Hotels around Yellowknife
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About Yellowknife
Yellowknife is the capital of the Northwest Territories and sits on the north shore of Great Slave Lake. The city has around twenty thousand residents, and its queer community is small but well organized. The main event of the year is the Yellowknife Pride Parade, held in June. It gathers at Somba K’e Park in the city centre, where the celebration continues after the march.
The parade takes place every year. It is organized by the Yellowknife Pride group together with the Northern Mosaic Network, which hosts a free barbecue in the park afterwards. Most participants walk the route, while others ride in decorated vehicles, including a drag truck. Hundreds of people turn out even when the June wind is still chilly. Music, vendors and activities for kids round out the afternoon.
Around the parade, a Pride month with other formats has grown up. There is a Pride golf tournament at the Yellowknife Golf Club and a ball hockey tournament open to queer people and their allies at every skill level. The Northern Mosaic Network adds its own June programming, such as online sessions on art as self-expression and on self-care. Other communities in the territory celebrate too: Inuvik holds its own parade, and in Fort Smith the Frank Gruben Pride Festival remembers a missing 2SLGBTQ+ community member from Aklavik.
The history of the organized community goes back further. Long before NWT Pride existed, a group called OutNorth shaped queer life in Yellowknife. It grew out of the national organization EGALE, lobbied the city and territorial governments for gay and lesbian rights, and held Pride events at the Explorer Hotel. One of its successes was the city’s official adoption of a Pride Day in the nineties. People who were there describe a community largely led by women, with big parties on houseboats.
Anyone visiting in June can combine the parade with the long days of the northern summer. Dates for individual events are announced on the channels of Yellowknife Pride and the Northern Mosaic Network.
From the magazine
Magnus Hirschfeld and His Institute: What Was Lost on 6 May 1933
Long before Stonewall, Berlin had a place where homosexual people found advice and recognition. How the Institute for Sexual Science began and why it was destroyed in 1933.
Harvey Milk and Proposition 6: The November 1978 Victory
In 1978 a California ballot measure would have forced queer teachers out of public schools. Harvey Milk fought it, and voters rejected it. What happened and what it has to do with Pride.
Brenda Howard and the Pride Week: Who Turned a Memorial March into a Tradition
After Stonewall, a march marked the anniversary in 1970, and later a whole week. Brenda Howard is named as one of the people behind it. What is documented and where the title Mother of Pride stays disputed.