'You have to adapt': Punk rock concerts, wrestling events keep Calgary legion afloat

Phil MacAulay has been a member of the Royal Canadian Legion for the past 50 years, and even he's surprised at the measures his local branch has taken to keep the 103-year-old building alive.

The Calgary No. 1 Branch, nestled among towering downtown office buildings along the busy light rail track, predates the legion itself.

It opened in 1922 as the Great War Veterans Association. It became the Canadian Legion of the British Empire Service League in 1925 then a branch of the Royal Canadian Legion in 1961.

The legion will mark its 100th anniversary next year.

Membership has dwindled from about 3,500 in the 1970s to 425 now. The facility has been hit by a number of emergency repairs, including the need for a new roof. Many older members are nervous about the somewhat isolated location and tend to head home before nightfall.

MacAulay, 72, is its president. Despite the challenges, he says, the No. 1 is still solvent because it rents itself out as a music venue. 

It recently held a big Halloween bash and a punk rock concert. It also hosts Sled Island, an annual independent music and arts festival. 

"It's mostly music venues that participate in bringing in what we need … and the businessmen's dart clubs," said MacAulay, who served in the Navy and moved from Nova Scotia.

"It keeps the doors open when we host those sort of events. We'll rent to anybody," he said with a chuckle.

Entering the building, there's a faint smell of stale beer. A sign points to the "Barber shop, Shoe Shine and Snooker" to the right. A long, unused barber's chair and hair dryer is in one room. Nearby an old shoe shine stand sits, unused for decades.

MacAulay said another popular event is wrestling, which is held once a month.

"The wrestling started about three years ago and then came what I call the headbanging music … the raves I guess you'd call them ... they can be quite interesting," he said.

"Usually I'm not here for those events … too loud … too old. I still got good hearing, and that's the problem."

Opening legion membership for anyone to join was a necessary move, said MacAulay

"I think it helped probably more for the outside smaller branches and rural communities than it helped the bigger branches inside of cities," MacAulay added.

"It's probably lost a little bit of its roots in a way, but something had to be done."

Nujma Bond, the national spokesperson for the legion in Ottawa, said branches across the country are doing well and there's a national membership of 270,000 — an increase for the third year in a row. It has gone up 20,000 since 2023, she added.

"There had been a decline, and so a few years ago that reversed and we're seeing an upswing in membership again," Bond said. "It's really exciting."

Membership was at its height in 1984 with 600,000 across the country.

Bond said individual branches have a lot of autonomy and the organization realizes the importance of change.

"The legion is very adaptable. Branches are very adaptable," Bond said.

"They're figuring out what might work best in their communities and sometimes they may amalgamate with another branch, sometimes they may renovate totally, or they may sell their location and try to move elsewhere."

Brittany Johnson, president of the legion branch in Yorkton, Sask., said she joined as a member six years ago in honour of her grandfather, a Second World War veteran. She also has family members serving in the military.

It has 120 members and Johnson, 36, said its finances are strong because it sold its building a couple of years before the COVID-19 pandemic. It now rents a space.

"I hope that other legions, if they're having issues with their building and they're unable to pay for these large repairs, that they can explore other ways to keep their branches alive."

Johnson said most members are associate members, meaning they had family in the military. But each additional person who joins helps.

"You have to adapt," she said.

"I'm glad the legion has opened their doors to younger people and the people who don't have an affiliation at all with the military but just want to do something and believe in a cause," she said. 

"It's definitely something that needs to keep happening."

Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh