When I came up to Calgary from Lethbridge in June ’97 for my first parade, well, let’s just say I wish I remembered more. The vodka was freely flowing the night before at Boystown, and a boy with icy blue eyes kept me up late, and the parade is a blur. I do know that my intended spectator-only status was derailed when said boy with blue eyes beckoned me from the group he was marching with and suddenly I found myself in a parade.
That wouldn’t be the last time.
In fact, by 2003, I was part of the group planning the parade, in a year that got derailed by the vilest transphobia, in a year that half the board up and quit within three months of the parade, in a year that sent myself scrambling to keep everything on track while emergency recruits like Mickey and Arron and Murray kept the society sound – and got us a much-overdue proclamation from then Mayor Smith.
My last time in a parade was 2014, when EVO was celebrating its first Edmonton pride. Then, the parade was downtown, right on 102 Avenue at the bar, and our circus float cheered so loudly as we rolled by the bar we were still just newly calling home. Torrential rain followed.
The parade then moved across the river and for a few reasons, we opted out of participating, although I was super honored to be asked to help judge the entries one year. Edmonton’s parade in 2019 was cancelled and while I do suspect it would have come back the next year, 2020 had different plans for Edmonton and the world.
Here we are five years past that now, and the new group running Pride Fest has taken the important first steps to bring back the parade. I sat down with Michael Phair and CTV a few weeks back to talk about the history of our parade and what the return means. Making this post mostly just as a way to share that link, because, you know, Meta gonna Meta
Read it here and read more about the history of Edmonton Pride here
Edmonton Pride Parade Returns
