Thousands celebrate Sikh spring festival of Vaisakhi in Calgary
Posted May 10, 2026 10:33 am.
Last Updated May 10, 2026 10:34 am.
Tens of thousands of Sikhs in Calgary held the colourful Nagar Kirtan procession Saturday, to promote the religion’s core values of community, selfless service and unity.
Marking one of the holiest days of the year in the Sikh faith, the words ‘Nagar Kirtan’ translate to town and holy hymns.
Devotees escort their holy book through town while singing devotional songs, symbolically following in their Guru’s footsteps.
“Vaisakhi is actually a month, a season, in India where they actually will cultivate crops. But in the context of Sikhism, it’s about the creation of the Khalsa Panth or when the religion of Sikhism was formalized into an actual order under Guru Gobind Singh Ji,” said medical team volunteer Ramneet Singh.
A trained nurse, Singh is volunteering with the medical team as a way to practice selfless service.
“It’s important to me because at the end of the day, nothing else really matters, right. So, helping others — when you do something for someone that they can’t do for themselves, the feeling you get out of that, I haven’t been able to replicate that with anything else,” he said.
The parade, starting at the Dashmesh Culture Centre and ending at Prairie Winds Park, is open to everyone. In service to the community, the Gurudwara offers free vegetarian food to all attendees.
“My friends and family, we come together every year. Our parents usually come, but our grandmas are sick at home. But it’s just nice to see all the floats, see all the things going on, the festivities, and a lot of people. There’s great food too, and ya, just looking at all the floats, the shabads that they do, it’s really nice,” said Manjot Kaur Bansal.
A resident says he enjoys the festival and seeing how active the community is.
“I know the community is very involved in giving, in charities, and gets involved in community clean-ups. There’s always stuff going on at the temple, so I like it,” James Bushell said.
This is the second-largest event in Calgary after the Stampede, with Calgary Police expecting up to 80,000 people.
According to Statistics Canada, after India, Canada is home to the second-largest Sikh community in the world.
