The word heritage, even in a young country like Canada, is often used to describe activities and locations that take us back to a different time, a byegone era. Jasper’s Heritage Rodeo is truly deserving of the title, as it reflects a period in our history when the horse was king, and the cowboy way of life far more prevalent than it is today.

The first organized rodeo in Jasper was held 80 years ago, termed a “field day” for friendly competition amongst the members of the Jasper Horsemen’s Association. It was 1926, and the club surely did not lack for members. After all, it was years before the Banff-Jasper Highway would be built, and the primary modes of transportation were two-fold — the iron horse chugging down the Canadian National line, and the regular old horse, which carried locals and visitors alike along the trails in and around the town of Jasper.

At first, the rodeo was held on the Henry House Flats, better known in this day and age as the airstrip. Indeed, it was the need for an air field that forced the rodeo to move to the Marmot Meadows area near the Whistlers campground in 1930.

A program for the sixth annual field day (1931), now organized by the Jasper Park Rodeo and Turf Club, outlined the effort required to prepare the new grounds in time for the Canada Day rodeo the year previous.

“The present grounds were chosen in the Spring of 1930, and a tremendous effort was necessary to clear and develop them in time for July 1st,” the program notes read. 

In those early days, local talent dominated the riding events, and strong showings were also made by visiting groups of Stoney Indians, who would travel north from their lands outside the park and make camp near the rodeo grounds while participating. John and Miles Moberley and Louis Swift, members of the Metis families forced out of the Jasper area when the national park was created, returned to take part and won on multiple occasions.

The rodeo continued annually for ten years, before World War II and the gradual decline in local participation led to a lengthy period without a rodeo. It was 1953 before the event returned, hosted at a completely rebuilt grounds.

“It was necessary for us to obtain outside talent,” said then-rodeo club President Bill Duncan Sr. Duncan supervised the reconstruction of terraced grounds at Marmot Meadows and was confident that the new and improved rodeo would continue to be a fixture in Jasper.

“Such an event will improve both in popularity and quality in years to come.”

One thing Duncan might not have forseen was the interjection of a little bureaucratic wrangling. The rodeo had been permitted under the terms of a special lease granted to the organizers back in the 1920s. By 1967, times had changed, and the parks department informed the club that the lease would not be renewed the following year. An editorial in the Jasper Totem summed up the local mood.

“It is regrettable that members of this club should have to take a knocking — they have put on a fine show for tourists — who, contrary to what the department thinks, believe the horse has a very great place in the National Parks.”

Nearly a decade passed before a solution was arrived at. In 1977, rodeo returned to Jasper, this time under the roof of the arena. Organized by the curling club, the local recreation board and Jasper Park Lodge, the indoor event was popular, even though some purists insisted that the experience was much more authentic outside.

The rodeo has been an annual occasion ever since, and in 1991 became professional, meaning that the best cowboys in Canada and the United States now travel to Jasper every summer to take part in an event that truly lives up to its heritage title.