Wee Jackie Weighs In

There’s a few tickets left and if you play your cards right you might get a couple.

I’m referring to the world famous RCMP Musical Ride, which appears in Cochrane not once but twice Aug. 3 at the Cochrane and District Agricultural Grounds.

The performances are at 1:30 p.m. and 7 p.m.

The adopt a horse program for the ride is a huge success and once again shows the great community spirit that makes Cochrane such a very special place to live.

For $500, folks adopted a horse to feed it and get to know it during its Cochrane stay and I’m sure this is the first time this has ever been done with the Musical Ride and because it’s

Cochrane it’s sold out.

Every horse has been adopted.

And now another thing.

The Musical Ride, and  most of the RCMP members with it, will be staying in Cochrane for a few days on a break.

The ride arrives in Cochrane Aug. 2 and leaves Aug. 6. So, what to do Aug. 4 and 5?

When the ride was here in 2003 Cochrane folks inundated them with kindness.

These young police officers are on the road most of the summer and of course away from home — which means they don’t get any home cooking and that’s where you come in.

In 2003, we suggested folks could drop off cookies, cakes, pies, and all sorts of stuff and  we’d get treats for them.

I underestimated the kindness of Cochrane folks.

Not one but three six-foot tables groaned under the weight of home-baked goodies brought to the Musical Ride and the young RCMP members of course were delighted.

We can do that again.

Just take your home cookin’ to the Ag Society barns Aug. 4 and watch a young Mountie smile.

Coffee With Warren

For a religious tradition so opposed to violence and terrorism, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community has experienced unrelenting persecution since its founding over a century ago.

In one of the latest incidents, 86 were killed and more than 125 injured on May 28 in coordinated attacks on two of its mosques in Lahore, Pakistan, a country notorious for its harrassment of the Muslim reform movement and its followers. And yet, when 2,500 of its Western Canada membership gathered for its annual convention, held this past weekend at the Spray Lake Sawmills Family Sports Centre in Cochrane, the focus was not on how to get even, but how to overcome evil with good.

It was my privilege to be invited as a columnist to attend the Sunday afternoon sessions and once again be the beneficiary of wonderful Ahmadiyya hospitality and wisdom.

There were chanted recitations from the Qur’an, greetings from Cochrane’s mayor and other Calgary-area dignitaries, stirring remarks by various Ahmadiyya leaders, and of course, a concluding meal that did the community’s historic Indian roots proud.
One speaker in particular, however, really got my attention.

The Baitun Nur Mosque, above, located in northeast Calgary, is the centre for southern Alberta’s Ahmadiyya Muslim Community. The 48,438 sq. ft. complex, distinguished by its steel-capped minaret and large steel dome, was publicly dedicated on July 5, 2008. It is the largest mosque in Canada, providing areas not only for worship, but for education and hospitality. Photo by Warren Harbeck

Mubarak A. Nazir, Ahmadiyya  Missionary-in-Charge, surprised me with his insightful talk based on Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, that great lesson in the Christian Scriptures on who is our neighbour.

“We live in a small world, a global village,” Nazir said.

“To kill one person is equivalent to killing the entirety of humanity,” he continued, clearly having in mind the recent martyrdom in Lahore.

“Humanity is one, because we have one Creator.”

At the Ahmadiyya community’s annual Western Canada convention, held this past weekend in Cochrane, Missionary-in-Charge Mubarak A. Nazir, at left, brought a message of peace, stressing his faith’s opposition to terrorism and expounding on its slogan, “Love for all, hatred for none.” Photo by Warren Harbeck

Referring to Jesus’ prayer at His martyrdom — “Father, forgive them” — he asked: “What can we do?

“Just as there is guidance and light in the Bible,” he said, so there is in “our mosque — a house of guidance, a house of light.”
Returning to his own Ahmadiyya Muslim tradition, he concluded: “Our mission is to show compassion – peace to the world, peace in ourselves . . . love for all, hatred for none.”

© 2010 Warren Harbeck
warren@harbeck.ca
www.coffeewithwarren.com

Arts Cochrane

One of the major things in the works for this fall is our first Arts and Culture Foundation of Cochrane (ACFC) Arts Festival on Sept. 18.

I would like to let the business community know they should get involved — and not just art businesses.

As documented by communities that have regular arts festivals, events such as these can bring a lot of visitors to the community — and they don’t just buy art, but food, drinks, gas and hotel stays.

