its rural roots with “Salute to the Petroleum Industry,” an acknowledgment that Alberta was now known for more than its rustic ranch life. The 1966 theme involved the set up of a drilling rig display and a tower marked the new area known as “Flare Square.”
While the Stampede had long been a draw for Canadian politicians – including numerous prime ministers – 1966 also found the event hosting Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Kennedy opened the Calgary Stampede that year and also took in an Edmonton versus Calgary football game at McMahon Stadium. “I’ll cheer for Calgary, if that’s what I’m supposed to do,” he told reporters.
Geopolitical forces changed the Stampede as well during this tumultuous decade. The man behind the popular Harlem in Havana show on the Royal American midway reluctantly bowed to pressure in 1961 and switched the name to The Harlem Revue, after the U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Cuba.
“This Castro has loused up a lot of things,” groused Leon Claxton.
For the first time in the history of the Stampede, there were two winners in the chuckwagon races in 1961. Orville Burkinshaw’s rig was proclaimed champion first, then two hours later Peter Bawden’s crew had three seconds in penalties taken away and a tie resulted. Each man won $1,887.50. Burkinshaw, standing in this photo, had a team that included Roger LeBlanc, Oris Lyster, Hally Walgenbach, the driver, Orville Bawden, Orval Flett, Norman Haynes and Clarence Peters.
But it wasn’t just world conflicts that caused concern. The rodeo and chucks weren’t immune. The decade began with tragedy when the chuckwagon races suffered its first fatality. Don Chapin died of injuries he suffered when his wagon overturned in 1960.
The following year, Willie Little Bear died after falling off his horse in the novice bronc riding event.
Despite the tragedies, a number of cowboys showed their domination in the 1960s. Guy Weeks won all-around Stampede Rodeo Champ in 1961 and 1962. Kenny McLean was both All-Around North American and All-Around Cowboy champ in 1964 and 1965. George Myren was North American champ in 1960 and all-around cowboy from 1960 to 1962.
But musicians, movie stars and cowboys were only part of the Stampede’s draw in the 1960s. As always, those wandering the midway during this time would have had plenty to choose from when it came to weird and wonderful attractions, including many that would certainly be considered less-than-politically correct to modern eyes.
In 1961, midway entertainment included an event that would no doubt horrify PETA. High-diving mules, named Leaping Lena and Suzy, were top draws as they dove from a nine-metre tower into a 1.8-metre-deep tank of water.
In 1964, the 38-metre space wheel became part of the Stampede midway. It was originally built for the Seattle World’s Fair.
There were other somewhat antiquated attractions. A 1968 article in the Herald featured an interview with Bob Melvin, who suffered from neurofibromatosis and spent six months of the year touring with the Royal American Midway’s freak show as the “Two-Faced Man.” There were similarly sympathetic profiles of striptease artists during the decade, who would strut their stuff as part of the “girlie show” at Club Lido. Atasha the Gorilla Girl changed back and forth from curvaceous model to hairy ape five times a day during the festivities.
Gorilla Girl was the Calgary Stampede’s newest sideshow act on July 13, 1967. (Calgary Herald Photo Archives, ) (For Sunday story by )
“Right next to the Big Four Building was an attraction with a taped loop that played over and over again,” says Bill Avery, who remembers wandering the midway as a 14-year-old teen from Chicago in 1968. “It said ‘The Amazon Woman. Over seven feet of jungle beauty. And although she was very beautiful, by the look on her face you can tell she died a horrible death. Come see the Amazon Woman.’ All day long and all night long. There were lots of old-fashioned sideshow attractions.”
Avery had come down in 1968 to help his father Randy, who had been brought to the Stampede in 1964 from Chicago to produce the Grandstand Show. It was a “bold time,” he says. The midway was a kaleidoscope of cultures, from long-haired hippies to young men with buzz cuts to cowboys.
His dad dipped into this youthful energy in 1967, albeit sticking to a decidedly clean-cut faction of youth. Hoping to get young people more involved, he established the Young Canadians, one of the decade’s most lasting contributions to the Stampede.
“It was an inspired concept throughout and it put down roots and it continues on,” says Bill Avery, who took over as executive producer of the Grandstand Show from his father in the 1980s. “The whole idea was to find a way for young people to get involved through performing arts and become volunteers and participate in something . . . in a way that wasn’t existing before.”
The first Young Canadians were drawn from the university and local high schools, including Viscount Bennett High, where Roger Avery found an enthusiastic recruit named Chris Knebel.
She was 16 and intrigued by Avery’s idea of forming a Stampede version of the Young Americans or the Doodletown Pipers. They wore corduroy jumpers, white turtlenecks and white shoes. The boys were all short-haired and clean-cut.
Early on, the group sang songs such as Land of Promise, Going Out of My Head, Too Good to Be True and Up, Up and Away.
The 29-person group had its first Grandstand Show in 1968, supporting headliner Frank Sinatra Jr. Many had performing experience, but few had sung in front of 10,000 people before.
“It was nerve-racking, looking out at all those faces” says Knebel. “You could see people standing out there. You were always taught to smile. Randy always used me as a sample. He’d say ‘Watch Chris and smile like her. If not, go practise smiling.'”
Not unlike chuckwagon racing, the Young Canadians would become a multi-generational affair. Both of Knebel’s two children went through the ranks.
To this day, it attracts dedicated youths and has become one of the more recognizable traditions of the Stampede.
For a decade that was marked by controversy and change, the Young Canadians represented the future in 1968. They’re now part of Stampede history.
“It took off and look what it is today,” says Foran. “I think it stands as the blue ribbon statement about its commitment to youth.”
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To read stories from other decades of the Calgary Stampede’s complete history, click on the following links:
Calgary Stampede: The Beginning — Guy Weadick’s Grand Vision | Chapter 1
Calgary Stampede: The 1920s — Frontier Meets the Fair | Chapter 2
Calgary Stampede: The 1930s — A Leap of Faith | Chapter 3
Calgary Stampede: The 1940s — The War Years | Chapter 4
Calgary Stampede: The 1950s — The Golden Age | Chapter 5
Calgary Stampede: The 1960s — Times are a changin’; Not your grandpa’s Stampede | Chapter 6
Calgary Stampede: The 1970s — After turmoil of the ’60s, the ’70s were groovy | Chapter 7
Calgary Stampede: The 1980s — A Wild Ride | Chapter 8
Calgary Stampede: The 1990s — Reaching New Heights | Chapter 9
Calgary Stampede: The New Millennium — Building toward a bright future | Chapter 10
Some of the content in these stories was originally published in the Calgary Herald in recognition of the 100th anniversary of the Calgary Stampede in 2012.