The Calgary Stampede is an annual rodeo, exhibition, and festival held every July in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The ten-day event, which bills itself as "The Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth", attracts over one million visitors per year and features one of the world's largest rodeos, a parade, midway, stage shows, concerts, agricultural competitions, chuckwagon racing, and First Nations exhibitions. In 2008, the Calgary Stampede was inducted into the ProRodeo Hall of Fame.
Charles Thomas "Stompin' Tom" Connors, OC was a Canadian country and folk singer-songwriter. Focusing his career exclusively on his native Canada, he is credited with writing more than 300 songs and has released four dozen albums, with total sales of nearly four million copies.
Grievous Angels are a Canadian alternative country band, active since 1986. The band's name is a reference to the Gram Parsons album Grievous Angel. Their primary leader is singer-songwriter Charlie Angus, who entered electoral politics in 2004 as the New Democratic Party Member of Parliament for Timmins-James Bay.
Ian Dawson Tyson was a Canadian singer-songwriter who wrote several folk songs, including "Four Strong Winds" and "Someday Soon", and performed with partner Sylvia Tyson as the duo Ian & Sylvia.
John Ware was a Canadian cowboy who was influential in the early years of the burgeoning ranching industry in Southern Alberta. Remembered for his excellent horsemanship, he was among the first ranchers in Alberta, arriving in 1882 on a cattle drive from the United States and settling to ranch until his death in 1905.
"The Hockey Song", sometimes mistakenly called "The Good Old Hockey Game", is a song written and originally performed by Canadian folksinger Stompin' Tom Connors. The song's first release was on Connors' 1973 album, Stompin' Tom and the Hockey Song. The song was played at Ottawa Senators games in 1992, after which Pat Burns, then coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs, insisted it be played in Toronto as well. The song is now played throughout both Canadian and American NHL arenas, as well in the home arenas of European hockey teams.
Canadiana Suite is a 1964 album by Oscar Peterson.
William Joseph Cowsill Jr. was an American singer, musician, songwriter, and record producer. He was the lead singer and guitarist of The Cowsills, who had three top-10 singles in the late 1960s. From the mid-1970s until his death, he was a successful alt-country artist and producer in Canada.
Charlie Rhindress is an actor, writer, director and producer living in his hometown of Amherst, Nova Scotia. He was educated at Mount Allison University and is a co-founder and former Artistic Director of Live Bait Theatre, based in Sackville, New Brunswick.
Friends of Science(FoS) is a non-profit advocacy organization based in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The organization rejects the established scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for the currently observed global warming. Rather, they propose that "the Sun is the main direct and indirect driver of climate change," not human activity. They argued against the Kyoto Protocol. The society was founded in 2002 and launched its website in October of that year. They are largely funded by the fossil fuel industry.
Jaydee Bixby is a Canadian country musician who was the runner-up on the fifth season of Canadian Idol. In 2008 he signed with Her Royal Majesty's Records and went on to release his debut album Cowboys and Cadillacs. Moving on to On Ramp Records in 2010, he released his second album Easy to Love.
The World Professional Chuckwagon Association (WPCA) is an association made up of professional cowboys and business people with an interest in preserving western heritage and providing family entertainment. The WPCA promotes and presents chuckwagon racing as a professional sport throughout North America and the world. The WPCA is a close-knit community that mentors its new drivers in safety and professionalism to preserve the integrity of the WPCA and chuckwagon racing in general.
Western Canada, also referred to as the Western provinces, Canadian West or the Western provinces of Canada, and commonly known within Canada as the West, is a Canadian region that includes the four western provinces just north of the Canada–United States border namely British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The people of the region are often referred to as "Western Canadians" or "Westerners", and though diverse from province to province are largely seen as being collectively distinct from other Canadians along cultural, linguistic, socioeconomic, geographic and political lines. They account for approximately 32% of Canada's total population.
Tim Harwill is a Métis-Canadian outlaw country singer/songwriter, based in Thorsby, Alberta.
Paul Rennée Belobersycky, known professionally as Paul Brandt, is a Canadian country music artist. Growing up in Calgary, he was a pediatric RN at the time of his big break. In 1996, he made his mark on the country music charts with the single "My Heart Has a History", propelling him to international success and making him the first male Canadian country singer to reach the Top 10 on the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart in the United States since Hank Snow in 1974.
Canadian Pickers was a Canadian television reality series filmed in Calgary, Alberta, which currently airs reruns on History. The show was also previously shown on DTour and Historia. The series was canceled on November 19, 2013, with the final episodes airing on December 23, 2013.
Six String Nation is a public art and history project conceived by Jowi Taylor and centred around a steel-string acoustic guitar built from a variety of artifacts collected by Taylor representing diverse cultures, communities, characters and events from every province and territory of Canada. The building of the guitar was commissioned from Nova Scotia luthier George Rizsanyi.
Country music has a long history in Canada. The genre evolved out of the diverse musical practices of the Appalachian region of the United States. Appalachian folk music was largely Scottish and Irish, with an important influence also being the African American country blues. Parts of Ontario, British Columbia and the Maritime provinces shared a tradition with the Appalachian region, and country music became popular quite quickly in these places. Fiddlers like George Wade and Don Messer helped to popularize the style, beginning in the late 1920s. Wade was not signed until the 1930s, when Victor Records, inspired by the success of Wilf Carter the year before, signed him, Hank Snow and Hank LaRivière.
