Canadian Finals Rodeo, Edmonton – November 7th

On Thursday 7^th November we headed to Red Deer, around an hour north, to the Agri-Trade show (where Robert & Brett had a booth showcasing their Didsbury Spruce Farms business) – it was a pretty chilly day! We saw LOTS of BIG and expensive farm equipment, lots of cool innovations, and lots of people, including lots of Hutterites. We realised just how gigantic combines can be, as well as grain trucks, big lawnmowers, various tractors, and a whole lots of other machinery! All pretty impressive, but I was kind of glad we’re not in the business to buy such things!

What driving along the freeway is like now...

And gloves are sometimes very necessary for driving!

Brett ad Robert in the outside booth at the Agri-Trade show

After exploring around the trade show, we drove the rest of the way up to Edmonton, a couple of hours north, to see a night of the Canadian Finals Rodeo – the final event (about 4 days long) of the Rodeo Circuit that starts at the Calgary Stampede in July. This was very impressive! They make it look so easy…

No unfortunate events like being gored by a bull, although one guy possibly got trodden on, but most of the bulls ran straight out of the arena after their riders came off, and all was pretty uneventful in that sense! We saw some bareback horse rodeo riding, some with saddles, some steer wrestling, steer riding for novice competitors, team roping (where one guy ropes the calf’s head, and the other guy ropes the feet, so the poor little calf is strung out from both ends!), steer roping, barrel racing and bull riding!

View from our seats at the Rodeo - same place as the hockey games in Edmonton

Start of steer wrestling...

Bareback bronco riding

Steer riding - they can sure kick!

Team roping

Saddle bronco riding

Steer roping

A winner, finished roping 7.3 seconds after coming out of the gate!

Barrel racing

Bull riding...

We were sitting almost at the very back (MUCH more reasonable pricing!) but could see plenty well from there, and we had a great time watching the rodeo as well as catching up with a few friends! Mari McLachlan (who visited us in Australia a few years back) and her sister Marla, and Nathan Holt (also visited Oz) and his girlfriend Megan – was great to catch up with them and to meet the others too! J

The crew, minus Marla - Nathan, Megan, Mari, Nicole, Lawrie

Marla and Mari

Megan and Nathan