John Ware, Canada’s Legendary Cowboy (1845-1905)
This Article is dedicated to Nettie Ware (1893-1989)
Note: A previous version of this article was provided to Oxford University Press Canada for use in their Canadian high school textbook Inside Track 1.
“A man of unquestioned honesty and agreeable nature…[who] boasted the rare distinction of never having been thrown from a horse. At roughriding and roping he was an expert’ (Turner, 1950, pg. 461).
Sometimes in life you are in the right place and the right time to meet the most amazing people.
When I lived in Calgary, Alberta during the late 1970s, I stayed in a boarding house run by a kind elderly lady. Often, I would spend many afternoons in my landlady’s kitchen chatting to her best friend Miss Janet “Nettie” Ware. My landlady and Nettie were longtime friends from when they were both teachers in the small town of Vulcan, Alberta.
Often Nettie would talk about her father John Ware.
At the time I had no idea who John Ware was but after some prompting from my landlady, Nettie was happy to share her stories about her father, who as it turned out was one of the most famous of Canadian cowboys.
Learning about John Ware from Nettie Ware
Many books and videos have been made about John Ware, but this is the story about how I came to learn about John Ware.
The Blackfoot Indians called him “Matoxy Sex Apee Quin” because they thought John Ware was related to the spirit world. He was undoubtedly one of the best cowboys ever to ride on the prairies during 19th century Canada. But to me, what makes his story more amazing than his skills, which were extraordinary, was his backstory.
