It’s queer history month. The Day of Pink ECHO Tour is travelling across Canada, bringing together powerful storytellers, poets, activists, and community leaders to share the 2SLGBTQIA+ stories that once faced censorship—and still fight for space today.
The ECHO Tour lands in Calgary on Friday, October 17th, at 6:30 PM at the Central Library. Get your free tickets here.
ECHO Tour’s YYC poster
As someone who’s been telling queer stories in Calgary for years, I’m honoured to share the stage with Libby Davies, Adrienne Rosen, and Boban Stojanović to reflect on 25 years of resistance, recognition, and change in Canadian queer history.
From courtrooms to bookstores, family tables to federal law, queer and trans voices have always resisted silence. This tour honours that resistance, marking 25 years since two defining moments in Canadian queer history:
The Supreme Court case Little Sisters Bookstore v. Canada
The passing of the Modernization of Benefits and Obligations Act
But this tour is not just about the past—it’s about the stories still echoing now. Stories that shape who we are and where we go next.
It’s more than an event — it’s a space to listen, connect, and celebrate voices that have shaped our communities.
October is queer history month! Join the Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen and poet Skylar Kay on a history walk through the Beltline. We will highlight significant political and social events that affected the 2SLGBTQ+ community—with poetry! The walk on Thursday, October 2, at 5 PM, begins and ends at the Memorial Park Library (1221 2nd St. SW).
Registration is free through the Calgary Public Library: here (spaces limited).
Kevin Allen is a fourth-generation Calgarian who has been documenting and profiling queer people and events for 30+ years. Kevin started the Calgary Gay History Project in 2012 to uncover and preserve stories from Calgary’s 2SLGBTQ+ past. The Project has achieved national recognition and led to the award-winning documentary film Gross Indecency: The Everett Klippert Story and the best-selling book Our Past Matters: Stories of Gay Calgary.
Skylar Kay is an Albertan poet and grad school dropout. Her debut collection, Transcribing Moonlight (Frontenac House 2022), earned a shortlist nod for the Gerald Lampert Memorial Award for Poetry and won the BPAA’s Robert Kroetsch Award for Poetry. Her second collection of poetry will come out in fall 2025. She received a 2024 Lieutenant Governor Emerging Artist Award. These days, she likes baking muffins, tolerating her cat, and reading as much poetry as possible.
Kevin and Skylar thank the Calgary Public Library for hosting this event! Please join us.
The Calgary Gay History Project’s Kevin Allen is popping up at The Confluence on Thursday, August 21, in their Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History series.
{Next week, we will profile history programming at Calgary Pride Week 2025—shout out to The Scene Magazine’s recent YYC queer history article: WHERE’S THE GAYBOURHOOD? by Alicia L’Archevêque.}
Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History
The Confluence writes: “Did queerness exist on the Prairies before Pride flags lined downtown streets? Absolutely. But colonial records rarely captured it. When they did, it was usually through a distorted lens of shame, scandal, or silence. Yet behind the Victorian façades of early Calgary, members of the 2SLGBTQ+ community were integral to the rapidly growing community, even as they faced significant disdain and persecution from the dominant (non-Indigenous) culture.
This August at Hot Dogs & Hot Takes on History, join local author and historian Kevin Allen from the Calgary Gay History Project for an eye-opening look at Calgary’s colonial era through a 2SLGBTQ+ lens. Kevin will take you through the intriguing story of Jean L’Heureux, a 19th-century Catholic linguist who was adopted into a Blackfoot community that accepted his queerness that faced rejection from settler society. Kevin will also discuss the coded language of queerness in the absence of words to name it, and how queer immigrants, outcasts, and ranchers helped form an underground network in the West.
Queerness isn’t new, and neither is the attempt to erase it. This conversation will uncover how queer identities, though policed and hidden, have always been present, and how reclaiming these stories builds bridges between marginalized communities today. Come for the hot dogs, stay for the radical rethinking of Calgary’s past.”
Get your tickets here, and buy a hot dog with sea salt chips for $5 at the event {yum!}
About the Guests
Kevin Allen (Panelist)
Kevin Allen is a fourth-generation Calgarian who has been documenting and profiling queer people and events for over 30 years. Kevin started the Calgary Gay History Project in 2012 to uncover and preserve stories from Calgary’s 2SLGBTQ+ past (www.calgarygayhistory.ca). The Project has achieved national recognition, leading to the award-winning documentary film “Gross Indecency: The Everett Klippert Story” and the best-selling book “Our Past Matters: Stories of Gay Calgary.” Additionally, Kevin works as a senior election administrator for both Elections Canada and Elections Alberta.
Jennifer Thompson (Moderator)
With a passion for supporting social justice causes, equity-seeking communities and Calgary’s arts scene, Jennifer Thompson is transforming The Confluence into an arts and culture hub that makes space for diverse voices and perspectives.
Thompson has worked across the public, not-for-profit sector in both the United States and Canada. She has led complex corporate initiatives in multiple roles with The City of Calgary, most notably as head of the Arts and Culture Division.
Thompson currently sits on the board of directors for Music Mile. She has previously served as a board member for Student Legal Assistance and Sled Island, and she was a long-standing volunteer for the Calgary Folk Music Festival. She has a Bachelor of Science from Wilmington University, a Master of Business from the University of Calgary and a professional designation in Governance and Public Policy from the University of Victoria.
Calgary Gay History 