PRIDE ON THE LINE
Hunter Green of Bastrop, La., is tossed from a horse named Line Pride during the bareback event at the Calgary Stampede rodeo on Thursday.
She's been running non-stop for several days, hitting every corner of Stampede Park proudly representing Elbow River Camp, Treaty 7 Nations and, of course, the Calgary Stampede.
By the time I finally catch up with Falon Manywounds, I'd expect a happy but slightly weary First Nations Princess. Yet the 25-year-old — whose goal, she says, is to “inspire others to achieve their goals, take failure as a learning lesson and be thankful for every experience” — is feeling energized.
“I'm getting the V.I.P. experience,” says the radiant jingle dancer, who learned her horse-riding skills from instructor Wright Bruised Head, who was also a steer wrestler in his younger days. “A little boy today ran up and hugged me, saying he loved me. It was so cute.”
Manywounds, who was crowned Stampede First Nations Princess in late 2019, is just one of many whose roles were put on hold when the 2020 Stampede was cancelled. So on a recent evening, it's understandable that she's tickled pink to be welcoming a half-capacity crowd at the Grandstand to the Stampede's first evening rodeo.
“You look up into the stands and it's different, not being full,” says Manywounds. “But then the crowd starts to cheer and you feel their energy. It's electric.”
While rodeo has its vocal detractors, those turning out for the 2021 event are clearly in the opposing camp, even for the evening exhibition. Called Broncs After Dark and replacing the chuckwagon races for at least this year, it's an exhibition filled with all the electricity you could harness in one place: a mashup of Hollywood glamour, soap opera cheesiness, jaw-dropping equestrian acrobatics and the kind of full-on racing seen in oldschool Western flicks.
It's got everything one could want in a Western show, appealing to all ages. Though not all at the same time: while the young men in front of me cheered with gusto at the relay race featuring the First Nations riders — perhaps the wildest thing to hit the racetrack since chucks legend Kelly Sutherland hung up his hat in 2017 — a horse dancing performance featuring a talented female rider with flowing tresses didn't appeal to them as much as it did to the little girls in the crowd.
As the announcer read out the over-the-top lines — “each looking into the mirror of their souls” — the men were howling with laughter. They could hardly even sit up straight, they were laughing so hard, when he finished up with the topper: “This is the very definition of love.”
Broncs After Dark may be something new for this year's Stampede (the organization has said it will be bringing the chuckwagons back in 2022), but the daytime rodeo is a familiar return to regular Stampede offerings, even if the rodeo clown has filled his dance card this year with a flurry of eyebrow-raising COVID-19 jokes.
While the audience is more spread out and there is less preamble with local celebrities gracing the stage before it gets underway, the action is just as charged and nail-biting as any other year.
It's in this rarefied world of mostly cowboys that Niki Flundra is feeling right back in the saddle, even if things look a little different this year.
“We stay here the whole time,” says Flundra — whose husband Dustin works the chutes — of the new safety precautions that include competitors and support staff living in a bubble behind the racetrack.
Flundra's no slouch herself in the equine department: a trick rider and Liberty horse trainer and performer, she has appeared as a stunt performer in such shows as Heartland, Shanghai Noon and Hell on Wheels.
“But we are really enjoying it, getting to be together again,” she adds, as her boys Shade, Ridge and Kace play around her. “We're just glad to be back.”
Like Flundra, Tavis John is happy to find herself at the Stampede's 2021 rodeo. The mother of five kids, aged five to 17, says she's never been able to afford tickets to the rodeo before.
“I've brought them to kids day when you can get into the grounds for free, but never this,” says the native of South Sudan, who came to Canada in 2001.
“They were giving out free tickets downtown at an event and I managed to get them for my family. It was my lucky day.”
Lucky is a word that Manywounds also uses when she describes her experience as a Stampede ambassador under what so far has been picture-perfect, blue-sky days and evenings.
“It's not what most of us would have expected,” says the young woman, who is doing a bang-up job, “but you really get the feeling that the people who are here are thrilled to be here, and I'm one of them.”