May 16, 2026 Walking Tour
At MargotDurling's sculpture, Chosen FamilyFacts
- Your host: DanielMacKay
- When: Conference Session H1, Saturday, May 16, 2026 2:15pm
- Meet starting 15 minutes before in the lobby
- Walk length: about 3.0km, about 1.25hours
- Finish: Radstorm, 2177 Gottingen St
- Head count: 35
University & !LeMarchant
Land Acknowledgement
Mi'kmag word for the harbour, Jipugtug / K'jipuktuk, "Great Harbour" anglicized to Chebucto, you'll see the word in a variety of places.
I moved to Halifax about 45 years ago and through a sequence of salacious accidents, got very very connected to the gay community here, very quickly.
- About 40 years ago I started publishing Wayves Magazine,
- 25 years ago I started dumping local LGBT info into the Halifax Rainbow Encylopedia; it's now at three quarters of a million words and 2200 pages.
- I ran Pride for three years,
- et cetera - you can read about me on my page.
I'll include as many links to the Halifax Rainbow Encyclopedia (the H•R•E) as I can fit in.
We'll do a short detour "West" - we pretend that the Halifax peninsula is laid out on a north south east west grid - but it's not really.
More at University & LeMarchant
- CKDU
- [ ] Find dates for CKDU "The Word Is Out"
- Rocky Horror Picture Show
- A & A Washrooms
- Killam: NS Seniors Archive and where I spent half my life.
- Right behind the Killam is the original NS Archives, a really lovely 1920s building designed by arguably the most famous NS Architect Andrew Cobb that matches the rest of the campus, in what is now known as The Chase Building. It's been repurposed a couple times, and when I was here in the 1980s it was the Math, Stats & Computer Science building. The Public Archives of Nova Scotia is now the NS Archives & Record Management NSARM, and Computer Science has its own HUGE building and Chase is now just Math & Stats.
- Story of LGBT Seniors Archive vs NSARM
- Dan coming out at King's
- King's - very gay. Flouncy Very Reverend Hankey which did not turn out so well
- Building the Internet - in the Killam
- Shirreff Hall ghost, Penelope, recent opera, cast as... trans? queer anyway
Cross to the N side of Coburg
Scotiabank Parking Lot / St Andrews Church
- Manna For Health Christmas Dinner Fund Raisers: from 1991 until Covid, everyone who was anyone was there
- Proposal for a Q Community Centre
- HGMC
- GlitterBeanCafe: 2016-2017 the chain coffee shop there started to falter and not pay their suppliers - and their employees. In 2018 the employees registered a coop and -- started running it themselves, "Ninety per cent of employees at the café identify as queer and they say a safe space is needed for their community."
- By the way, an Uber back to Dal campus will be under ten bucks
Centre of Camp Hill Cemetery
CampHillCemetery
- Salacious tale or two
- Philosophical observation on men's use of this because of the closet
- We are at Alexander Keith's grave - 1795-1873, mayor in the 1840s, businessman for things OTHER than beer and- grand master of the local Freemasons
- Tha Din Murder
- Read RobinMetcalfe's poem, ''night cemetery''
- We'll go between the Natural History Museum and the Bengal Lancers
- Rep Cinema History Wormwood's --> Paradise Cinema --> Carbon Arc
Chosen Family Sculpture / CitadelHill
- Commons: granted 260 years ago by King George III as public pasture, recreation and military training. But it has gradually been eaten up by hospitals, universities, schools. It was originally 240 acres, all we have left is this relatively small space.
- Documentation of men having sex with men here from 1752 and 1753 - Robin's book
- This was documented in the Halifax Gazette which started printing on 23 March March 23, 1752, the first newspaper in Canada.
- Lots of stories about The Citadel, some good and salacious - over 30 references in the H•R•E
- MargotDurling's ''Chosen Family''
- Giant murals "The Queen" and "The Flower King" in Dartmouth
N of North Park
Gottingen
Sources
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