Traveling Cowboys: Wing Night With the Two Cowboys in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta, Canada

Waterton Wing Night Wings

"Wing Night is a ceremonial and sacred evening during which many chicken wings will be eaten by a gathering of gluttonous friends. Each step of the preparation and consumption of the wings is carefully orchestrated and held holy. Deviation from tradition (i.e. inviting your girlfriend, not eating til breathing is difficult, leaving early, not toasting the first wing, not getting everyone a beer when yours is finished or you get up, bringing non-wing food to the gathering, de-winging during the meal) is strictly and violently forbidden. The only consumables other than chicken wings welcome at wing night are blue cheese dressing, celery stalks, and beer - lots and lots of beer."

We checked in with three establishments in Waterton Lakes National Park's Town Site to find more out about their wing offerings. We were spoiled for choice in what is essentially a really small town. Here is what we found.

DO YOU YOU WANT YOUR WINGS FEATURED?

Zum's Eatery and Mercantile 

Zum's is an institution when it comes to southern-style fried chicken in Waterton. As a result, their chicken wings didn't disappoint. They know their chicken. It was lightly breaded, well cooked and succulent to the bone.

The sauce didn't have the kick we were looking for. Instead, it had the flavour that complemented the wing nicely. The challenge with southern-style wings is that it is a rich wing. You will have to pace yourself not to fill up too quickly.

Is it a typical Wing Night wing? For the Cowboys, it needed more heat and we will probably not run out of beer, as you should when having Zum's hot wings. It is more your Sunday lunch kind of wing. Add the restaurant's amazing patio and scenery and you have a must-do stop in Waterton where you can take the whole family for fried chicken.

Thirsty Bear Kitchen and Bar

The Thirsty Bear is the Bar and a favourite hangout in Waterton. All bars need hot wings on the menu at the Thirsty Bear didn't disappoint.

The Cowboys would have liked to have a few more than three choices of wings on the menu. Considering the gourmet-feel the rest of the menu offers patrons, it may have made the choices too hard. We usually get distracted by the Truffle Mac n Cheese. If there was a way to dip our wings in that we may just have gotten ourselves into trouble.

For this particular occasion, we tried the hot wings. It came with a unique Dill Dip (get the Aussie to say it ;-)) that was almost as good as the Mac n Cheese. Go for the dip when you visit! The wings needed more heat to be classified Cowboy hot, which is probably acceptable given the delicate flavours of the dip.

The Thirst Bear stands out for its excellent selection in craft beers. If Shameer's cook can make the wings hotter, they may just get us to drink (a lot more) of the delicious local beer.

Trappers Mountain Grill

If there is one place that spared no expense in laying out the red carpet for the Cowboys it was Steve West and the crew at Trappers. Here comes the disclaimer: You will probably need a VIP access pass to the Trappers' inner circle to get the buttery smokey gourmet wings laid out for us during our visit. What we tasted was from Trappers' test kitchen. We took one for the team and every bite was worth it!

I think we convinced Steve to put the new flavour wings on the menu if he can manage to repeat the feat and make the food cost work. A lot of labour and love went into making these wings and it was the most flavourful wings we've tasted thus far.

Steve is not going to like what comes next. Sorry, Steve, we needed more heat. Not burning heat. Rather, more flavour heat. Something that made us thirsty. The beers were huge and icy cold and we were dearly looking for an excuse to have even more beer. We didn't get it. We ended up looking for more wings instead!

Observations

Waterton has a variety of food establishments and a great community of people. While chicken wings may not (yet) be a good reason to make the trip, who knows, it may become one in the future.

Please support Waterton's businesses. Say hello to the people of Zums, Thirsty Bear and Trappers. Tell them the Two Cowboys sent you and ask for parmesan with your wings.

We thank them all sincerely for indulging us while we are trying to find the best Wing Night wings in Canada and hope they will have us back after seeing and reading the above.

Hendrik van Wyk

Winging Cowboy

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Photos

Zum's Wings

Trappers Wings

Thirsty Bear Wings

Winning Wings!

Traveling Cowboys: Winging Wing Night in Canada - Finding the Perfect Wings and Beer with the Two Cowboys

Becoming Canadian

There are two ways how Canada let you in and accept you into its inner circle. No matter where you come from in the world, if you participate in these two sacred rites, you are Canadian! No, bashing the kid (Justin Trudeau) is not the way to do it.

