I hear it a lot. “Calgary has no history,” they say. And they say it with conviction. Locals and visitors and transplants and émigrés.

How does a proud Calgarian respond? “Sure we do.” I’ll say, “You just need to look around.”

Calgary’s got a pretty awesome backstory. One-of-a-kind. It seems almost like an underdog story. Like we had to beat the odds just to be here.

Imagine coming here in the 1870s. Long before Alberta became a province. A century before +15s. Before health care and hospitals. It would take a cowboy kind of attitude to stick it out.

The first Calgarians were hard-ass people. They were innovators and entrepreneurs. Adventurers like Sam Livingston, the plucky Irish gold prospector who settled on the banks of the Elbow in 1876. He introduced new farming technologies to tame the frontier, and fought for his rights as a settler. Soldiers like Colonel MacLeod, who brought law and order to the West and gave Fort Calgary its name. And whisky traders like D.W. Davis, who gave up his illicit sales to become a respected cattle rancher and part-owner of the Calgary Herald. They all left their mark.

And there’s so many more. They struggled, survived and thrived here. They built a city from nothing. When it burned in 1886, they built it again. Names like Weadick, Deerfoot and Lougheed. Bad Black White Man, the Sundance Kid and the Hitman. The Big Four and the Famous Five. The CPR and the HBC built the 403. The YYC.

Calgary’s got plenty of history. It’s in the buildings, the streets, the parks and landmarks. Everywhere you go, someone went there before and left a story. You just need to look around.

Every Second Thursday of every month, there’s a crowd that gathers on the second floor of Pages Books on Kensington. If you walked in from the street you almost wouldn’t notice the crowd gathered upstairs and assume it’s a community meeting over some subject matter you couldn’t be concerned about.

That is until you decide to satisfy the inexplicable curiosity that overcomes you and you decide to walk upstairs to join the seated crowd, plugged in, listening to a reader reciting from their pages.

Welcome to a Flywheel reading. It’s a free event hosted by filling Station magazine. This reading series has been going on for almost 10 years since November 2003. It’s brought writers from various backgrounds and disciplines to Calgary’s cultural scene. For me, discovering the Flywheel more than two years ago made me grow as writer and connect with Calgary’s writing community. It also allowed me a way to discover local talent.

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Photo credit: Mike B on Yelp.ca

There’s a long weekend on the horizon and your mind is floating to all of the things you could be doing with that extra time off… well hang on just a minute and read over a few of our Awesome Events before you go finalizing your plans!

Calgary Street Food Festival… Friday

Featuring 12 food trucks and Kingsland food vendors serving up the latest and greatest in street food from all over the world, this is an event you won’t want to miss. The food trucks will be serving special under-$5 foods as well as their traditional menu items. The event will feature music, entertainment, prizes and celebrity judges who will pick Calgary’s best street food. Read more details>>>

The Fifth Reel: Back To The Future – 50s Prom Party Feat 36?… Friday

Do you miss the days of high school dances where you swayed with your hunny under bright lights with lust and spiked punch in your stomach? how about the warm sensibilities of 1950′s Americana? well we’re doing both of those things with a screening of the legendary BACK TO THE FUTURE along with a 50′s PROM PARTY!! Read more details>>>

Diabetes Clothesline Fill A Truck Event… Saturday

Happening at three different Calgary locations, it’s a Great chance to do your spring cleaning and help a worthy cause by dropping off donations of clothing and small household items. Be entered for your chance to win many prizes including a trip for 2 to London, England! Read more details>>>

Serbian Festival 2013… Saturday & Sunday

This spectacular event will feature a broad entertainment program showcasing some of the best cultural displays that the Serbian community has to offer. Don’t know what Serbian culture is? Come out and join us for some fabulous homemade Serbian food, cultural exhibits, sports competitions, and much more. Read more details>>>

Otafest 2013… Friday-Sunday

Otafest is a Calgary based nonprofit organization promoting of Japanese art, culture, and media in the Canadian community, and our organization rests firmly on the spirit of community collaboration and volunteerism. Celebrate the 15th annual Otafest at the University of Calgary with gaming events, pin trading, Cosplay battles and even Otafest Idol! Read more details>>>

Looking for more awesome events? Check out our community events calendar!

TGIW. Thank God It’s…Wednesday? At least for me when I know The JAM is on at Ubu Lounge. What is The JAM? It’s a hybrid music event that embraces the spontaneity of a jam session. It brings together Calgary’s talented and encourages them to jump on the stage and the dance floor.

Dancers, singers, lyricists, poets, and musicians from all disciplines have been on The JAM and every event is a such a unique and positive experience defined by whoever decides to show up and work up the courage to jump into The Jam!

Even as an audience member, I can’t help but succumb to the vibe of The Jam. Something can start out with a mellow and poignant reading of poetry or reciting of spoken word, and can suddenly shift to an improvised instrumental jam session. Jazz? Blues? Funk? House? Dance Hall? I’ve seen it at The JAM. Dancers from disciplines such as breakdance, hip-hop, contemporary, and salsa are a natural occurrence. Of course, YYC’s talented singers and lyricists flood The JAM with so much talent.

