Videographer Samantha Lauzon asked a few lovely attendees at the Festival grounds (Parc des Faubourgs), what Pride means to them.

Video: Samantha Lauzon
Twitter: twitter.com/samanthalauzon
YouTube: youtube.com/user/SamanthaLauzon/

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MONTREAL :: Fierté Montréal holds a special space in my heart – we have celebrated most of my husband’s birthdays over the last decade there, and it is run by some of the most passionate and effective Pride organizers I have ever had the pleasure of knowing. So it’s little surprise that we made sure we were there to help the Fierté Montréal team celebrate their 10th anniversary.

It’s often surprising how many people still think that there are two Pride events in Montréal (there aren’t – Montréal’s original LGBTQ festival, Divers/Cité, folded in 2015) or think that Fierté Montréal and Divers/Cité are one and the same. In fact, Divers/Cite’s decision in 2006 to “drop its Pride mandate” , is the genesis of Fierté Montréal, which is now one of the biggest Pride festivals in Canada, and the largest francophone LGBT gathering in the world.

Fierté Montréal has been a great success – welcoming over 515,000 festival-goers in 2016. It was also selected by Fierté Canada Pride to host the first ever Canada Pride event in 2017. There are many variables that contribute to these remarkable accomplishments. Largely out of the organization’s control are the context and culture of Montreal, and Quebec. Much more within its control are the structure of the organization and its approach to planning Pride. Other Prides can learn from this successful planning approach.

Here are my top 5 reasons why Fierté Montreal Pride is one of the best Pride events in the world:

1. They keep it simple. Key to this is using one space that serves as the hub of the event. Of course there are dozens of events that make up the official week-long Pride program but, in the end, most everyone makes their way to Place Émilie-Gamelin to celebrate together – a beautiful conglomeration of LGBTQ people, all showing their Pride in the same space. Think a big Pride like Pride Toronto couldn’t do this? Think again – Place Émilie-Gamelin can hold up to 18,000 people, just about the same as all the Pride Toronto beer gardens (including The 519) combined!

2.  They put a serious focus on the quality of the Pride program. If you’ve ever seen any of the shows from the stage (that Saturday night drag show, tho’!) you know that they have a well-deserved reputation for being top notch. From art exhibits to workshops and seminars – the Montreal Pride program is unmatched.

3. They treat their (current and former) staff, volunteers and partners like gold. Pride, no matter where in the world it takes place, can be a challenging event to organize. Especially in cities like Toronto and Vancouver, we see frequent and significant turnover of these groups. This often comes with burnt bridges and poor relationships between the organization and its former partners and leaders. The core team in Montreal has been in place for a decade, with both staff and volunteers returning on a regular basis. Even those who are no longer part of the organization are welcomed back to the event.

4. They know how to run a VIP space. Call me bougie, but this is an important part of the festival experience for many sponsors, partners, dignitaries, honoured guests, and former staff and volunteers. Professional and outgoing staff, a well-stocked (open!) bar and good food options are important part of their winning formula.

5. They take every opportunity to speak from their stages/podiums. Sharing information about their organization, speaking passionately about their commitment and dedication to the cause, and introducing members of the organization. In doing so they put a heart and a face to Pride, and build a stronger relationship with the communities they serve.

There you have it. These are obviously just the opinions of one person and I’d be happy to hear supporting and dissenting opinions.

Mark Singh is the former Co-Chair of Pride Toronto, and initiator and Chair of the WorldPride 2014 Bid Committee. He also served as the President of Fierte Canada Pride – the Canadian association of Pride organizers – and on the board of InterPride – the International association of Pride organizers. Follow him on Twitter  and Instagram 

Graphic and video: Polo Izquierdo. Images: Fierte Montreal Pride, used with permission.

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MOUTHWATERING MONTREAL* :: The city with so much culture, tons of festivals and glorious history is first and foremost filled with heart, and it’s why S.Travel keeps returning for more. When GGN sponsored the Fierte Montreal Pride Festival again this summer, I was there again to take in the proud celebrating, but to update my Montreal Must List. When you visit Montreal, make sure these hit your list:

SEE: Musee d’art contemporain’s art collection is comprised of over 7600 works produced by more than 1500 artists, including major works by Paul-Emile Borduas, Guido Molinari and Jean-Paul Riopelle (who also designed La Joute, a bronze sculpted fountain that can be found east of Palais des congress de Montreal). The Musee is Canada’s premier museum dedicated exclusively to contemporary art, a museum for the twenty-first century.

