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A social evolution

Born out of political need, Yellowknife's gay advocacy group, Out North, adapts to the need for a social outlet

Kevin Wilson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Apr 11/01) - It's just another Sunday in Javaroma.

Winter is slowly loosening its chilly grip, and the downtown coffee shop is filling up with people.

Between sips of warm beverages and nibbles of cookies, Out North gets down to business.

It's a small social, a "coffee chat" in the parlance of the most northerly gay advocacy group in the country.

Amid the small talk, some of the dozen or so people crowded around two tables pass around a copy of Out North's upcoming newsletter.

"Are you coming to glow bowling," one asks another. A notation in the newsletter about the upcoming event encourages everyone to wear their whitest shirts to stand out under the fluorescent lights.

Unlike larger communities, Yellowknife has no dedicated gay spaces. There are no gay bars here, no bathhouses, no restaurants catering to a predominantly gay clientele. There's no gay village to speak of here.

In terms of size, Yellowknife is too small to have the critical mass of gay men and lesbians to support such spaces.

That doesn't necessarily make Yellowknife a bad place to live for gays and lesbians.

Zoe Raemer, a spokesperson for Out North says that while Yellowknife is "a small town, it's a fairly cosmopolitan small town."

Asked directly if Yellowknife is a comfortable place to be gay, she quickly answers, "yes, tremendously so."

However, Yellowknife is home to a generally larger transient population. People often arrive to work here on short-term contracts, staying six months, maybe less.

That makes social functions an extremely important component of Out North's mission.

A new focus

The social angle is relatively new, says Lorne Gushue, a member of Out North's board. The organization, he says, "started out very specifically with advocacy and now it balances out" with the social function.

Back in the late 1990s a series of court cases changed the legal landscape for gays and lesbians across Canada.

The Vriend decision, out of Alberta, prohibited discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. Another case, M. vs H., was working its way to the Supreme Court and would eventually force governments to revisit the legal definition of spouses.

Simultaneously, John Fisher, executive director of Equality for Gays and Lesbians Everywhere, a national lobby group was touring the country and wound up in Yellowknife.

Fisher remembers the visit, and is gratified to think that it may have helped to serve as a catalyst for Out North's development.

"One of the things I noticed (during his tours across the country) was that in the places that are more rural or more remote are where some of the informal structures are the strongest," he says.

Fisher's visit to Yellowknife coincided with a debate in the territorial legislature in which "the government was looking at a whole suite of law changes, dealing with family benefits, definition of spouses, child protection."

It was then that Out North was born.

"Now," Gushue says, "I think we've got a little bit of capacity."

That has enabled Out North to move beyond the realm of the political into the social realm. The organization hosts two major annual events, a Halloween dance and Gay Pride celebrations in June.

Gushue says that having only a few events every year created problems for Out North.

"One of the things that came up is that we would get calls from people who'd be in Yellowknife for a couple, maybe six months, and wanted to know what was going on, and we'd have to say, 'well, we just did Pride, can you wait six months?"

Advocacy work tends to set very specific tasks for itself. If an interest group feels a law doesn't act in their best interests, it can set out to change the law through lobbying, or rallies, or petitions.

The creation of a positive social environment is another creature entirely, but Gushue says that objectives are established.

Now, on the social end, Out North tries to hold at least two events a month, in addition to its regular monthly meetings.

Yellowknife, despite the absence of dedicated gay spaces, is a community known for its tolerance. Raemer says there's a distinction here that sets it apart from other communities.

"Here, rather than saying that I'll tolerate you, people say I'll accept you."