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How do you explain the feeling of warmth of the sun after winter? Or seeing all that green and blue after so much white? Or the sound of chirping birds after months of silence?

Those were the questions I was trying to answer as I walked along the shores of Lake Minnewanka on Saturday. The grass blushing green, the buds peeking out on the trees, Caribbean coloured water and mountains mountains mountains.

Lake Minnewanka is the perfect shoulder season hike. Not a fleck of snow, the trail is still bone dry. Aside for a few bumps, the trail is pretty much flat—a good warm up for tougher terrain later in the season. You wander through old growth forests but most of the trail is wide open to the sparkling lake, greeny-blue, on your right and its neighboring mountain friends. Plus: the tourists aren’t here yet. With the lake’s proximity to Banff townsite, its accessibility and ease, this one will be flooded in summer.

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I spent the last week surrounded by a sea books. It was paradise. And now, this week, it’s all about getting ready to go camping for May Long. But that doesn’t mean I don’t have time to squeeze in some art. Here’s your Arts Round Up for this week, Calgary!

BOOKS & POETRY TEAM UP: I love books, books are awesome and so is reading. So I was enthused when I got a chance to help out at this year’s CBC Calgary Reads Book Sale. But it wasn’t just about selling books: there was a whole bunch of creation happening too. Peeps from the People’s Poetry Festival were on hand creating poetry bombs (top right) and more at their DYI poetry station. There was even a poetree (top left). Poetry was everywhere,including at volunteer appreciation night where some of Calgary’s best poets showed their stuff including Wakefield Brewster (middle left), Erin Dingle (middle) and Calgary’s own Poet Laureate Kris Demeanor, seen here with the Heebee-jeebees (middle left). It was a wonderful weekend celebrating words with people who love them as much as I do. All funds raised go to Calgary Reads and their awesome programs that help young struggling readers learn to read. Hope to see you at next year’s sale.
Photos by Amy Jo Espetveidt, Quadrophonic Image

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Summertime in Calgary means festivals galore! The city is filled to the brim with niche scenes ranging from music, comedy, theatre, film, ethnic and more. This year, Calgary’s festival scene is going to get even more awesome with the Badlands Music Festival, running July 5 to 7 at Canada Olympic Park. Get ready to get your dance on because this line-up is pretty amazing. Electronic performers Afrojack, Kaskade, Pretty Lights and Steve Aoki are headlining but even secondary acts such as Matt & Kim, Excision and Mord Fustang are just as highly anticipated.

The interesting thing about Badlands is that this electronic-based music fest will be taking place over Stampede. Festival co-promoters Aqua Audio have been promoting dance music in the city for over a decade and are beyond excited to bring Badlands to their own backyard. “We realize that ‘country is king’ during Stampede but the music landscape has shifted and there has been a rise in demand for electronic. There are lots of venues that have huge success with their electronic music programming, so we thought that we could pull off an event like this. Since our announcement we have received nothing but compliments and words of support,” says Mikey Da Roza of Aqua Audio.

Badlands sets itself apart from Calgary’s other summer fests as it is the only 100% dance/electronic/indie line-up. Revellers can look forward to Afrojack’s first-ever appearance in Calgary, with over 20 artists on hand over the course of the three-day festival.  “The overall line-up is well-rounded and there is something for everyone. I don’t think people will be disappointed. It was our chance to have all these amazing artist under one banner and create a festival environment and some true excitement for dance music fans,” says Mikey.

With less than two months to go, the Badlands team still has a few surprises in the works to deliver.  With so much hype and excitement already garnered for an inaugural event that has yet to happen, does this mean that we can look forward to Badlands being an annual tradition? “Our goal for this project has always been to grow it into a yearly event,” says Mikey. “We are excited to see what is in store for us and how we can grow this next year, to something even bigger and better!”

Are you excited for Badlands? We’re sending one lucky reader to the show – enter our contest here!

Chow Down in Cowtown explores some of Calgary’s most awesome eats with Ceci n’est pas un food blog.

Happy Mother’s Day! Where are you taking your mom to brunch today? For some reason, Mama T associates the word “brunch” with “buffet”, so I’ve taken her to Belgo a couple times now to avoid the hotel buffet crowds (and prices!) Mama T is out of town, so I’ll be celebrating with her in Hong Kong next week, but if you’d like to do something a little less traditional with your mom, give Mango Shiva‘s brunch a try.
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Photos by Brett Rieger

The 2013 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo was a whirlwind weekend. From the awesome events, to the captivating panels, to the sweet (and sometime scary) costumes, it was a blast. The weekend (which ran from April 26-28), saw over 60,000 attendees at the sold out show – most of whom praised the organizers for making this year much more successful than 2012.

Click through to see our photos of the weekend’s highlights:

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