If your business has anything that features art or culture, one way to be involved is to host a demonstration.

For example, a hair salon could feature nail art. An autobody shop could feature vehicle detailing. A log home builder could feature chainsaw sculptures, and so on. Or you could sponsor an artist or craftsperson to demonstrate their work in your business for the day.

This would be particularly good for any of the arts or downtown businesses.

Restaurants and other businesses could also feature festival specials, gift certificates or sales for the day.

Please note that a special handout and map will be given out to our visitors that day detailing what will be happening and where.

If your business has something for our visitors to come and see, please let us know. Participation is free.

Just tell us if you want your business information in the handout and map.

Deadline to be included is Sept. 6 for businesses, and I will talk more about artist involvement in my next column.

If you think you might want to get involved, but aren’t sure how, please call ACFC president Maxine Herbert — she would be happy to brainstorm ideas.

Another opportunity is for a business to become a festival sponsor. Your company name and logo will be included on the festival handouts.

Some details are already available on the website. If your business would like to get involved, please call Maxine as soon as possible at 403-850-0954, or get an application form from artsandculturecochrane.com.

E-mail Maxine at president@artsandculturecochrane.com, or Marla at The Paintbox at paintbox@telus.net.

© Evelyn Grace Marinoski
ArtsandCultureCochrane.com
info@artsandculturecochrane.com

Happy Trails

Another Calgary Stampede week is behind us — now you have to make your own pancake breakfasts!

One exciting equine event that was showcased as the Stampede was the Cowboy Up Challenge (also known as the Extreme Cowboy Race).

This is a fun event for spectators and participants and really emphasizes good horsemanship and a good rapport between horse and rider.

This competition involves a course composed of a wide variety of tasks and obstacles that must be completed in a specified time.

Each obstacle must be completed in the specified order — failure to do so results in disqualification.

The nature of the obstacle is limited only by the imagination of the course designer but must fall within guidelines specified by the Extreme Cowboy Association, which include height of jumps, depth of bank jumps or drops and so on.

Obstacles are rated as to the level of difficulty and points assigned accordingly for completion of the obstacle. There are different divisions within the competition to level the playing field — youth, non-pro, professional and over 55 (called Ride Smart), so there is something for everyone.

Everything is scored in this event — good horsemanship is really emphasized and contributes heavily to the final score. How the rider approached and executes each obstacle reflects the relationship between horse and rider.

Things like “riding on a loose rein” and “calm and quiet approach” yield high points from the judges.

That is not to say that there aren’t some “wild and woolly” moments where horse and rider have to negotiate a really challenging obstacle! A huge variety of skills are tested in this competition.

There are elements of speed, sliding stops, spins, jumps, going under or through things, moving things (dragging objects), bareback tasks, backing up, climbing, water crossings, carrying things, lead changes, circling at different speeds, livestock handling, shooting balloons (blanks of course) — you get the picture!

This event is really catching on with a wide variety of horse groups. I know of several riding clubs who have hosting their own mini version of this competition and are having great fun with it!

The complete rulebook for the sport is provided online at extremecowboyassociation.com
/rulebook.htm — it clearly outlines how to judge the event, what kinds of obstacles are acceptable, safety guidelines and organizational information.

You can easily adapt the suggested obstacles to fit the level of skill in your club and really have a fun day of “horsing around.”
This event is the brainchild of Craig Cameron — a professional horse trainer based in Texas.

He was incorporating elements of this in his program and it was so popular that he formalized the program and began the Extreme Cowboy Association.

The popularity of the sport is just exploding — competitions are cropping up all over the country in both the United States and Canada.

Our event here in Calgary was sanctioned by the Extreme Cowboy Association and the winner was given a “bye” into the World Championship being held in Topeka, Kansas, in November, 2010.

If you didn’t get out to see this event I am sure there will be lots more opportunities to see it.  I predict there will be many more of this style showing up here in Alberta as it has a wide appeal to many horse folks, is very popular with youth riders and is really fun to participate in.

Kathleen Winfield, an Equine Canada certified
driving coach who teaches clinics, has had the good fortune to grow up with horses.
kjwinfield@netkaster.ca

Coffee With Warren

Photographer/priest Fred Monk has done it again, this time in a reflection on beautiful buildings and blessings. (See my column of Feb. 18, 2009.)

The former pastor of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Cochrane, was passing through downtown Calgary midday this past April when one of the city’s distinctive architectural features caught his imagination.