(Image by John Londono)

EAT: From five-star restaurants to cozy bistros, Montreal has a delectable selection of eateries; we even had a hard time choosing! Luckily, the traditional MTL a table/Montreal’s Restaurant Week takes place this fall running October 29^th-November 8^th where patrons can enjoy 3 delicious courses at a fixed price at various restaurants across the city.

(Image by Vadim Daniel)

MOVE: Climb Mont Royal. No trip to Montreal would be complete without a trip up Montreal’s famous mountain, located right in the middle of this beautiful city. The Belvedere Kondiaronk lookout is the perfect setting to take in the breathtaking views of Montreal’s skyline, while enjoying a coffee or ice-cream (depending on the time of year). Walking, jogging, cycling or just exploring the trails as you make your way up the mountain is a great way to spend any Sunday.

MUST :: Old Montreal: Montreal or Europe? You decide. Located in the heart of Montreal, cobblestone streets, boutique shops and street performances line almost every corner, with lots of restaurants and pizzerias in between. Don’t forget to take a stroll down to the Old Port and read a book while sitting by the harbourfront. History and beauty become one offering a taste of European culture right in our own back yard.

STAY:

If you’re looking for accommodations with outstanding hospitality in the heart of downtown Montreal, Four-Diamond Marriott Chateau Champlain is within walking distance to Simon’s and that’s all that matters to premier shopping, major city attractions. The views of Montreal’s stunning skyline from Marriott Chateau Champlain. cannot be beaten. Add in free-high speed internet, full service spa & pool, and flavourful onsite dining at Samuel de Champlain and you may never leave.

Sabrina Pirillo is editor of S.Travel.

S.Travel Approved*

* S.Travel is our coveted publishing stamp of approval on LGBT travel destinations, accommodations, bars, restaurants, adventures and experiences. Look to S.Travel for the very best LGBT travel the world has to offer.

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QUEERSTORY :: On an insane night in Montreal a quarter century ago, a watershed moment for the city’s LGBT movement was captured on film when a warehouse party called Sex Garage was raided by police*. Apparently anticipating blood to be spilled and fearing HIV / AIDS, latex glove-wearing Montreal police raided Sex Garage – but in doing so unwittingly galvanized previously apathetic men and women, French and English, breathing new life into LGBT Montreal in similar fashion to Stonewall in New York City.

Photographer Linda Dawn Hammond caught the Sex Garage raid on film. During this month’s Montreal Pride festival, the never-before-seen images will be on exhibit; Hammond is a festival guest of honour. She recently spoke with GGN publisher Shaun Proulx and shared her hypothesis as to ‘why’ the raid; how she cleverly avoided getting her film confiscated – and the untold personal romantic twist in the tale behind her photographs.

Shaun Proulx: How did you end up at the right place at the right time, with your camera. Or the wrong time, depending.

Linda Dawn Hammond: Sex Garage was a party by Nicholas Jenkins, who lived in New York. He had invited me to go and photograph the party. 

SP: What were you doing when the police showed up?

Linda Dawn Hammond: I got to the party quite late because I was at another club, and Sex Garage was considered to be more like an after hours thing. So I arrived maybe at one in the morning. It wasn’t the most excessive party I’ve ever been to but it was a great party! I was having a hard night actually, because something awful had happened to me: I had a break up the day before and my now ex had dragged the person she had left me for to Sex Garage.

SP: And you’re there photographing it?

Linda Dawn Hammond: Yeah.

SP: Oh God.

Linda Dawn Hammond: This is the untold story of those photos. The back-story is pretty bizarre. So, I wasn’t  having a good time at all. Actually, I was having a horrible time, and so was the new (now ex) partner of  my ex.

SP: No damn doubt. So you’re at the party from hell – and you don’t even know it yet, but it’s about to get even more twisted.

Linda Dawn Hammond: It was, it was an awful night. Anyway, the police showed up around 3 or 4 in the morning, but I didn’t see them.

SP: How many people in the room?

Linda Dawn Hammond: I heard there were 400, provocative dancing – to an extreme.

SP: Was there open drug use?

Linda Dawn Hammond: I didn’t see that. Then the lights went up, and a rumour spread in the room about the police, that already somebody had been beaten really badly; he had been taken outside between cars. This was in fact witnessed by a friend of mine – he witnessed this guy being beaten from an adjacent loft space. He was looking down and he saw it. By the time the raid spilled out onto the street, people everywhere were upset and angry, because they knew that this had gone down; what were the cops doing there? There were about thirty of them at least. It was hard to count.

SP: What were the police doing there?

