The 2025 Heritage Gather, celebrating Indigenous and Western culture, begins tonight at 6 p.m. and goes through Sunday.--NEWS FILE PHOTO
asmith@medicinehatnews.com
Today marks the start of the 2025 Heritage Gather, a vibrant celebration of both Indigenous and Western culture at the Dunmore Equestrian Centre.
This year, running today through Sunday, features a wide variety of events, including pow wow dancers, a drum circle and of course, a rugged rodeo.
“Everything starts at 6 o’clock Friday evening,” said Dunmore Equestrian president Kelly Creasy. “We’ll roll into the rodeo at (7 p.m.), we have a rugged rodeo with lots of good competitors coming out and we’re really looking forward to that. We’ll follow up with some slack right after the rodeo.”
The rodeo will likely run until roughly 10:30 p.m., said Creasy, but the night slack will continue to provide Western entertainment for those still present in the beer gardens after the fact.
The next morning will see the Gymkhana and a reopened beer gardens, before the Team Sorting and Super Puncher competitions in the afternoon.
“Super Puncher is an interesting deal we ran last year. It’s a one-man competition, instead of the ranch scramble,” said Creasy. “It’s meant to simulate a day on the ranch with a cowboy and this horse.”
Competitors will run across the arena leading a horse and get it bridled, before doing a few spins, grabbing a slicker and lead calves some salt blocks across the arena. From there, they will go through further obstacles, including loading and unloading their horse into a trailer and roping a steer, all seeking to make the fastest time.
Other than rodeo events, there will also be an artisan Vendor Market on Friday and Saturday, as well as a medicine bag crafting workshop with Brenda Mercer on the same days at 7:30 p.m.
“I’m going to bring a steel horse, about the height of a horse, that we can put a saddle on, and kids can climb up and sit on the saddle and try to rope a dummy, or just see what it’s like to be up in the saddle,” said Creasy. “That’s probably going to be chaos, but a lot of fun for the kids.”
Tickets are $20 for a day pass and $35 for a weekend pass for adults, with youths aged 10-15 paying $10 or $15, respectively, and those under 10 being free.
A full schedule of events is available on Dunmore Equestrian website at dunmoreequestrian.com.
“We hope everybody gets a chance to come out and check out the action and the facility,” said Creasy. “We’re pretty happy we managed to get something in our indoor facility this year, as well.”
