New Yorkers are known to be a worldly lot, but even the most cynical stopped to watch a group of Alberta cowboys in the Big Apple, twirling ropes and wearing Stetsons to promote Alberta tourism.
As part of its marketing campaign to take advantage of the popularity of the Oscar-nominated movie Brokeback Mountain, filmed in Alberta’s Rocky Mountains, the province’s tourism department hired cowboys and models dressed in western gear to promote Alberta in New York City.
Canadian Finals Rodeo all-round cowboy Jeremy Harden made the whirlwind trip to New York to promote Alberta Feb. 23-25.
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“We were taken really well,” said Harden of Big Valley, Alta.
At first the New Yorkers had their heads down and were headed for work, but in the end people were coming up to the group asking for brochures, he said.
“People were whistling and everything,” said Harden, who took part in the New York Travel Show.
“It was a bit of a clash,” he said, adding that few people they talked to knew anything about cowboys or the rodeo life.
The group was hustled out of Grand Central Station by guards worried the growing crowd around the cowboys was becoming a security risk.
Back in Alberta, the champion saddle bronc rider and steer wrestler has returned to his quieter life of truck driving and welding.
“It’s a trip of a lifetime. It was just incredible.”
