An Alberta cowboy’s fight to ride his horse through the streets of Grande Prairie has proven to be a rude awakening for those who believed the horse had a permanent place in the towns and cities they helped establish.
“Nobody realized how quickly urbanization caught up to western heritage,” said Joe Gill. His fight to ride a horse, his only transportation, through Grande Prairie has caught other horse owners off guard.
“It’s a bit of a shock,” said Gill, adding that few people know how many towns have bylaws that prohibit horses ridden on streets.
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Gill, 22, has received three tickets for bylaw infractions. He got his first ticket when he rode into Grande Prairie to do errands.
He got his second when he rode to city hall to find out where he could and couldn’t ride.
He got his third when he and another group of horseback riders rode into town to protest the bylaw that bans horses within city limits. He will appear in provincial court May 27.
Gill said there may be a break in the standoff between him and the city. He said councillor Helen Rice has indicated the two sides must get together to rewrite bylaws to incorporate horse routes through the city.
Officials with the city of Grande Prairie would not comment.
“We are winning,” said Gill, who now has a full stable of horses to train because of the unprecedented attention to his fight.
He said horses were used in the development of every town and village in Canada.
“It’s vital to our western heritage to keep it where we want to, not how the city people want it.”
Gill regularly rode his horse in the towns of Fort St. John and Bella Coola, B.C., before moving to Grande Prairie in November.
Grande Prairie isn’t the only city with bylaws that prohibit horses inside their boundaries.
In Lethbridge, bylaws prohibit horses from being housed in the city, ridden along the edge of the road or on the sidewalk.
But there is nothing about riding a horse down the middle of the road, said Dave Henley, senior bylaw officer with the city of Lethbridge.
“There is no specific provision saying you can’t ride it down the middle of the road. How that would be interpreted by the enforcement officer at the time, I’m not sure,” said Henley.
It has been almost 40 years since horses have been allowed in Calgary except for parades and special occasions.
Bill Bruce, Calgary manager of animal and bylaw services, said once a city hits a certain size, officials must be concerned about traffic and safety issues for humans and horses.
“It’s not going to happen, unless they’re in a parade,” said Bruce.
He doesn’t think there’s anything paradoxical about promoting Calgary as a western town, yet prohibiting horses.
“This is not a cow town. It’s a modern, vibrant city and there’s a ton of traffic moving.”
