Calgary’s first gay bar, Club Carousel, has inspired many contemporary events. The latest will be a dance party thrown by the pop-up collective Pansy Club on May 10th.
The Pansy Club, a significant addition to our community, was established in 2021 as a bi-monthly 2SLGBTQ+ music night at Kaffeeklatsch, a former Beltline cafe at 1205 1 St. SW—coincidentally beside the original Club Carousel at 1207 1 St. Spearheaded by Cal Gibbens, the name Pansy Club was inspired by one of the stories he read in Our Past Matters, a testament to our rich history.
I’m inspired by history. The Pansy Club is a collective with the goal of creating an affirming, safe space. Our events are designed to attract and embrace people who may feel they don’t belong in other spaces, ensuring everyone feels welcome and accepted.
Cal Gibbens
In a lovely resonance, those goals are similar to those of the 1970’s Club Carousel.
Thank you, Cal, we’re looking forward to it!
✨️🎠 CLUB CAROUSEL 🎠✨️
Step back into the 70s and get your groove thang on 🪩✨️Pansy Club brings you a night of soulful disco, house & funk in a throwback to the city’s first-ever gay bar – Club Carousel!🕺
Friday May 10th At Sunalta Community Hall 8pm – 1am $10 or PWYC. Advance tickets: here!
Early Mixer 8 – 9pm Drag Show 9 – 10pm Dance Party 10pm – 1am
The Backlot, a historic Calgary gay bar, will be moving (again). Founded in 1976, its current and third incarnation at 10th Avenue and 1st Street was established in 1996. However, the City has approved this site for redevelopment despite organized resistance last year called “Save Our Backlot.”
Interestingly, the developer is keen to acknowledge the history of the site—both its contemporary importance to the queer community as well as its location in Calgary’s second Chinatown from 1901-1910.
Senior Urban Planner Zack Hoefs is looking for community feedback through a survey.
He writes:
On behalf of Truman Homes and in partnership with FAAS Architecture, I’m reaching out today to share an opportunity for discussion on a commissioned piece of art for a recently approved development called Gallery at 1001 1 ST SW and 209 10 AV SW.
The approved project involves redeveloping the Calgary Gas Co. Workshop building, which is significant to the Queer Calgarian community in its use as The Backlot and the significance of The Backlot’s name to Queer Calgarian history. There is a Brief that, on pages 16-17, outlines what our project team currently knows about the site from the perspective of Queer Calgarian History, links to documentation that we used in our research, and a description of the location of the art.
What we are missing in this work is valued feedback from the Queer Calgarian community and Backlot ownership on what they would like to see in this commissioned art. We are looking for your opinions and feedback! Our team will combine this feedback with the history we know to create a brief that future artists will interpret when bidding on the work. The main questions we will be asking are included in the Brief.
The survey will be available to complete until Friday, April 26.
In keeping with Club Carousel’s birthday theme this month, let’s focus on the Society’s handcrafted monthly newsletter, Carousel Capers.
This publication, which ran from 1969 to at least 1975, was a hand-typed and drawn affair. In its heyday, it grew to 24+ pages with columns such as Chatter Box, Gertrude’s Gossip, and Cecil’s Secrets. Club business, including attendance figures, budgets, and meeting minutes, was presented—keeping the Club leaders accountable to their membership.
Members of Club Carousel had significant fears of being outed; they did not want to run into anyone they might know in the straight world. Ensuring the Club remained a safe space was a common refrain in the pages of Carousel Capers, the Club’s monthly newsletter. In April 1973, Ruth Simkin wrote a strongly worded letter to the Club’s Executive Committee:
It is with great regret that I can no longer continue with my membership and support of Club Carousel. The reason for this is the Executive’s decision of hiring a straight band for the Anniversary Party. I feel this is merely a first step in the total demolition of an all-gay club…..
I personally feel that a consolidated gay community is more important than a well-played guitar, at the only place in Calgary we have. When policy changes back (if it ever does), I would be honoured to once more be associated with what could be the best gay club around.
The Executive responded in the pages of Carousel Capers that the band had been a last-minute substitution when their previously booked gay talent had had to cancel, and emphatically confirmed their commitment to the no straights policy.
Later that year, the Executive firmly noted that the newsletter itself should carefully be restricted from Straights.
“Out of the closets and into the streets is a great battle cry for gays who don’t have too much to lose but then – there are the rest of us,” referencing the generational divide as young gay liberationists were agitating publicly for social change (particularly at the University of Calgary).
Carousel Capers was also a vehicle for connecting Western Canada’s emerging organized gay community. Articles were written about sister clubs, and the community listings in the magazine are an illuminating time capsule of their era.
We often say that Club Carousel was the dawn of the organized gay community in Calgary, and one of its primary communication vehicles was Carousel Capers.