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Stampede is the last stand, a glorious festival in defiance of an otherwise inoffensive country drunk on political correctness.

The only question lingering is how long it can last.

Health officials are trying to clamp down on risky sexual behaviours. An increasingly cosmopolitan Calgary might yet be outgrowing its historically dodgy origin story, and a former cowboy says even the days of the wide-brimmed western hat may be numbered — soon all the young bull-riding bucks will be wearing helmets, if there’s even a rodeo left at all.

By any objective measure, Stampede is bad for you. For the next 10 days, little work will be completed in Calgary. In the name of networking, respectable oilmen, financiers, politicians and lawyers will adopt the affectations of the Old West. They will drink their faces off. Usually on a corporate dime.

In addition to the unapologetic worship of charred cow-flesh and all its steaky by-products, the Stampede midway is notorious for inventing novelties that include ever-more astonishing combinations of salt, sugar and barrels of hot fat.

This year’s confections will include a Bacon-Sundae Funnel Cake, Jack Daniels Fudge, Deep Fried Wagon Wheels, Deep Fried Kool-Aid, Taco Pizza, Pulled Pork Poutine and Cotton Candy Cupcakes.

These indulgences — combined with short shorts, leather frills, oversized silver jewellery, young girls, tans, booze, cowboy hats and rugged rodeo men donning big belt buckles and flannel shirts — have predictable outcomes.