“I was in town for the weekend to visit family and took a drive to see if there were any photo opportunities,” he said in a note about an image he e-mailed me.

“When I saw the reflections in the windows of Western Canadian Place, I pulled into a parking lot a block away on Ninth Avenue SW.”

With his Canon 5D Mark II camera in hand, he pointed its 24-105 mm zoom lens to the northeast and captured the reflections of countless panes of glass in dazzling dialogue between the north and south towers of Husky Energy’s head office complex.

In the resulting photo, the north-facing windows of the 31-storey South Tower are reflected in the south-facing windows of the 41-storey North Tower, with First Alberta Place, at the right, reflected in the west-facing windows of the South Tower.

Windows in the twin towers of Calgary’s Western Canadian Place enter into a dazzling dialogue of reflections while First Alberta Place looks on from a distance. Photo by Fred Monk

Because of warping in the individual panes, the reflections are imperfect, but when viewed as a whole, the effect is stunning.

Those mirrored panes hold a lesson for us, he said.

On one level, “good friends can act as mirrors for us and reflect our strengths and weaknesses back to us and help us to know ourselves more fully.”

On another level, “just as one tower reflects the image of the other, we are called to reflect the image of the One who is much greater than ourselves.”

Detail shows windows reflecting windows, imperfectly but gloriously nevertheless. Photo by Fred Monk

Then alluding to his passion for making the invisible visible through photography, and inspired by the warped golden reflections that hint of divine glory, he added:

“Although our reflection of our God is imperfect at best, by our love, compassion and forgiveness we can make the unseen God visible to others. And the best part is, the more blessings we give to others, the more we get in return and the more opportunities we have to see the image of God reflected back to us.”

© 2010 Warren Harbeck
warren@harbeck.ca
www.coffeewithwarren.com

Coun. Joann Churchill

Your council is listening to you and your voice will establish the foundation for municipal strategic priorities. Here are some examples of input already put into action.

The former-Domtar  land is being remediated for economic development after nearly 25 years.

Connective pathway systems are planned for residential areas that were previously left disconnected.

Community consultation and plans are being developed for new facilities within our community, including a senior’s centre, aquatic centre and an arts and culture centre.

Traffic lights are being placed at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Griffin Road to enhance safety.

Council is lobbying Alberta Transportation to address traffic issues at the Highway 22 and Highway 1A intersection.

All new housing developments will contain amenities such as sidewalks on both sides of the street, tot lots, inclusion of wetlands, diverse housing including affordable housing and mixed-use commercial.

The award-winning Cochrane Sustainability Plan is being implemented with citizen and business involvement.

These are a few of the major initiatives that have been identified as strategic priorities by council in the last couple of years.

Most importantly is that these community-enhancing initiatives have been driven by input from citizens. On the communication front, this council is taking meaningful steps to work more effectively for the community by hearing directly from residents and businesses.

Some of these actions include door-to-door visits, meeting with community associations, and improving the town’s website.

Wee Jackie Weighs In

There it was.

Right in the Calgary Herald listed under the chuckwagon race results for day three of the Calgary Stampede.

“Grant Profit — driver; Pride of Cochrane — sponsor.”

And that’s not all. It was mentioned many times on television, radio and of course to a grandstand with about 20,000 people. It’s a great promotion for Cochrane.

The town spent a zillion dollars on experts using a skinny horse to promote our town and now a group of citizens have done a much better job with one of the top chuckwagon drivers on the circuit. And he’s one of ours. He lives here.

I’ve never seen anything in the Herald mentioning the skinny horse, yet there was Pride of Cochrane for all the world to see. Let’s make one thing clear — this was not a town idea.

The town supports it, but it’s a great example of free enterprise and citizens having great ideas if they’re listened to.

It always amazes me how much money municipal governments spend on consultants when they have the greatest source  ever for ideas.

That source is us.

We’re called taxpayers.

The whole Pride of Cochrane idea of sponsoring three nights of chuckwagon racing this year, and even more next year, came from the fertile, community mind of Alex Baum.

And speaking of the aforementioned Mr. Baum, I toured his new Toyota facility off Highway 22 the other day and it’s amazing.

I’m from the generation when car repairs meant grease, dirt and ample profanity.

In the service department hangs a banner that says it all. Hung from the ceiling it says, “Do it right” and Alex certainly has with this operation.

And being the community-minded business person he is, there’s a room available for meetings for any charity group and it can seat up to 50.

It has sinks and coffee pots and anything that’s required for a very nice meeting room.

