The two skaters were inscribing energetic loops around the tidy patch of ice across from Calgary's frumpy, circa 1911 city hall, playing hooky from classes at Mount Royal College. "It's so nice and warm today," says Christine Kilpatrick, 23, flashing a smile that would melt half the snow in the province of Alberta. "It's the friendliness that keeps the city warm," adds Kimberly Palsson, 18. Six hundred forty-seven thousand Calgarians, on the nervous verge of being discovered by a world ready to attend the XV Olympiad Winter Games, are determined to ladle on a downright cordial welcome. "Smile, you're a tourist attraction" has become an unofficial local slogan. To a visitor, plunked down at the confluence of the Bow and Elbow rivers 150 miles north of Montana, Calgary seems to have an unsophisticated, almost south-of-the-border Texas personality. The accent's a little different, is all.
Oil wells operate within sight of the runways at Calgary International Airport. At Coconut Joe's, the joint with the concrete palm trees out front, a favorite drink is root-beer schnapps. And in what passes for subtlety, the two Olympic mascots, male and female bears, are named Howdy and Hidy. Get it? First settled in 1875 by a band of men on horseback representing the North- West Mounted Police, Calgary today looks nearly brand new. Credit that to oil, which lies beneath the surrounding prairie in vast pools and has made a passel of folks as rich as the Ewings from Dallas. Of the 1,000 or so petroleum companies registered in Canada, 800 hang their Stetsons in Calgary. Block after block of antiseptic-looking office towers have popped out of the ground in the past 15 years, creating the illusion on a crisp February night of a skyline cut meticulously from cardboard.
Pickup trucks would have to be designated the city's official vehicle, but the Mercedes dealer does just fine too. Though the oil business has been a tad slow lately, Edgar's Lone Star Mercedes-Benz is Canada's largest independent dealer, selling cars that range right up to $85,000. Contemplating his spanking new showroom with 8,000 sq. ft. of black marble, Mike Edgar is a cockeyed optimist about the future -- like most Calgarians. "We wouldn't have gone to this expense, bordering on decadence," he says, "if we thought the business was going to be dicey, or even questionable."
On a Saturday afternoon there are more pickups than Mercedes in the dirt parking lot at Ranchman's ("Canada's Greatest Honky Tonk!!"). Inside, there are more cowboy hats than cowboys. But there is an aura of at least the '80s Wild Wild West. Tucked in a corner behind the Gunsmoke video game is Punchball, a device resembling a prizefighter's speed bag. For a quarter you can haul off and smash the bag while a meter registers the force of the blow. Splotches of dried blood on the leather indicate that some cowpokes have broken their hands trying to impress that cute little filly from down the road in Medicine Hat. Lance Atwood, 33, one of the real cowboys who calls Ranchman's home, can readily separate a fellow cowboy out of the herd of lawyers, accountants and truck drivers. "You come in here on Saturday at midnight," he says with amused tolerance, "and just imagine how many lies are being told."