The surest way to become Canadian is through a game of shinny (social ice hockey) with a few oldtimers. This is the hardest way to learn to understand Canada. Especially, when you are from a warm country and never learned to ice skate in the first place. With ice hockey, comes a unique language and an understanding of its people. An understanding that will continue to elude you unless you are willing to step into a stinky locker room, suit up with frozen hockey gear, lace up your skates and step onto the hockey ice. Don't ever expect to keep up. Instead, you are bound to become their comic relief in perpetuity. Canadians will respect you for it and you will have the bruises to prove it.

The second, and a less painful way (which is debatable) is when you are invited to wing night on hump day. This is a story about surviving wing night in Canada.

DO YOU YOU WANT YOUR DESTINATION OR BUSINESS FEATURED?

I realize that we may be using highly technical Canadian vernacular in this post. Therefore, before we go any further, we have to provide insight into the complicated concepts associated with the phenomena. Firstly, wing night is usually on hump day.

Hump day is the middle of a work week. It is usually Wednesday when your week starts on a Monday. The term is used in the context of climbing a proverbial hill to get through a tough week. After hump day, the weekend gets closer. Depending on your age and degree of attachment, it can also be your lucky day. However, if you do wing night on hump day, then your lucky day is probably on Sunday. The bottom line is, regardless of your luck, that hump day calls for a celebration. That is why you do wing night on hump day.

No one is sure when it started. I am not aware of any official society that sets policy or lay down the rules. However, it is commonly accepted that wing night is a ceremonial and sacred evening during which many chicken wings will be eaten by a gathering of gluttonous friends.

Each step of the preparation and consumption of the wings is carefully orchestrated and held holy. The recipes are kept secret by a devoted few man cave dwelling culinary experts that opt to prepare their own. Else, a local favourite watering hole is the likely destination of choice. Just because there is no formal fraternity, it doesn't mean there are no rules. Wing night comes with a rich tradition of ritual. Deviation from tradition is strictly and violently forbidden. For example, inviting your girlfriend, not eating until breathing is difficult and all wings are done, leaving early, not toasting the first wing, not getting everyone a beer when yours is finished or when you get up prematurely, bringing non-wing food to the gathering, de-winging during the meal are all unforgivable sins that can be punished through excommunication.

The only consumables other than chicken wings welcome at wing night are blue cheese dressing (ranch dressing for the weaker and cheaper amongst us), celery stalks, carrot sticks and beer - lots and lots of beer.

The wing of choice is Buffalo. A Buffalo wing is an unbreaded chicken wing section (flat or drumette) that is generally deep-fried then coated in a sauce consisting of a vinegar-based cayenne pepper hot sauce and melted butter, before serving. The texture of a perfect wing is crispy on the outside, soft and well-cooked on the inside. The secret is all in the sauce. It should come with plenty of heat and a plethora of rich and surprising flavours. The sauce distinguishes the successful wing from the rest.

You will also need the beer - lots of ice cold beer. Preferably, a lighter beer that can keep up with the cooling demands of patrons.

Observations

Every wing night bolsters and perpetuates in us an adoration for this land and its people. Canada and Canadians took us in and made us a part of them when they invited us for wing night. As a result, we are now Canadian. Now we can welcome you too to come with us for an experience of a lifetime.

Be prepared. You are going to cry and gasp for air at your first wing night. There is nothing you can do about it. It is a shock to any sane person's system to consume food that is blazingly hot and in such large quantities. As you settle in, the hurt will become familiar, and you will cherish the cooler soothing moments of the beer. In time you will come to look forward to the pain until it eventually turns bizarrely pleasurable. Then you realize that you are either crazy or adequately drunk. The morning after will tell. Come to think of it, wing night has a lot in common with the ordinary flow of life!

The only advice we can give is that you keep a big jar of Vaseline handy and the softest toilet paper you can buy. One can never have enough toilet paper.

We are taking the Two Cowboys Wing Night show on the road this Summer, to discover how this ritual event plays out across our towns in Western Canada, and maybe even the world. We are inviting you along for the journey and hope to meet you at your favourite spot for your beloved wings with friends.

Hendrik van Wyk

Hot Cowboy

We earn our livelihood by producing great content and supporting inspiring people, businesses, and communities. Please book us here so we can tell your story too.