A controversial sport, rodeo is often seen as emblematic of the West’s reputation as a ‘white man’s country.’ A Wilder West complicates this view by moving beyond the black and white to show how rodeo has been an important contact zone between settlers, Aboriginal peoples and governement. It is a chaotic and unpredictable place of encounter that challenged expected social hierarchies. Rodeo has brought people together across racial and gender divides, creating friendships, rivalries, and unexpected intimacies. Fans made hometown cowboys, cowgirls, and Aboriginal riders local heroes. Lavishly illustrated and based on cowboy/cowgirl biographies and memoirs, press coverage, archival records, and dozens of interviews with former and current rodeo contestants, promoters, and audience members, this creative history returns to rodeo’s small-town roots to shed light on the history of social relations in Canada’s western frontier. Mary-Ellen Kelm is a Canada Research Chair in the Department of History, Simon Fraser University. Her previous books include Colonizing Bodies: Aboriginal Health and Healing in British Columbia. She is one of the leading scholars in the history of Canadian Aboriginal peoples. Working in collaboration with First Nations and health researchers, Kelm has a record of producing groundbreaking research on the history of Aboriginal health in Canada. Her current research examines how Aboriginal health has been researched over the course of the 20th century. She is studying the contributions made by Aboriginal people, as well as by anthropologists, health-care providers, and government in defining Aboriginal health issues. In the course of her research, she is paying particular attention to the relationships of power that are inherent to medical research and to emerging ethical dilemmas