HOW YOU KNOW YOU ARE IN CALGARY

# 1 Country Music.

It’s ubiquitous. Omnipresent. Monopolistic (is that a word?) Good if you like it, not so good if you don’t, but it is inescapable. Might as well get used to it.

#2 Trails

Most places have streets and avenues. Calgary does too, but it has a lotta trails, pardner. Barlow, Shaganappi, Glenmore, Crowchild….kinda makes you want to saddle up. Like Victoria makes you want to grow a garden.

#3 Hockey

As usual, the Flames are not in the playoffs, but the Oilers are, at least as of this writing. Everywhere are hockey flags, hockey bumper stickers, hockey arenas, etc etc. Not unlike everywhere else in Canada I guess, but it being the playoffs and all, it is noticeable. One fun fact: during last night’s Oilers game, the wifi in this trailer park was terrible. That has to be because everyone was watching the Oilers, here in Calgary.

#4 Horses, cattle, pumpjacks, cattle gates

All of these things in vast profusion, under a never ending sky with mountains for a backdrop… how can you not love that? It’s Calgary for sure. They even have cattle guards on main roads, as in Bragg Creek and probably elsewhere. An endearing touch.

#5 Thunderstorms

Not every day, but many days. Sunny morning, followed by daytime heating and big anvil thunderclouds, followed by thunner and lightnin and biblical rain, followed by evening calm. That doesn’t happen much at the coast. I miss it.

And now a word about dogs.

We have been in a fine RV park in Cochrane for a week now, right on the Bow River. Friends and family, fine trails, good times.

Between this park and the river, there is an extensive off leash area for dogs. There is a sign there commemorating a chap named Jim Uffelman, who, says the sign, was an “activist” for off leash areas. A dog lover’s dog lover.

I missed the dog lover gene quite badly; put me somewhere between indifference and fear. Don’t love ‘em. But by the Bow River, dogs are different. These are friendly dogs. They don’t jump on you or slobber or threaten you or try to knock you off your bike. Good Alberta dogs. Most of them look pretty expensive to me.

In times past, I might have said unkind things about dogs; that they crap on everything, bark at night, go where they should not (on airplanes for instance), and so on.

I might also have opined that the current preoccupation with dogs is an alarming symptom of societal decay, that people are obsessed with dogs because they are socially dysfunctional, because they lack purpose or meaning in their lives, and stuff like that. I might also have said that it is a religious phenomenon, in the sense that, by definition, a god is whatever you ascribe ultimacy and primacy to, something or someone at the apex of value. Your dog, for instance. Kinda like other cultures revere monkeys, or cows, or snakes.

But here in Cochrane, dogs are different. Gentler and kinder. More like a farmer’s best friend and less like the Pistol and Boo of Johnny Depp fame. I feel a certain warming towards them, at least until one of them bites me.

So that’s it, folks. I’d say sunny ways, but I still can’t bring myself to say that. Instead I will say that it’s sunny in Cowtown and we’re having fun. But I fear the Oilers are going to follow the Leafs.

Stay tuned.

Ps: miss the Winers and the Wednesdays, but we’re managing to find acceptable facsimiles.