Peter Shokeir | [email protected]
Cowboy culture will be the main theme of this year鈥檚 Alberta Culture Days this September to honour the now-fading cowboy heritage in Jasper.
Marianne Garrah, director of the Jasper Community Habitat for the Arts, said they chose this theme in honour of the Jasper Heritage Rodeo, which had been around for nearly 100 years and had donated thousands of dollars to local non-profits.
鈥淚f you don鈥檛 live in Alberta, the first thing that will come to your mind is either the oil industry or cowboys,鈥� Garrah said.
鈥淛asper and Alberta have been so historically linked to cowboy culture for over 100 years . . . So, the fact that rodeo had shut down this year and gave so much money to us, we thought, 鈥楬ow can we honor that gift?鈥欌��
She added it was important to also recognize backcountry outfitters after some of them were forced out of the Tonquin Valley in order to help restore caribou herds.
Culture Days will take place in Robson Park on Sept. 16, with participation from the Jasper Municipal Library and the ACFA Jasper.
That same day, Jasper-born musician Ray Elliot will host the open stage during Tribute Night to Cowboy Culture, which will feature music, monologues and more.
Elliot had lived in Jasper until he was about 30 but found it no longer affordable once he got a family and moved to Saskatoon.
He still calls Jasper home and has friends in town. He noted how some of his friends had lost their horse camps in the Tonquin Valley.
鈥淚 understand that, in a way. That鈥檚 for the caribou, but horses have always been a part of culture in Jasper National Park, so it鈥檚 kind of sad to see it kind of going away.鈥�
He encouraged outfitters, old guides and old wardens to drop by and share their stories on stage.
His own stories will be based on true stories and life experiences.
鈥淎nd that鈥檚 probably the most important thing to us is writing a good story in a song, and some of them are autobiographical. It鈥檚 just the special stories that I kind of stumbled across in life that are important to me or really kind of strike a note.鈥�
The Ray Elliot Band recently performed at Habitat for the Arts last week.
The band includes Ray Elliott (guitar and voice), Peter Abonyi (bass and voice), Fabian Minnema (drums and voice), and Gillian Snider (accordion and voice), and they will be joined by musician Shannon Elizabeth.
The Ray Elliot Cowboy Culture Stage is made possible by a grant from the Alberta Foundation for the Arts (AFA and is driven by Arts Jasper, with Habitat鈥檚 help.
The Arts Jasper stage event on Sept. 16 is also AFA funded.
In addition, a one-hour documentary titled 鈥淲ildie鈥� will be screened. It features two young native women as they each start to train wild horses, embracing the traditions of their forbearers who lived and worked in the Canadian Rockies.
There will also be a show and sale of cowboy art, as well as multiple workshops such as Sourdough 101 with David Argument.
Jasper artists are asked to open their studios during September. Ian Sheldon will be one of those.
Anyone with ideas for culture days, especially cowboy-related ones, is encouraged to reach out to [email protected] or [email protected]
