Calgary (in the province of Alberta, Canada) has oil riches, much like Houston, Texas. Calgary also has a rodeo and cattle tradition, much like the cowboys and the steakhouses of Texas.
     
The province of Alberta has long been called “the Texas of Canada” and “Texas North.”   
   
The city of Calgary has been called “Houston North” or “Houston of the North” or “Little Houston” since at least the 1970s.
 
 
Wikipedia: Calgary
Calgary (IPA: /ˈkælgəriː/) is the largest city in the province of Alberta, Canada. It is located in the south of the province, in a region of foothills and high plains, approximately 80 kilometres (50 mi) east of the front ranges of the Canadian Rockies. Calgary is the third largest civic municipality, by population, in Canada. As of the 2007 civic census, Calgary’s population was 1,019,942. The metropolitan population (CMA) was 1,079,310 in 2006, making Greater Calgary the fifth largest Census Metropolitan Area in the country. Because it is located 300 kilometres (185 mi) due south of Edmonton, statisticians define the narrow populated region between these cities as the “Calgary-Edmonton Corridor”. It is the largest Canadian metropolitan area between Toronto and Vancouver. 
   
Wikipedia: Houston, Texas
Houston (pronounced /ˈhjuːstən/) is the fourth-largest city in the United States of America and the largest city within the state of Texas. As of the 2006 U.S. Census estimate, the city has a population of 2.14 million within an area of 600 square miles (1,600 km²). Houston is the seat of Harris County and an economic center of the Houston–Sugar Land–Baytown metropolitan area—the sixth-largest metropolitan area in the U.S. with a population of more than 5.5 million.
     
Alberta Travel Guide, Canada
Calgary guide: a kind of Houston-of-the-north, Calgary is a prairie oil town that hosts the world’s greatest western extravaganza, the Calgary Stampede every July, see Festivals.
 
21 July 1970, Brownsville (TX) Herald, pg. 4, col. 8:
Mr. Tankaos points to the planning of the Canadian city of Calgary, in Alberta, where the population has surged from 50,000 to 400,000 to keep pace with the oil boom. As a “little Houston” on North Country soil, Calgary has made a unique use of the arcade approach; the building of shopping malls is done at the second-story level, with bridges arching over the streets to carry the undercover pedestrian from block to block.
             
Google Books
The Last of the Free Enterprisers:
The Oilmen of Calgary
by John Douglas House
Toronto: Macmillan of Canada
Institute of Canadian Studies, Carleton University
1979
Pg. 1:
The city is now firmly established as the “Houston of the North”, the heart of exploratory activities for the oil industry in Canada.
 
14 January 1979, New York (NY) Times, “Canada’s Separatists Are Not Only in Quebec” by Andrew H. Malcolm, pg. E3:
(A box shows “Alberta: Canada’s Texas”—ed.)
Photo caption:
Calgary, Canada’s boomtown and “Houston North,” has a skyline dotted with new corporate towers. 
 
Google Books
The Mark of the Scots
by Duncan A. Bruce
Secaucus, NJ: Carol Publishing Group
1996
Pg. 79:
Calgary, the Houston of the North, was founded in 1875 as a fort for the Northwest Mounted Police by Col. James F. Macleod, who named the place after his wife’s hometown on the Island of Mull.
 
Google Groups: rec.autos.sport.indy
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport.indy
From: “Jason Hoehn”
Date: 1999/08/25
Subject: Re: Just say not to TG  
 
Calgary,....
Lotsa cowboys horses, cows and horseshit big skyscrapers and yuppie scum in this city, Houston of the north,... 
 
Google Groups: rec.autos.sport.car
Newsgroups: rec.autos.sport.cart
From: Barry Posner