WASN’T THAT A PARADE?!
Stampede kicks off with annual street spectacle
It’s a route that traverses two of the city’s busiest downtown avenues, taking about two hours for the more than 5,000 human, animal and motorized entrants to pass by the 350,000 or so cheering spectators.
For diehards like Donna Decoste, though, it’s more like a days-long epic event, starting with a day’s journey from Nova Scotia each July and a 12-hour overnight wait at her favourite perch to watch the parade.
Decoste knows this isn’t just any parade. It is — dare we say it — the World Cup of parades. Heck, a couple of spectators even haul out leather sofas for the sacred event.
“I’m Stampede Donna,” the 55-year-old former Calgarian proudly proclaims, proving her fandom by giving out the most ear-splitting “Yahoo!” I’ve ever heard.
I don’t know how, in my two decades of attending and writing about the Calgary Stampede parade, I never came across this force of nature, a woman who has only missed two Stampede parades in her more than half century on the planet.
Then again, you can’t swing a lasso on Stampede parade morning without catching a Stampede Donna, Bob or Eddie. They are the truest of fans, willing to wait out a night on a downtown street to ensure they get an unobstructed view of flag twirlers, tuba players and countless folks on horseback.
“Our mom brought us down as kids,” says Decoste, who on this day is accompanied by sister Catherine Keeley and friend Jayanne Dumais. “I was raised here, the Stampede Parade is in my DNA.”
Although Drew, Owen and Jess Statham only live a 40-minute drive from downtown Calgary, it’s their first Stampede parade.
“I’m always working it,” explains their mom, Sgt. Andrea Koolich of the Calgary Police Service. “But this year it was their turn.” Her 14-year-old daughter Jess Statham says it’s about time. “I love horses, so I’m pretty excited to see this.”
Not everyone on parade day has to get up ridiculously early to get a good spot. Just about every year, you can find one of Calgary’s favourite daughters, Jann Arden, in the Friends of the Parade bleachers.
Ask about her favourite Stampede recollection, and the singersongwriter and soon-to-be-star of her own CTV sitcom has no trouble. “It was sitting on a curb with my mom and my grandma when I was little,” she says. “I can remember my dad yelling at us, ‘Get out of the f ’n house,’ because he was annoyed at how excited we were.”
Regardless of whether you’re on the curb or in a VIP bleacher, Stampede parade 2018 doesn’t disappoint. The crowd goes wild for the Nigerian Canadian Society’s dancers, lets out hoots and cheers for the men and women in military uniform and, for the first responders of the Humboldt Broncos bus crash tragedy, anyone sitting is up on their feet applauding.
For first-time parade judge Kelly Sutherland, it’s fun to be participating in this year’s Stampede a year after his retirement as the greatest chuckwagon driver of all time: “I was an outrider in the 1967 Stampede parade, so this is really full circle for me,” says Sutherland. “And it’s nice to chill for a change.”