And in keeping with Alex Baum’s whole being, the meeting room is free to any community group. Just call Cochrane Toyota and they’ll book the space for you.

Also, I saw an old friend there when I spotted Larry Giles working in the service department.
Larry is a former newspaper guy — at one time publisher of the Cochrane Times. It’s nice to see him and he will do well for Cochrane Toyota.

Mounties mounts
The horses are cleared and will be performing in Cochrane Aug. 3 as scheduled.

The RCMP Musical Ride horses were quarantined in Ottawa because of strangles which, as every horse person knows, is very serious and can spread through a herd quickly.

But the horses are fine now and will be here and just to show how community minded the Musical Ride is we asked if they could visit the Bethany Senior Centre and the answer was a very quick and a emphatic yes.

So a few of the riders, with their horses will be visiting local seniors  during  their Cochrane stay. A nice touch.

Happy Trails

Parade season is upon us! If you plan on riding or driving in a parade, you need to do your homework prior to the event. I cringe when I hear folks boasting about taking their horse in his first parade and how it is “good training” for the horse.
Yikes — you had better do your “training” before you ever set a hoof in any parade!

You may ask, “What training can I do to prepare for a parade?” My response is, “Lots.” First of all, consider what you are asking of your horse.

Basically, the instincts in a horse tell him to either fight or run away when confronted with a scary situation.

A parade can present any number of wild and wacky challenges so you had better have prepared your horse to cope with the unexpected by listening to you and following your direction rather than skittering off down the parade route out of control. You must be the “herd leader” and provide the necessary direction and guidance to settle your horse and prevent a problem from developing.

This relationship with your horse comes from lots of work — it cannot be established in one or two sessions. Every time you ride or drive, you are establishing this relationship (whether you know it or not). How you handle everyday things with you horse will dictate how your horse is going to respond when things get tough. The relationship starts on the ground — if your horse demonstrates respect and responds correctly when you ask him to do something, you know you are establishing the proper relationship.

If your horse does not recognize you as a wise leader on the ground, it is not going to get better with you in the saddle! It is even more important for drivers as you are further away from your horse but are still asking the horse to accept you as the leader.

In the course of preparing for parades, you can simulate some of the conditions you will encounter and then help the horse deal with the challenges. There are some dandy CDs available with a huge variety of sounds — I put one of these in the boom box next to where I am working the horse, turn up the volume and ride or drive in patterns that take me past all the noise.

Eventually the horse realizes that the noises are not going to “get him” and he begins to disregard the sounds. You will also encounter lots of things moving — I simulate this with streamers tied to the fence, an archway with streamers hanging down, conscript friends to ride by on bicycles with streamers and horns — you get the picture.

In all cases, we want our horses to follow our directions and allow all of this activity to go on around them but they just focus on what we are asking them to do. Another situation is things on the ground — your horse should be able to calmly walk over train tracks, crosswalks, centerlines painted on the pavement and parade debris (streamer remnants, balloons).

I simulate these things at home with rails, white lines painted on the grass or roadway (you can get biodegradable marking paint like they use on sporting fields), balloons tied to the fence fluttering in the breeze and a pile of empty plastic water bottles they have to walk through.

You can use your imagination to make things at home to simulate parade conditions and work quietly with your horse to get to the point where your horse is unperturbed by anything you present him with. You also need to practice riding or driving in groups. The parade should not be the first time your horse has to walk with horses beside and behind him. A trail ride or trail drive with fellow equine enthusiasts will insure your horse is comfortable with this situation.

The bottom line is to do your homework with your horse so that when you start down that parade route, you can shout “Howdy Folks” with confidence knowing your horse is well prepared for the event and you both can have a great time!

Kathleen Winfield, an Equine Canada certified driving coach who teaches clinics, has had the good fortune to grow up with horses. E-mail her at kjwinfield@netkaster.ca.

Coffee with Warren

Stampede time in Alberta has its own special lingo; words like “pardner” and “chuckwagon” are as comfortable in our mouths as cotton candy and mini donuts.

Thus, modeled after the idea of wine tasting notes, he created Word Tasting Notes.
Which brings me back to this week’s WTN on “yeehaw.” James writes:

There’s hardly a better way to say “Things are startin’ to get mighty western” than just to shout “Yeeeeehaww!” And such a good shout it is — it may be strongly reminiscent of the braying of a donkey, but that’s just because donkeys know about it too (but can’t quite get the start of it or the intonation right).

