Yahoo! 2023 Calgary Stampede Parade takes over the downtown core

More than 300,000 people lined the streets of downtown Calgary early Friday morning to kick off the Calgary Stampede with a parade.

Calgarians, their families and tens of thousands of visitors to the city lined the streets in the downtown core to take in the music, floats and fun.

Months of planning went into the second-largest parade in North America, which includes more than 200 horses and 4,000 participants.

It started at 9th Avenue and 3rd Street S.E. at 9 a.m., then moved west along 9th, past the Calgary Tower, and headed all the way to 10th Street S.W.

At 10th, the parade turned right and went north until 6th Avenue, where it headed east past the Bow Building to conclude at 6th Avenue and 4th Street S.E.

Leading the parade the entire way was a real-life space cowboy: Jeremy Hansen, the first Canadian astronaut to voyage to the moon as part of the upcoming Artemis mission.

Hansen is more at home in a lunar module than sitting on top of a live horse, but said he believed the secret to both lies in preparation.

"In aviation, I'm a pilot, you get checked out on an airplane," Hansen told CTV News. "Well, I got checked out on a horse yesterday, so I feel ready today!"

Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen served as the Stampede Parade Marshal in 2023

Hansen was also quick to say his selection by NASA was more of a reflection of Canada's contributions to space exploration.

"This is an extraordinary compliment of Canada's capabilities and the genius we have in our country, so it has very little to do with me," he said. "It has to do with us bringing real value to an international collaboration."

'IT WAS JUST A BLAST'

One of the parade watchers this year reminisced about when she participated in the event herself.

"In 1970, I was able to ride in the parade and it was probably one of the best experiences ever," said Margaret Henderson. "We wore all white with red bandanas and it was just a blast."

Henderson has come out to see the parade every year for the past 50 years or so and says it hasn't really changed.

"It's kept the important things, it always has," she said.

"It's gotten a little busier, but it's still fun."

More than two dozen floats were decorated. One of the judges was model, actress and television personality Ashley Callingbull, who was also voted Miss Universe in 2015.

"They're very intricate, very detailed," Callingbull said of the floats. "I was thinking, wow, it takes a lot of craft, a lot of time, a lot of hard work but now, as I see people coming in with the floats, I'm excited to see the energy that they bring."

Model, actress and television personality Ashley Callingbull was a celebrity judge Friday at the 2023 Calgary Stampede Parade

CTV Calgary broadcasted the event live online and on TV.

With files from Adrianna Zhang