I'm leaning against the wall of a seedy tavern in Williams Lake, British Columbia—a buckaroo town if ever there was one—waiting for two brothers to take me fishing, when a young cowboy ambles up. We're dressed alike: cowboy hat, boots, Western shirt, Wrangler jeans, and a big, shiny belt buckle. "You're from National Geographic, ain't ya?" he says.

"Why are you asking?" I respond with surprise.

"Because you're wearing an out-of-town hat."

Slightly embarrassed, I survey the bar's clientele and realize he's right. I'm wearing a beat-up, black Stetson I'd bought years ago in Pendleton, Oregon. It's the only one of its kind in the room.

The young man told me that when new ranch hands show up at work, locals check out their hat, boots, chaps, rope, saddle, bridle and bit, and can tell where they're from. Their gear is a giveaway; it's made to function in the terrain where they work.

"If it's not functionable, it's not worth wearing," says Colter Schlosser, a cowboy from British Columbia. But function and fashion are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Look at the photo of Schlosser, and you'll see what I mean. This month, Robert Draper and Robb Kendrick decode the elegant appearance of a Canadian buckaroo and the no-frills look of his Texas counterpart. Cowboys and their gear are hardly stuck in the past. Everything evolves in response to the demands of economics and the push of technology. Computer-based ear-tagging aside, some things never change—like the telltale shape of a hat.

Just ask a buckaroo from Williams Lake.

Photograph by Robb Kendrick