Cover Feature: Keith Stewart by Trent Schlamp

Kickin’ Up Dust asked me to write a few words about myself so here I go.

I was lucky enough to be born in one of the really cool places in this country, Banff Alberta, in the old hospital on the banks of the Bow River. I think the hospital is a YMCA lodge now. My Dad was a park warden and it was his job to patrol the back country of Banff National Park, horseback in the summertime, ski and snow machine in the winter.

My home, or homes, were the backcountry warden stations I shared with my Mom and Dad and two brothers. It was a great way to spend my early years learning to ride. My mother was also an avid horse woman as she had grown up riding the English countryside before immigrating to Canada and exploring the beautiful mountain wilderness that surrounded us. As we got older and of school age we had to move into the town of Banff to attend school. This meant renting a house in town while my Dad remained in the back country cabins. Town didn’t suit us very much so my father took a transfer to a prairie park that had warden stations on the park boundary so you could live out in the park but still attend school. This park is called Riding Mountain National Park. Riding Mountain is more of a big hill in the middle of the prairies and certainly not the type of mountain we were used to. Horses were still a big part of our life there as well and we rode daily as weather permitted. My family wound up purchasing some land close to the park where we had our own horses as well as a small herd of cattle. My mom, being from England, tried to sway my brothers and I in the direction of English style riding, dressage, jumping and cross country. Going so far as to enlist us in the local “pony club.” Although we enjoyed this what we really wanted to do was rodeo. My brothers and I grew up watching Saturday morning westerns. Roy Rogers and Gene Autry. Heck, we had horses and cattle, we were cowboys!

I remember the first rodeo I entered I won the steer riding and placed in the team roping. I thought I would never see another poor day again and rodeo became an obsession for me. That’s all I wanted to do. I grew up rodeoing riding steers then progressing to bulls and broncs. What a blast, I was living my dream. Any time I was home I would saddle up a horse and head back into the park to ride miles and miles of unfenced natural wilderness. As kids it was common for my brothers and I to head out on our saddle horses leading a few pack horses with our grub and sleeping bags and head for the back country. My folks would ask, “How long are you gone for?” My answer, “Til our grub runs out!” There was another family that lived on the other side of the park that had also moved there from Banff National Park and they had two boys about our age. They would ride in from the north end of the park and we from the south and spend a few days exploring the back country. What an adventure. We were living our best life! So that’s how we spent our time back then, rodeoing and riding back in the hills. It was a wreck that I had while bronc riding that lead me to another passion I have, cutting horses. I broke my leg at a rodeo when a bronc kicked me. Back in those days sports medicine wasn’t so easily available and the local doctor casted the break and gave me a handful of pain killers and sent me on my way.

To make a long story short the leg healed an inch short and crooked and the only way they could fix it was rebreak the leg, plate it so it would heal straight. And they couldn’t do it for another six to eight months. A friend of mine was heading to Texas to work for a cutting horse trainer for the winter and asked me if I wanted to go with him. My leg was sore: I could ride just not ride broncs. I said sure and wound up working for a cutting horse trainer by the name of Harry Reeder. I learned a lot at Harry’s, the main thing being that I loved riding cutting horses. Harry ran a real cowboy outfit which suited me just fine. We rode six days a week with Sundays off for good behavior! I got the phone call in the spring that a date had been set for fixing my leg so I head back north to get it done. It took another six months before I could get back on the rodeo trail and return to saddle bronc riding. I always had it in the back of my mind that when I was done riding broncs I was going to ride and train cutting horses. While I was riding broncs I was also starting colts. It was through my travels that I heard about Ray Hunt and Buck Brannaman. When I was younger and starting colts if they wanted to buck, no big deal. I was a bronc rider wasn’t I? But as I got older I didn’t want to have a battle with my horses and started looking for a better way. Going to a Buck Brannaman clinic in Southern Montana totally changed my way of looking at my relationship with horses and sent me on a journey that I’m still on today.

I have come to realize that you never stop learning when you work with horses. Whether you are riding broncs, training cutting horses, or starting colts there is always something to learn and discover. Following my rodeo career, I returned to work for a guiding outfit packing supplies with a string of mules to their camps. My wife and I settled just outside of Longview Alberta, where we started our family. At that time I worked as a livestock brand inspector while also training horses for a myself and the public. Always striving to improve my horsemanship, roping, and cattle handling skills. I attended as many clinics as I could get to. We started hosting clinics at our ranch and soon I was asked to start doing clinics myself. These clinics have taken me all over western Canada as well as at home. These days we are keeping busy with a new venture “The Cowboy Campus” that allows me to share my passion for horsemanship and the western lifestyle with a much larger audience via the internet. “The Cowboy Campus” is the brainchild of my youngest daughter Shelby as she has the tech savvy to make it possible. So I’m pretty much doing what I’ve always done. Riding my horses, working my cattle and bison and heading to the mountains when ever possible. I feel my whole life has been an adventure and one I’m still on today.

Trent Schlamp (on working with Keith)

Working with Keith is the dream I didn’t know I had. When I started photography I wasn’t sure which direction it would take me, but I set out to make art. I found myself being strongly attracted to photographing horses, and western style, and I realized as I started down that path that very possibly it had to do with my childhood. I would spend many hours as a kid riding our horse all over the place, roping everything. It seems obvious now but I had left that all behind many years ago and never really thought about it. I began to photograph some cowgirls in my area, and even a rodeo or two, and then I asked Keith’s daughter Hailey if she would be interested in doing a creative photoshoot just for fun, and during that shoot I met Keith. The rest isn’t history yet because we’re in the middle of making it. And I hope you follow along and enjoy the ride with us!

linktr.ee/KeithStewart | trentschlamp.com | IG - trentschlamp

👉  This story excerpt is from Issue #15 of Kickin Up Dust magazine: March 2023.