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Rainmaker Rodeo celebrates 55 years as St. Albert's signature event (5 photos)

Rainmaker steeped in pioneer spirit

The Rainmaker Rodeo turns 55 this weekend and everybody is invited to the birthday bash hosted by the St. Albert Kinsmen Club.

What started as a small-town country hoedown is now the largest outdoor party in St. Albert with the city-wide celebration entrenched in the fabric of the community.

“Good gosh, 55 years and it’s still going. I don’t really believe it,” said an amazed Bill Hite, one of the original “Cowboy” Kinsmen from Rodeo 104 in 1965.

“There were 14 sort of movers and shakers that really got it going,” said the life member of the Association of Kinsmen Clubs. “It was a labour of love because we were all young guys starting out with our families in this town and the rodeo was a way to be involved, a community effort, and something that would develop here as an attraction and it certainly has.

“It’s pretty important for St. Albert.”

The birth of St. Albert’s first rodeo was delivered through a brainstorming session by the Kinsmen over fundraising initiatives when some members regaled the group about the fun they had at the Calgary Stampede. A rodeo would set the town on its ear, they argued.

It didn’t take long for the newly chartered (1964) Kinsmen club, with support from the town's administration, to start organizing the event in the spring of 1965. Work commenced on the pens, announcer’s booth and stands on the site where the St. Albert Funeral Chapel is located. The land was owned by the Oblate Fathers and was leased to the Kinsmen. The hillside also provided a natural amphitheatre setting for the rodeo.

“We looked on this adventure as a celebration of the town’s birthday (104th that year),” Hite said. “This year is a another new adventure.”

The modern era of the Rainmaker, with the popular pancake breakfast, a long and entertaining parade, ear-popping music festival, bustling fairgrounds and legendary rodeo, has something for everyone – young and old, city slickers and Wild West fans – to savour the experience.

“It’s become so much larger and much better run I would have to say,” Hite said. “It’s certainly changed with the types of entertainment now that they bring in and participation in terms of the cowboys is still good.

“We’ve had some bad times and some good times along the way but you’ve got to be proud of what it’s become.”

After the blood, sweat and toil from staging Rodeo 104, the Kinsmen soldiered on despite losses exceeding $6,000 in the club's first attempt at the project as Mother Nature cancelled the event twice because of heavy rain in June and then in August. It left the discouraged Kinsmen scrambling to cover the losses with the ill-fated in-car Bingo at Speedway Park, but poor weather resulted in larger debt.

“That was a bust too so everything piled up on us. It’s a wonder we didn’t pack it in, but we kept on going,” Hite said. “We had to gather a bunch of guys together to sign a note at the bank to get enough money to keep going; I’m pretty sure it was $18,000, and that was probably one of the most significant things that happened to us back then, but we paid off our debt and carried on.

"We had rain come and go and washouts and good days and bad, but that is something I will always think about.”

However, the Kinsmen never lost faith after the 1965 endeavour and the next year an estimated 14,000 spectators shrugged off the rain to check out the fledging rodeo, as more than 100 cowboys from across western Canada and the northern United States competed for cash prizes.

The first rodeo parade was held that year with 90-plus entries.

A modest profit of $1,770 in 1966 was a morale booster for the Kinsmen and their unwavering belief in the rodeo continued despite several years of more downpours that prompted area farmers to spread fertilizer ahead of the event, to benefit from the expected moisture.

A common sight in those early years were Caterpillar tractors towing the midway in and three days later pulling it out of the mud-soaked grounds.

Even the Oblate Fathers were wondering about the future of the rodeo on their land.

One bright spot was 1968, as the Think Sun theme ignited a heat wave for the 16,000-plus attendees.

“After about three or four years of struggle we came to the situation where we had some decent weather and things looked up for us and from that point on we held on and kept going and here we are today,” Hite said.

The rodeo was again washed out in 1972 and the city graciously assisted the Kinsmen with a rainout grant.

It wasn’t long before the rodeo – 11 of the first 30 were rain-free – was dubbed The Rainmaker by the media. The moniker stuck and in 1974 the hat, boots, umbrella and rain cloud became its trademark.

The annual rainfall prompted the Kinsmen, in desperation, to buy rain insurance to protect their investments, but not even Lloyd’s of London was interested. Surprisingly, there was one taker, but the hitch was it had to rain so many centimeters in a given time frame. Of course, it did rain and the rodeo was a no-go, but the rain didn’t fall during the specified time and the insurance was null and void.

The ravages of rain led to the relocation of the Rainmaker to an area along Sturgeon Road and adjacent to the Sturgeon River east of Boudreau Road in 1976. Chariot races were added and a casino was held in conjunction with the rodeo. The net profit from the weekend was $5,200.

In 1978, with assistance from the city, the Rainmaker switched locations to the old landfill site in Riel Park, where it remains today.

The next year, buses transported patrons to the rodeo grounds from the downtown because of massive rainstorms, and the addition of professional chuckwagon racing and the RCMP Musical Ride led to a net loss of $464.

In a bid to cut expenses, the 1984 Rainmaker was moved out of the professional rankings and was branded semi-pro. The rodeo was recognized originally by the Canadian Professional Rodeo Association and in 1987 joined the Lakeland Rodeo Association circuit.

In 1983, buckets of rain wiped out two out of four performances and the beer tent collapsed. The total loss was $18,000.

Hite shakes his head over some of the rodeo misadventures (the first beer gardens held in the Perron Street Arena is a story in itself), like in 1971 when the horses and Brahmas broke out of the pens, which raised the excitement level considerably for the rodeo goers, stock contractor and the Kinsmen.

“We never lost that enthusiasm,” Hite said of the Kinsmen’s unwavering perseverance and dedication during the passage of time.

The Kinsmen also commissioned a weather study in 1984 – a club member with connections to the weather field did the report for free. The recommendation for half-decent weather was mid to late May, 15th to the 31st, instead of June and the 1987 rodeo was moved up by about a month to May 22 to 24. Naturally, it snowed and the grounds were once again a muddy mess, although it didn't deter the introduction of mud bog racing to the Rainmaker.

The joke at the time, Hite recalled, was the Kinsmen, “were trying to outwit Mother Nature” with the constant battles with the weather.

The Rainmaker was even written up in National Geographic as the wettest rodeo on the prairies.

The Rainmaker officially shifted dates to the last weekend in May in 1988 and a stretch of warm weather included seven consecutive rain-free rodeos in the 1990s, highlighted by the 25th Rainmaker in 1990 as the Kinsmen distributed 25,000 free rodeo tickets to grades 1 to 6 students in St. Albert and north Edmonton. Not one drop of rain fell as the weekend profit cracked the $20,000 mark.

Fast forward to this weekend, with the Under the Big Top carnival atmosphere at the modernized fairgrounds at Riel Recreation Park, the small-town rodeo in the big city is a testament to the pioneer spirit of its founders.

“I’m proud of what started out as a fundraiser by the Kinsmen to what is now the biggest event in the city. To see how the rodeo started in those early years, and it was tough at times, and how it survived and kept going every year, it’s a very rewarding feeling,” said Hite, 85.

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