The 33rd Annual Ivan Daines & Friends Music Picknic Weekend
The First Annual Canadian Horse Training Championships
Innisfail Alberta

The 33rd Ivan Daines & Friends Annual Picknic was four days of the west-past and present.

The past is 40 to 50 years ago when the Daines founding family envisioned what we see today. This jewel of the west personifies everything that the Cowboy heritage is striving to keep alive. Because the world is changing so quickly, every western gathering or event is faced with presenting what the present feels is Western culture. This is evident in the shift in Nashville music and by the sell off of range habitat to developers and acreages. When the Cowboy and the range are gone so too is the heart of Cowboy & Western music and, Cowboy Poetry.

The Daines family and a vast network of volunteers put on a 4 day mega event, in the face of a recession. There were horse clinics, competitions and stage shows running daily. Poets, singers and bands from all the western provinces, ranging from 6 to 80 years old, all in a setting where you could listen to the music and watch horse trainers in four pens starting untouched young horses. I'm sure this is a first, anywhere, combining two events at the same time and have them blend together like the sound track in a movie.

Canadian Cowboy Country had a film crew catching the action in all areas. The Alberta Cowboy Poetry Association was well represented by at least a dozen entertainers.

One very interesting event that goes back a long way, to the opening of the west, was a Steak And Lobster Dinner Auction with one of 26 pretty ladies as a dinner partner. This auction is modeled after the 'box socials' or 'pie socials' of years ago. Proceeds from the auction went to various charities. The bidding reflected the generosity of Cowboys and the Cowboy Way.

There was a dance, with a different band, every evening into the late AM. Bonfire, Cowboy Breakfast, all day lunch wagon, bar, blue skies, warm days, clear cool nights. It was absolutely perfect.

I could brag on entertainers but if you were there, you know who they are. If not, there's always next year.

The toughest job there was judging the sixteen horse trainers. For those that didn't make the finals, horses have different gene pools and different response times which is what you are up against. So missing the cut is no reflection on your ability. You are all good or you wouldn't have been there.

At a rough count there were about 150 campers, motor homes and trailers and everyone came to relax and enjoy.

Cowboy Gatherings and Western Venues are not about big money. They are about preserving a way of life that is becoming a memory in the minds of those who have lived it.

The west will never lose the mental picture that captures the minds of so many that follow events such as this, where they can be a part of what is fast becoming an dream.

by
Buddy Gale, Cowboy Poet & Songwriter