Edmonton Queer History Project launches historical website, walking tours and podcast
'It's so important ... to remember the different moments in time that led up to being able to live so freely'
Edmonton Queer History Project has launched new tools to help put a spotlight on the city's rich LGBTQ stories, including a website, a downtown map, walking tours and a podcast.
The initiatives took two years to complete.
Japkaran Saroya, a member of the project who worked on the Pride historical timeline, told CBC's Edmonton AM Tuesday that digging through the past was an eye-opening experience.
"It was so interesting to see so many stories that I never knew about or a lot of the movement that happened that helped a lot of queer people gain equality in Edmonton," Saroya said.
The downtown queer history map features 27 sites of historical significance to Edmonton's LGBTQ community including Club 70, Edmonton's first official gay bar; Pisces Health Spa, a bathhouse raided by police in 1981 leading to 56 men getting charged; and Secrets, a bar for Edmonton's lesbian community that opened in the late 1990s.
The podcast, From Here To Queer, is hosted by Edmonton's Darrin Hagen. The first episode, featuring long-time activist and former city councillor Michael Phair, is already available on the website.
It's essential to learn about past struggles which paved the way for the current generation for queer youth, like himself, Saroya said.
"I think it's so important for people to remember the different moments in time that led up to being able to live so freely and expressively today," he said.
This part of history is not taught in schools, said project lead Kristopher Wells.
"Part of this project is about honouring those courageous people and groups that have come together to build the city that we know and love today," Wells said.
The work required reaching out to people "to open up their closets, so to speak, and share items from Edmonton's queer history past with us," he said.
The history project first launched in 2015 with an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Alberta to celebrate the 35th anniversary of Edmonton's Pride Festival.
After researching for years, they decided to put all the information together in an accessible way for the public.
Future projects include erecting queer heritage signs at 27 locations in Edmonton, adding more sites to the map and developing a coffee-table book featuring the people, places and moments that shaped the city's queer history.