“I just took it on a dare.”
Following his first ride on a bucking bronc, rodeo great Floyd Grinder said young Harvey Canning was a natural.
Harvey, 19 at the time, said he was hanging around the chutes one time at the Bridge Lake Stampede when Grinder asked him if he wanted to give riding a bronc a try. That was all it took for the young man from West Vancouver to climb on board for the ride of his life. At the end of the ride, Grinder told him “You look like a natural.”
Grinder was his mentor, said Harvey. Unlike the young man from the city, Grinder grew up in the ranching and rodeo life. A biography on the BC Cowboy Hall of Fame website states that he was born on the family ranch near Clinton in 1942 and grew up learning ranching skills from a young age. He loved rodeo and once represented BC at the Calgary Stampede as part of the BC Rodeo Team. He was also awarded the BC Rodeo Association’s Lifetime Achievement Award in 1991.
When Grinder wasn’t riding in a rodeo, he could usually be seen helping with the stock, pulling gates and helping other riders which may be how he came to notice Harvey.
Harvey was an army brat who spent his growing-up years travelling around Canada. When he graduated from West Vancouver High School at around 16 or 17, “I just couldn’t wait to get the hell out of school,” he said.
After writing letters to a series of guest ranches, Chris Horn hired him on as part of the haying crew. Harvey headed for the South Cariboo, not even sticking around long enough to attend his graduation.
“Well, I guess he thought I was a good enough worker that he kept me on all winter,” said Harvey.
His wife, Shirley (nee Granberg) said he worked at the ranch for three years. The work gave him a lot of experience with horses.
“When he was at Chris and Helen’s place, he had a team of horses he was in charge of. They fed 300 head of cows with the team of horses in the wintertime. And Harvey was the guy that did that,” said Shirley. “All the hay they hayed in the summer, Harvey fed it out in the winter with the team of horses.
“He has a natural affinity for horses. We’ve always had horses.”
Harvey recalled a trip to a rodeo in Lilloett. “Chris and Helen took me and Shirley went along with me. Four of us in the front seat of a bloody International, ” he laughed, acknowledging it was a tight fit. As she was only 14 at the time, Shirley said she did not take up much room.
Harvey rode the broncs that day. “I remember that I was in a buck off. I rode three broncs to win but I won two to break the tie and I won a buckle for my efforts,” he said.
The Free Press asked what was going through Harvey’s mind as he was sitting on the horse’s back waiting for the gate to swing open.
“I’m thinking ‘I better stay on for eight seconds’.”
There’s really no time to think anything else as you’re too busy trying to stay on the horse’s back, he said. But when you’re done and know you made your time there is “a kind of exhilaration.”
When asked why he chose to do what seems such a dangerous sport Harvey said,” Well, I did it on a dare is what I did.” He didn’t do it very long as Shirley ‘interfered’, adding that he “gave up rodeoing for the love of Shirley. Married her. Hard to raise a family on the rodeo trail. So, I quit!”
Shirley pointed out that they had horses of their own that were just barely trained and he broke horses over the years.
“I was never afraid to begin with,” he said.
Before getting married though he teamed up with Shorty Horn, entering the local cowhide races.
Each team is made up of two cowboys. One is on a horse at the far end of the arena while the other is standing beside a cowhide at the other end. A rope is tied to the cowhide and when the rider reaches the cowhide, the team member on the ground throws him the rope and hits the deck.
The rider wraps the rope around the saddle horn and takes off with the man on the hide holding on for dear life and trying not to get tossed into the dirt. The person on the cowhide has to stay on it for the race to be considered complete and the fastest time wins.
“I rode the cowhides until I got married and ripped the shirt off my back (1965),” said Harvey. This was back in the days when everyone wore matching western shirts to the rodeo. “I had my little red checkered shirt on and he had his bigger one on…and that’s what went west.”
He did wild cow milking with Jimmy Reid as well. “You bulldog the cow down and then there’s be the milker,” said Shirley. Reid would bring some wet-range cows into the arena and Harvey would do the milking.
“That didn’t go so good,” he laughed. “They’d start kicking and switching their tails.” He learned to move fast after being “kicked a time to two.”
After Harvey and Shirley got married their circumstances changed and they moved to the Okanagan to help out Harvey’s parents who’d bought a ranch.
“They acquired this great big ranch and they were from White Rock. They were army people,” said Shirley. “So off we went to go haying down there to feed the registered cows they’d acquired. ” She went to work in the bank.
It was here that Harvey had another escapade when he and his horse Duke, entered the fourth annual Vinsulla Riding Club 50-mile endurance ride. The race was a controlled timed event with vets at each checkpoint. “That damn Johnny Schwartz he used to cheat all the time. He’d come cutting across country.”
“I just took it on a dare,” he said.
