The Maritime Reunion

The Maritime Reunion Association in Calgary was created to foster a sense of community and togetherness for the many people who had moved to Calgary from the maritimes in search of work.  The association’s activities were not exclusive to maritimers; many of the events welcomed anyone in search of companionship and good times.

For reasons that shall become obvious, my memories of one of their best events are rather vague – memorable, but vague.  It was 1983 or ’84 and the association put on an outdoor music festival at the Rafter Six Ranch in Kananaskis Country west of Calgary.  The Minglewood Band, Doug & The Slugs, The Powder Blues band and several others played through Saturday & Sunday.  

A number of us thought this would be a terrific party to attend, so we loaded the vehicles up with tents, clothing, food and coolers of beer….plenty of beer.  The entry was jam packed with vehicles, so I recall we joined many people in parking off road, in the ditches, and schlepping our belongings into the fields to set up camp.

It was an amazing time.  The weather was fantastically cooperative – sunny, dry & hot.  I recall that the whole site started partying pretty hard, so of course I had to keep up.  I did such a good job that I had to nap earlier than the others. I awoke and headed out to the main stage.  There was such a party mood that one was obligated to stop at pretty much every campsite on the way to the stage.  I don’t think I made it all the way to the stage during the whole event; I got close, but never there.

The net effect of this was that I was about 6 hours out-of-sync with the rest of our group.  When I was coming back to the tent to rest, the others were heading out.  But there was always something happening on site, so fun was not in short supply.  I even heard that Calgary’s mayor at the time, Ralph Klein (who was in the same shape as the majority of the party-goers) came onto the main stage and tried to apologize for his “eastern bums & creeps” comments from a year earlier, but was chased off the stage by a barrage of empty beer bottles.  He bravely withstood the first wave of empties, but was hustled off stage by the organizers.  I heard this happened, but as I said, I never made it to the stage area.

So, here’s a toast to those fabulous volunteers of the Maritime Reunion Association of Calgary.  You folks did a fine job, and created many wonderful memories, even if some are rather murky.

Unfortunately, Spotify does not have any Powder Blues Band songs on their site, so here’s a couple of albums by Doug & The Slugs and Matt Minglewood.  Grab a beer, sit in the sun and enjoy.