Canada’s oldest continuous rodeo has announced its 2022 dates — the Wood Mountain Stampede is on for its 132nd annual weekend, July 8, 9, and 10.
The event is held in Wood Mountain Regional Park, and has been ongoing since 1890.
“We’re very proud of what we put together and bring to the community,” said Tara Labbee, board treasurer for Wood Mountain Stampede. “All our campsites were booked completely within 10 minutes this past weekend for the event. … There’s a lot of other campers and such that will move into the overflow sections as well. A lot of people come to this rodeo every day from all over Saskatchewan, Alberta, and Manitoba.”
The event was originally billed as Wood Mountain Sports by the North West Mounted Police, back when “Sports” was understood to mean a cowboy exhibition.
Cowboy exhibitions are now called rodeos, and the Canadian Cowboys Association (CCA) Rodeo event remains one of the big draws to Wood Mountain.
Additional crowd-pleasing events include trick riders who perform during each intermission, a ranch rodeo event with teams competing for time at every day farm tasks such as milking a wild cow, riding a wild horse, or penning off specific livestock, a beer garden, live music in the beer garden, a women’s triathlon rodeo, team roping, and other rodeo displays and competitions.
Wood Mountain Regional Park is just south of the town of Wood Mountain — population 20 — and offers rolling hills, a playground and picnic area, campsites, an outdoor pool, washrooms, showers.
The area is home to the Wood Mountain Lakota First Nation, descended from the Sioux leader Sitting Bull. Sitting Bull rested in Wood Mountain after the battle of the Little Bighorn, returning to the US a few years later. Some of his followers stayed, and their descendants are regular contributors to the Stampede.
Full event details have yet to be finalized. Last year’s admission prices were $15 per day, $40 for the full weekend, and free admission for children under 12.
Stay tuned for updates by following Wood Mountain Sports & Stampede on Facebook and checking woodmountainstampede.com.
“The committee work many long hours and we gather monthly to go over everything and make sure it’s to the standard that it should be and that we want it to be,” said Labbee. “It’s very entertaining.”
