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.Driverswill juggle and gnaw over these combinations, trying to achieve the perfectmix.Equipment too is key, and must be cared for and maintained.A chuck-wagon outfit moves as a major entourage, requiring a wagon, feed, tack, andat least eight horses, if not more.The gypsy energy of travelling from event toevent, hauling horses in semi-trailers and living in motor homes beside barnsand corrals, requires a certain flexible temperament on the parts of humansand animals alike.Most important, the whole undertaking of running achuckwagon is a team effort.One rogue horse, one careless outrider, one slipof the driver s reins, and all is subject to failure. ARITHA VAN HERK 247Despite its difficulty and mysterious chaos, its ineffable cachet, chuck-wagon racing is not a well-sponsored sport, and definitely not a sport thatis internationally known.Relatively free of commercial inflection, except forthe sponsorship of those companies that buy a wagon tarp, the culture hasdeveloped without the monetary pressure and rewards that accrue to otherprofessional athletes.This distinctive activity has more of a flavour of domes-ticity, related partly to the powerful family connections that seem essential,and partly perhaps to the race s origins of being a kitchen on the move.Research on rodeos and on the iconic image of the cowboy (lone, stoic, andindividual) tends to sidestep the carnival of wagon racing, as if it does not fitinto the historic triangle of man, horse, and cow.Instead, this is a team effort,a community investment, a family undertaking.As Glen Mikkelson argues, the chuckwagon cowboy personifies the co-operative spirit of WesternCanada& [they] remain independent spirits in a communal enterprise.Andtheir sport, which embodies team sportsmanship, community, and collabo-ration, is an apt mirror of the Canadian West and a symbol of the character16of western Canadians. The young child standing between his dad s kneesand holding the lines of a chuckwagon team in the Calgary Stampede parademight be a more iconic reference for this sport than the buckles and trophiesof the rodeo cowboy.More than anything else, chuckwagon racing requiresa steady and observant horseperson, and the patience of practice, practice,and practice.Commercial interest, while it is nowhere near the money tossed at hockeyor football, has begun to accelerate.A chuckwagon first carried advertisingin 1941, when the Buckhorn Guest Ranch paid Marvin Flett to promoteit on his wagon.In 1956 Lloyd Nelson was the last driver to win driving a17wagon under his own name.But the expense of racing crept upwards, andin 1979 the first annual canvas auction was held.Organized and formalizedby the Stampede, it has accelerated into a gala event.In 2007 all recordswere shattered, with a total amount of more than four million dollars bidon the thirty-six drivers and their canvasses.The highest bid went to theKing, Kelly Sutherland, whose canvas sold for $205,000.Advertisers whopurchase chuckwagons share a unique experience, which goes far beyond thecanvas as marketing tool.The social and philanthropic aspect of advertising,the wagon drivers public appearances and general participation in Stampedecelebrations together weave a strange tapestry of competition and coopera-tion.In 2002 Professional Wagon Racing Inc.introduced chuckwagon racesat the Las Vegas Stampede, hoping to establish an annual event.The venue 248 THE HALF A MILE OF HEAVEN S GATEand the arena seemed right, but the event has not been repeated.Even Vegas,it seems, cannot accommodate the strange extravaganza of wagon racing.The characters surrounding the Rangeland Derby both embody andamplify a compelling eccentricity, the layers of a powerful mythology that,for all its hyperbole, is a virtual mystery beyond the western Canadian world.In the early years, the most colourful or foolhardy driver was easily Sun-down or Wildhorse Jack Morton.He was famous for throwing his reins onthe ground and grabbing his horses tails to make them run faster.To light thecook stove, he carried gas on his wagon, but it exploded, and made his horseseven crazier.Morton broke his leg, rammed the barrels, and lost a wheel, but18he retired only when he was close to sixty, in 1938.Various stories credithim with starting the downtown pancake breakfasts served from the back ofthe wagons.The voice of the Rangeland Derby, Joe Carbury, has announcedthe races for more than forty years, and his trademark cry, They re Offffff, is a benchmark for the event.Dick Cosgrove, who won first in 1926, wouldwin the Derby nine times before retiring twenty years later.His record hasbeen beaten only by the King, Kelly Sutherland, who has won ten times.These champions are not young men, but wily veterans who have learnedfrom experience.They carry the talismans and markers of gladiators: Kelly slong black feather, the checkered wagon of the Glass family, Dallas Dorches-ter wearing his father s old felt hat.They are the heroes of inside stories, andyet eternal in terms of their own playful dodges with mortality.For chuckwagon racing is about staring at mortality, the possibility ofdeath always hovering, the thunder of hooves an apocalypse
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