| My love affair with Black Diamond started six years ago when, as a student reporter, I found myself covering a spat between two big-belt-buckled town councillors. Marvin Garriott, the owner of Marv’s Classic Soda Shop on Centre Avenue, was spitting feathers at his colleague Greg Gomersall, who had applauded the death of Pierre Trudeau at a public meeting. Determined Gomersall, who owned a saddlery across the street from Garriott’s shop, also refused to take off his cowboy hat during a moment of silence in protest of the former PM’s Liberal politics. I had visions of the pair stepping into the street for a proper Wild West showdown, but in the end the only thing they shot off was a few heated comments. The town’s opinion on the incident was as divided as the highway between the men’s shops – though it was nowhere near enough to damage Black Diamond’s undeniable charm.
Fast forward to last summer when, in the living room of my boyfriend’s parents’ home in England, surrounded by cats and Dickens classics, they asked me if I recognized the scenes in Ang Lee’s gay cowboy flick Brokeback Mountain. I knew of the ones shot around Longview, and told them yes, it is that beautiful and so are the towns around it.
Having just arrived back in our fair land, I decided it was time to mosey on down to cowboy country, roping my dad in for a close-to-the-city afternoon jaunt.
After passing through the corporate explosion that is now Okotoks, I was delighted to find that nearby Black Diamond, named for its once-wealthy coal resources, is still a gem of a two-horse town. Virtually every shop has kept its traditional boomtown image, though one particular highlight was missing. Stepping into the ’50s nirvana that is Marv’s Classic Soda Shop, I bumped into the owner who told me the saddlery had been knocked down to make way for some new stores. "Greg moved to the United States," Garriott beamed, "where they don’t have any Trudeaus."
The charming diner is a definite must-see, with its old-fashioned malts, burgers and candies. The coolest thing is that while visitors dine or browse the shelves of antiques, retro sunglasses and bowling shirts, musical Garriott often picks up his guitar for an impromptu hoedown. I hear he does some mean Elvis covers, a skill he once showcased down the road during the Black Diamond Hotel’s weekend jam sessions. "That’s where I met my new wife Launa," Garriott said.
Over at the hotel’s ’20s-style bar, popular with the biker crowd, regular weekend gigs kick off with guests like country wonders Rowdy Men and The Perpetrators. If an afternoon rock session isn’t your thing, the town has plenty of great arts and crafts shops, including my favourite, Maryanne’s Eden, which is filled with ultra-colouful landscape paintings. Or you can get a facial at the Diamond Oasis Salon and Spa. On summer Saturdays the Foothills Country Market at the arena offers locally grown fruits and vegetables, as well as antiques and handicrafts.
True Brokeback country starts just a couple of minutes south of Black Diamond on Highway 22, a.k.a. The Cowboy Trail. Here, shadowy horse-dotted hills roll into the mountains as far as the eye can see. It’s not hard to understand why Lee chose to film some of the most breathtaking scenes of Brokeback Mountain there. "The mountains, the people, for me it’s been quite an experience making a movie here," he told Fast Forward in 2005.
Less than an hour south of Calgary on Highway 22 is the tiny town of Longview, which during Alberta’s original oil boom in the early 1900s, was known as Little New York. Though not as populous by a stretch, Longview still boasts its fair share of ethnic influences, just like the Big Apple – there’s The Black Cat Swiss Restaurant, Navajo Mug coffee shop and a sign on the Twin Cities Hotel that reads "we be jammin’" on the weekends.
The Navajo Mug is owned by Longview country singing sensation Ian Tyson, and is a play on the title of his 1986 song Navajo Rug. There are a couple of great places for some wholesome grub like the Longview Steakhouse or Memories Inn and, at the end of the main strip, there’s a fab jerky shop that has fed the likes of Clint Eastwood and a crew of Mount Everest climbers. Owner Len Kirk, who is currently selling Longview Jerky Shop to his son Tom, told me he has 21 flavours of Alberta meat – which my dad exclaimed was "enough to kill a horse!" Family man Len admitted he has watched Brokeback Mountain, but could only describe it as "different."
Down the road from Longview is the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site with its traditional buildings and machinery. Throughout the summer you can go hog-wild at loads of events like blacksmithing and polo competitions.
We headed north to Turner Valley. On our way, my dad told me how, during the early- to mid-1900s, the land leading to Turner Valley was so dotted with flaming rigs they lit up the night sky, leading to the nickname Hell’s Half Acre. The birthplace of Alberta’s oil and gas industry, Turner Valley today pays homage to its roots with a number of replica rigs dotted between its craft and coffee houses. The Turner Valley Gas Plant is situated not far from Sunset Boulevard, where visitors can see how gas was processed there in the good old days.
With all this oil and gas history, it’s not so difficult to see why Gomersall had a problem with Trudeau’s National Energy Policy, which many in the West blame for crippling the province’s economy in the ’80s. Nowadays, though, it’s the oil and gas boom that threatens the charming life in cowboy country, with the ever-increasing threat of big businesses moving in and taking away the small-town feel. Okotoks, with its giant Walmart and massive population growth, exemplifies just how Brokeback country’s raw Western character is being transformed. Six years ago it, too, was a quirky little country town. Now it is a smaller version of Calgary. And with a big Rona hardware store set to open in Black Diamond this summer, it looks like the epidemic could be spreading.
"When I was still on the council up until three years ago, we had a chance to make it mandatory for all the buildings to be in traditional style," Garriott said, worriedly twisting his curly moustache. "But people feared that if we did that businesses wouldn’t come here. In reality, it’s the old west feel that brings visitors from around the world to Black Diamond – I’m afraid that could all change." Get out and enjoy cowboy country while you still can. |
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