Listen, pardner, it’s like one a them oil wells settin’ to blow a gusher an’ then doin’ it. You got the build-up, yee, with the pitch a-risin’ and the strain a-growin’, and then it just goes, haw, wide open as the Alberta prairie, fallin’ steeply like a plunge down the side of a foothill or a buffalo jump, echoin’ across the mountainside. Yep, ya jut yer jaw an’ then ya open yer mouth wide, like you’re darin’ a dentist to take a try. It’s just so much more primal than, say, exultemus.

Of course, though I got to know the term well enough when I was growing up in southern Alberta — especially around Stampede time — the term’s not from Alberta. Oh no, it’s from the States. And it’s from someplace even more western than Alberta. What’s more west than Alberta? Well, Hollywood, for one.

Yep, hate to break this to you, but cowboys of the 19th and early 20th centuries weren’t shouting yeehaw as they rode out after the cattle, and they weren’t shouting yeehaw at the square dance, either. Aside from possible occasions of some long-ago speaker ordering his team of horses to turn left (“Ye haw!” – “right-left” to a team of horses would be gee-haw, but there’s no apparent link with yeehaw), nobody was shouting yeehaw it until some guys in Hollywood invented it in the mid-20th century… just like the fast draw (yep, that too, invented by a Hollywood stuntman… at Knott’s Berry Farm, in fact).

There are a couple of places yeehaw is thought to have cropped up first. One is the 1948 John Wayne movie Red River — see the trailer at www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index/?cid=12520. You can hear the cowboys shouting, though none of them is really making a clear yeehaw. Another possible vector has been suggested by linguist Jonathan Lighter, who notes that when Speedy Gonzales – yes, that cartoon Mexican mouse — goes zipping down the road, along with andale and arriba and yip-a, he shouts yeehah. And Speedy Gonzales has been around since the 1950s, becoming really popular in the 1960s.

No doubt various other popular entertainments jumped on the chuckwagon, I mean bandwagon, as well. I think most of my exposure to yeehaw has been on TV shows. But no matter how you get around it, it’s an entertainment word – came from entertainment, which is always self-conscious, and has passed into culture as a self-conscious westernism. And often enough now as a sarcastic expression feigning enthusiasm (and meaning “ho-hum”): “Well, yee-haw.”

So, folks, there you have it. I’d always figured the word was as genuinely Albertan as prairie wool and the Rafter Six Ranch.

Thanks, James, for noting the flavour of this great cowtown expression. In the genuinely enthusiastic sense of the word, Yeeeehaww!

© 2010 Warren Harbeck
JoinMe@coffeewithwarren.com
www.coffeewithwarren.com

Parent Link Centre

With summer already here, both parents and children are eager to spend time outdoors.

Playgrounds are an excellent place to promote your child’s development.

Playgrounds encourage children’s imagination, exploration and create the opportunity to develop and test their gross motor skills.

Playgrounds also provide a great opportunity for socialization, for both parents and children!

Playing outside should be a fun and enjoyable experience for children of all ages, but as a parent it is your responsibility to ensure that your children are safe.

Follow these simple guidelines to prevent outdoor accidents at the playground:

• Teach your child the basic rules of playground safety.  Simple rules such as “wait your turn,” “slide feet first” and “one person on the slide at a time” are important to keeping your children safe.

• Falls are the leading cause of playground injuries and strangulation is the most common cause of playground death.  Actively supervise all young children.

• Check equipment for gaps and worn, loose or broken parts.

• To prevent falls choose a playground with a deep, soft surface or a rubber surface instead of one with a dirt or grass surface.
• Watch out for areas where your child’s head or neck could get stuck to prevent strangulation.

• Some playgrounds are not fenced. Establish a boundary that you are comfortable with.

The full-time job of being a parent is never over, but these simple tips will help keep summer as worry-free as possible.

By ensuring your children are safe, you are allowing yourself time to relax and soak up some of the summer for yourself.

If you have questions about summer safety or what is appropriate for your child’s age, drop into Parent Talk every Monday 1:30-3 p.m. at the Western Rocky View Parent Link Centre.

Staff can answer your questions and assist you to find the information you need from our Resource Library.

The service is free, and there are no appointments necessary.

Call 403-851-2250 for more information.

The Western Rocky View Parent Link Centre is located at 2–209 Second Avenue West.
The Western Rocky View Parent Link Centre is a division of the Town of Cochrane.