BUILDING ON TRADITION Our spotlight is on Alberta Boot Co

BUILDING ON TRADITION CALGARY’S ALBERTA BOOT COMPANY MOVES AHEAD WITH ITS UNWAVERING FOCUS ON QUALITY CRAFTSMANSHIP .

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Story & Photos by Piper Whelan

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Inside Alberta Boot Company’s on-site factory, the iconic Calgary brand is carrying on a family tradition, now in its third generation. The scent of leather and the sound of machines used for more than 40 years provide a backdrop for the skilled boot makers working on the various stages of handcrafting western boots. This attention to detail and the care shown in constructing boots by hand contribute to this company’s longevity and fame in the Calgary area.

“A lot of people, if they’re from Calgary or from the area and have been around for a long time, chances are maybe they had a pair of our boots or they know somebody who has,” said Ben Gerwing, president of Alberta Boot Company. “So it’s pretty neat to be part of the fabric of the city.”

Alberta Boot Company was established in 1978 by Gerwing’s grandfather, Clement Gerwing. The elder Gerwing grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan and led an interesting career path, from flying in the Royal Canadian Air Force during the Second World War to starting his own fly-fishing and crop spraying companies. He moved his family to Calgary in the 1960s and bought into a wholesale footwear company that sold a wide range of shoes.

“Over Stampede time every summer, there was always a large demand for cowboy boots,” said Gerwing. “Whether it was out of Mexico or eastern Canada or the States, he didn’t like the quality that he was able to bring in.”

It was then that his grandfather, in his late 50s at this point, decided to launch his own line of boots at home in Calgary to provide a better-quality product to his customers. When he started this venture, he was told it wouldn’t succeed and that manufacturing in Canada would be difficult, but he knew he could make something from this opportunity. “Here we are 42 years later,” said Gerwing. “We’re still making boots the same way.”

Alberta Boot Company is one of three Canadian western boot makers in regular manufacturing, and the only one in

Alberta. In addition to cowboy boots, they manufacture dress and casual boots and police boots. The brand is known for its custom creations, which make up about a quarter of the boots produced each year. “We can go anywhere from very minor detail to very wild, so we’ve made some pretty neat stuff over the years.”

They generally produce approximately 3,000 to just less than 4,000 pairs of boots per year, depending on the type of boot and the year itself. “It sounds like quite a bit, but there’s… factories that’ll pump that out in a day. So in the grand scheme of things, it’s relatively small,” said Gerwing.

More than 200 steps go into every pair of boots they make. A custom order will generally take around four to six weeks, Gerwing explained. “We could do it a little quicker than that, but we have to go through every single stage,” he said. “There’s certain things that we can’t rush.” Every pair of boots is made from full leather for durability and eye appeal, with humans at the helm of the machines used for cutting, sewing and lasting.

Their customers range greatly in age and background, from those wanting a pair to wear during the Calgary Stampede, to those who live the western lifestyle every day. “We’ve dealt with multi-billionaires who have come through the doors over the years, and then people who are just working a couple jobs to support the family, but they want to do something to treat themselves for all the hard work they put in,” said Gerwing. “Young and old and anything in between, we can pretty much fit up anybody who comes in the store, and personally we think everybody deserves a good, well-made pair of boots.”

You’ve also seen their work as part of the most recognizable Canadian symbols: the dress uniform of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Alberta Boot has been the exclusive manufacturer of the RCMP riding boot for all of Canada since 1999, a point of pride for the company. They’ve also made other police and military boots throughout the years.

Another noteworthy project is creating boots for the Calgary Stampede Royalty each year, and the “tipi boot” for the First Nations Princess is particularly special to create. “[We] chat with the ladies and look back at the history from their family, different tipis in their family, and kind of incorporate it into a cowboy boot, which is really neat.”

Hydraulic cutting machines and specially sized knives are used to cut out the leather pieces required to make a specific pair of boots, and some pieces are cut by hand.

Shoe lasts determine the size, width, heel height and toe style of a boot, and while most of their lasts are now plastic, the company still uses some wooden lasts made in the 1940s and ‘50s.

Alberta Boot Company has manufactured the iconic Strathcona Boot for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police since 1999.

They’ve made boots for several movies and TV shows, for celebrities and dignitaries of all walks of life and even the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge upon their 2011 tour of Canada. The brand was also named the official western boot of the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary.

The Calgary Stampede drives a huge percentage of their sales, and this demand has sustained the business for many years. “I’ll be the first to admit, if we didn’t have a Stampede, we probably wouldn’t be around,” said Gerwing. “We pretty much produce boots year-round to get ready for Stampede because we’ll sell more than half of our retail number in the weeks leading up to and during Stampede.”

Having a connection to this Calgary institution and southern Alberta’s heritage is a big part of the brand’s identity, and their boots are sought after by locals and international visitors alike. With the COVID-19 pandemic leading to the cancellation of the 2020 Calgary Stampede, however, Gerwing noted that this has been a tough year for the company, with sales down by more than 70 per cent. “This year has been very difficult,” he said. “If we didn’t have that RCMP contract right now, chances are we wouldn’t be around anymore.”

Even in the face of a challenging year, Gerwing is proud of Alberta Boot Company’s reputation for creating boots that are built to last, using full leather for their construction. “As far as a product that is designed to last and go for a long time, there’s really nothing that compares to one of our boots in that respect,” he said.

“That boot that you get from us, you can wear that for many, many years, and if you ever go through that outsole you can bring it back to us, we’ll do a full resoling on them,” he continued.

“We’ve had customers who have bought their boots within the first year or two of us being around that still have that original pair – so boots that are over 40-years-old, they might have had one or two resoles on them, and they’re still going strong.”

Being able to find that kind of quality in your own community is one of the advantages of buying from local businesses, and Gerwing has seen this shift in perspective influence the shopping choices of the brand’s customers.

“We’ve definitely seen a big push of people in last couple years more to the buy local, support local [movement],” he said, adding that this ties into the increased focus on supporting small, local businesses during the pandemic. “A lot of people have been looking at where all their products are coming from and thinking, ‘well, why not support something closer to home?’”

This is even more meaningful as Gerwing takes the family company into the future. “I’m pretty happy that I’m third generation here. Moving a business from first to second generation, it’s a pretty high percentage of moving over, but from second to third it’s a massive drop-off. So it’s kind of neat that I can continue on the Alberta Boot legacy.”