I'd been to rodeos before but this … this was the mother of all rodeos. For a week-and-a-half in early July each year, Calgary, in Canada's western province of Alberta, decks out and suits up for the Calgary Stampede, in the process becoming the ultimate cow town. Waves of bobbing cowboy/girl hats roll on toward the huge fairgrounds, not far from the center of the city. Beneath the bobbing headwear are men in blue jeans with decorative shirts of varying flagrant designs; women favoring black jeans and colorful blouses; all shod in the appropriate bootwear. Decidedly out of style in baseball cap and Docksiders, I was nonetheless drawn along with the human wave, sensing adventure, the sound of down-home music, savory food and just an all-'round good time.

The Stampede has been going on since 1912 to celebrate "the virtues and magic of the old west." A good deal has been added since Tom Three Persons rode Cyclone to victory in the saddle bronc competition that year: a huge display hall, entertainment venues, a permanent grandstand, and many smaller facilities, situated throughout the 137-acre Stampede Park. Attendance at this "Greatest Outdoor Show on Earth" has grown to well over a million.

Music is an integral part of the Stampede.

At the grounds each year, a huge carnival springs up amid permanent structures built to celebrate Alberta's allegiance to its ranching heritage. Barns enclose blue-ribboned livestock, exotic breeds of cloven creatures and pelted or feathered exotics. Vendors display everything from pocketknives to mobile homes. You can win a $40,000 SUV or a $250,000 house. Kids can stick their lips to swirls of cotton candy, then slingshot themselves into the skies on rides not recommended for the faint of heart. Music is everywhere. Marching bands parade by, sounds filter out of cloth or stone facilities throughout. Food sizzles on grills and/or fills the air with enticing aromas, the fare ranging from burgers and barbecue to pasta and enchiladas.

If you walk in looking like a city slicker and want to walk out looking like Lash Larue, there are western wear shops at every turn, virtually demanding I trade that baseball cap for a serious, ten-gallon variety. (I demurred.) Covering the acres of attractions here could keep you enthralled for days; it's a walker's dream, a window-shopper's addictive.

Along with its cowboy rep, Calgary has become the base for Canada's country music establishment. Bands perform at venues throughout the grounds. The showcase arena is "Nashville North." Here you can watch and listen to the best in Canadian country acts, up-and-comers, even clones of top stars like "Shania Twain's Twin," a.k.a. Jamie Lee.

Controlled chaos at the chuck wagon races.

Of course, all of the aforementioned are simply accessories to the main event. Center stage is the rodeo competition, that display of he-man and she-girl bravado that can only happen with a human being atop a mount — hanging on for the required eight seconds. The various ranch-inspired, ropin' and ridin' events begin at mid-day before the grandstand and go on until the sun goes down, which at this time of year, this far north and this far west in the mountain time zone, is around 10:30.

Men bust broncs, rope and wrestle steers. Others sit atop raging bulls hoping to hang on just long to hear the eight-second horn and swing behind a rescue-rider. Many get chucked skyward by the three-quarter tons of pounding hoofs, bouncing hips and flashing horns. Deposited face-down in the soft, damp earth, the thrown riders get to their feet, then just start running and hope it's in a direction away from the whirling, twirling bull, by now a very angry beast. In the midst of these fights to survive the required time intervals, contestants also play to judges who award style points. Purse for each of the main events is 50,000 Canadian dollars. (The exchange rate hovers around 1.5 Canadian per 1 U.S. dollar.) No weenies here. One bronc-buster had broken three vertebrae in a fall two weeks before Calgary, but he wasn't about to let that keep him from vying for the prize money.

Women race around barrels in displays of horsemanship that require speed and agility. A trio of women also demonstrated trick riding, which I was told is a dying skill: standing in the stirrups, slinging alongside their mounts, swinging virtually under a horse's belly and dragging their arms in the loose earth.

Kids, aged 10-13, ride steers, hang on until the bell, then hop off slap their big hats against their chaps and raise their arms to the adoring crowd. There are also saddle bronc and bareback riding competitions for novices under 20.

The unique art of show riding.

Clowns clown about throughout, their principal safety function being to lure the bulls away from downed riders, then jumping into heavily padded barrels while the monsters bat them hither and yon. One clown strutted about with four long, curled cattle horns arrayed about his head like a propeller that had hit something resistant. His face was painted like a skull icon from the Mexican Day of the Dead. He pulled one horn down and began shouting through it — proclaiming to be "on the horn."

The entertainment is near endless, no two rides alike, and each generating the sense that anything can happen. By the end of the competition, I was well versed in the nuances of a good ride.

After a dinner break, the evening competition begins, a controlled chaos called chuck wagon racing. It's pretty much what it sounds like, except, of course, these are "racing" wagons, not those rolling, jangling diners from old cowboy movies that looked like they would fall into a heap of lumber around the next mountain curve. Heats of four wagons each fly around a 5/8ths-mile track every night for a week. During each heat contesting wagons assume one of four positions in the rodeo arena before the grandstand. Four "outriders" stand beside their mounts, each holding the reigns of a wagon in one hand, the reigns of their horses in the other. With the blast of a horn, assistants throw a stove and a post into each wagon (symbolic of the cooking and tent-making stuff these wagons used to carry) and the whole thing is set in motion. Wagons swirl about the infield, headed for the opening to the track, with the finish line just about where all this started. The outriders mount their horses and tear off into the midst of it all.

"The outriders keep the teams from drifting off," says Les Campbell, who holds a red flag aloft at the finish line. Campbell has seen a few of these races in his time, working at the Stampede for 50 years and waving the flag since 1969. "There are nine heats each night and the teams get points for finishing one through 36. The team with the best single race time for the week wins a brand new truck. The top four teams get to race for a $50,000 purse the last night of the event."

Campbell excuses himself to concentrate on the four teams of this particular heat, which have rounded the far turn, two of them neck-and-neck, racing toward the finish. It is heart thumping. One pulls ahead by a head at the very last moment. It's exhausting just to watch.

The following day I opt for a more sedate itinerary. Long fascinated by arts and crafts, I wondered about the Indian Village, where representatives of Canada's first nations demonstrated beadwork, clothing-making, teepee-raising and cooking. Some remarkable western art was displayed at the gallery, sales salon and auction of the Western Art Show, one of the largest exhibits of its kind. On display, much of it for sale, were pieces in media ranging from oils and watercolors to bronzes and stone carvings. During the course of the day, I kept wandering into the western ware shops, finally buying a pair of black jeans. O.K., so I tried on a couple of hats, and they didn't look half-bad … but New York had done the whole cowboy fashion thing a couple of decades back and I'd heard nothing about a renaissance. Calgary and I parted friends agreeing to disagree on fashion statements.