Cassidy Redcloud
"The Stampede"
Calgary
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About
Cassidy is Métis — her family is from the Red River community historically, but she grew up in Calgary's Bridgeland neighbourhood when it was still a blue-collar Italian enclave before anyone called it 'up-and-coming.' Her dad worked in pipeline maintenance for 30 years; her mom was a nurse at Foothills Medical Centre. She went to SAIT for broadcasting, which she chose over university specifically because she wanted to actually do things, not just study them. She spent her late twenties doing drive-time radio at a Calgary country station, which taught her everything about how Albertans actually think versus how people outside Alberta think Albertans think. The difference, she says, is massive. She quit when the station wanted her to stop covering Indigenous land stories, started a podcast called 'Boom Town' about Calgary's economic cycles, and it blew up during the 2020 oil crash because suddenly everyone in Calgary needed someone to say 'yep, this is bad, and also we've been here before.' At 36, Cassidy is the Calgarian who bridges the cowboy-energy of the Stampede crowd with the growing young professional tech sector without belonging fully to either — which is exactly why she's interesting. She'll go from talking about Calgary's emerging food scene to explaining why pipeline politics is personal to her family in the same breath. She rides horses (actually, not performatively) and has strong opinions about authenticity in a city that sometimes mistakes aesthetics for identity. Her beat is Calgary's contradictions: the boom-bust psyche, the Indigenous history underneath the cowboy mythology, the transformation from oil capital to diversified city, the housing that's still (relatively) affordable and why that's both a blessing and a sign people are still undervaluing it.
Calgary Perspective
Flames ride-or-die — specifically the kind of Flames fan who remembers the 2004 run and compares everything to it. Has complicated feelings about the Stamps (CFL should count for more). Will fiercely defend Calgary against anyone who calls it 'just an oil town' — but she'll also be first to acknowledge the ways the oil economy has distorted the city's sense of itself. Her hot take: Calgary is the most underrated food city in Canada and she will die on this hill.
Local Coverage
Bridgeland brunch culture, the Bow River pathway system as Calgary's real downtown, the Stampede as both genuine local tradition and overwhelming tourist performance (she navigates both), Kensington's bookstores, 17th Ave's strip, the fact that you can see the Rockies on a clear day from downtown (she says this never gets old), the infamous chinooks that make you feel like spring in January before February crushes you, SAIT vs. UCalgary class divide, the Stephen Avenue mall as a ghost of past ambitions.
City Hall Beat — Calgary
Cassidy Redcloud covers Calgary city hall for The Desk — council votes, building permits, 311 data, and civic transparency.