For one week in July, the city of Calgary transforms into the home of the Calgary Stampede. The first time the chuckwagon race was held was at the Calgary Stampede occurred back in 1923, with prizes totaling $275.
To get the Canadian Championship title, each ensemble – which consisted of four horses, wagon, driver, and four helpers – were required to make a figure of eight around barrels, head out through a backstretch, then around a track, unhook the horses from the wagon, and first one to finish wins.
Canada’s Name
The name Canada likely comes from the Huron-Iroquois Indian word Kanata, which means village or settlement and it was actually named through a misunderstanding. In 1535, when French explorer Jacques Cartier traveled with Indian youths, they used the word for Stadacona, a village where Quebec City is located today.
Cartier then used the word Canada to refer to the entire surrounding area, and in 1547, Canada appeared on maps pertaining to land north of the St. Lawrence River.
Royal Golf
The Royal Montreal Golf Club was founded in 1873, is the oldest golf club in North America. It's also the oldest in continuous existence. It was established by eight men in 1873. Queen Victoria granted permission to use the prefix "Royal" back in 1884.
The Royal Montreal was one of the five founding clubs of the Royal Canadian Golf Association, founded in 1895 as the governing body of golf in Canada. This governing body organizes the major national championships and the Canadian Open, the first of which was played at Royal Montreal in 1904.
The Pager was Invented in Canada
Alfred J. Gross, a Toronto-based communications pioneer, invented the pager in 1949. He is also often recognized as the inventor of the walkie-talkie, he shares this distinction with fellow Canadian Donald Hings, who is also credited for having created the two-way radio in 1939.
Alfred J. Gross also invented the cordless phone and the CB radio. Before he died, he said: "I was born thirty-five years too soon. If I still had the patents on my inventions, Bill Gates would have to stand aside for me."
Bay of Fundy
Many Americans would be quick to write Canada off as their timid, maple-scented upstairs neighbor, but those Americans are definitely missing out. Canada is packed with some of the most majestic sights in the hemisphere, from coast to coast, south to north.
Take the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick for example, this aquatic fantasia is home to a 50ft tidal range, the world's highest tide, and it's five times higher than the average on the Atlantic. Twice every day, around 160 billion tons of water move in and out of the Bay of Fundy, which is enough to fill the Grand Canyon.