Linda Dawn Hammond: They looked kind of perplexed. They looked scared, which is maybe what provoked the violence, because people have a tendency to do things out of reaction. They blocked people from getting to their cars and their bicycles. They formed a battalion. At one point, they were three or four (feet) deep, and stroking their clubs.

SP: I wouldn’t have thought of this from Montreal, because Montreal has the reputation of being so liberal, and accepting and open-minded, right down to the core.

Linda Dawn Hammond: It is!

SP: Well of course it is, and that’s why I love Montreal. But on that night, something was obviously off.

Linda Dawn Hammond: One thing that makes is that the Oka Crisis** was happening – it had started two or three days before.

SP: I remember the stand-off, and I remember this was one long, hot summer in Canada because of it. Are you thinking tensions were building within the police force that had no place to go?

Linda Dawn Hammond: Two or three days before, a police officer had been shot and killed at the beginning of the standoff. The rumour became that Montreal police were frustrated, so they used what they thought was a soft target: the gay community.

SP: That’s how mob mentality is created and how mob action takes place. When people feel emotional about an issue, one spark is all it takes for emotions to come out. And it doesn’t matter whether that takes people to the right place for their emotions or not. In this case you think it took police to Sex Garage – where you are taking photos.

Linda Dawn Hammond: I do. Unfortunately, my flash was starting to die. It was the battery. I was trying to shoot, and it was dark. But every time I would run in with fresh battery power and photograph the cops doing what they were doing, I noticed they were removing their identification badges.

SP: Wow!  They’re supposed to protect you, and now they’re hiding who they really are.

Linda Dawn Hammond: We knew we were in for something when they started doing that. Every single time I ran back in I thought: ‘Why haven’t they taken me down?” I think they thought, “Let this person shoot, and then we’ll get everything she’s got at once.” But I had already given my film to a friend of mine on a bicycle. The thing that’s different about now and then is that I was the only person with a camera there, and so the onus was on me to get those shots.

SP: People haven’t seen the photos you’ve taken ever before.

Linda Dawn Hammond: We only released three.

SP: The super famous one is of the woman being surrounded by people (above) and she’s being beaten.

Linda Dawn Hammond: That’s Wendy Stevens, and there’s a man standing in a skirt watching, though he got cropped out on occasion by some of the media.

SP: And now the twist in the tale.

Linda Dawn Hammond: The last shot that I took before I myself got hit is of the woman who had just dumped me – with a stick at her head.

SP: You ended up taking photos of your ex being beaten the night after she left you for another woman. That’s so rich.

LDH: Yeah, basically.

SP: Did you know it was her being beaten during the taking of the photos?

LDH: Yes, I did.

SP: Is there any part of you that wanted to go, and just pull her out of that?

LDH: Part of me was thinking, if there was any amusing aspect of this, it was that she was an SM top.

– This conversation was condensed and edited. Hear the entire interview. Montréal Pride commemorates the 25^th anniversary of Sex Garage, exhibiting Linda Dawn Hammond’s photos at Place Émilie-Gamelin Aug. 12-16th.

* Many Sex Garage police officers are no longer with the Montreal police force. Fundraisers held post Sex Garage helped cover legal fees for those arrested and criminal charges filed against those who were part of the ensuing protest were eventually dropped.

** The Oka crisis developed from a local dispute between the town of Oka and the Mohawk community of Kanesatake. The town of Oka was developing plans to expand a golf course and residential development onto land which had traditionally been used by the Mohawk. 

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Although “voulez-vouz coucher avec moi se soir?” and “merci beaucoup” are only French phrases I know, Montreal nevertheless is like a second home to me, as it is for many Torontonians. It’s like being on vacation without feeling away from home. What made this trip different though was spending more time in Old Montreal than in my typical gaybourhood hot spots. It made me appreciate a whole new world waiting to be discovered.

Its beauty and history can be found in old buildings and architecture like the historical s-travel-an-undiscovered-montrealPlace Jean-Paul-Riopelle. Riopelle was a member of the Automatisti movement and signed the “Refus Global,” (a 1948 manifesto that denounced moral and artistic conformity). “La Joute,” is the bronzed sculpted fountain, where in summer, every hour on the hour from 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. its flames dance on water.

Le Westin Montreal

Staying at Le Westin Montreal, is like, how do you say in French… “tres fabulous!” Celebrating their three-year anniversary this May, Le Westin opens up onto the streets of Old Montreal.  It’s like being in Europe, with cobblestone streets, original architecture and so many attractions within walking distance, like the Notre Dame Basilica (across the street), Opera de Montreal Orchestre Metropolitain du Grand Montreal (1 km away), Old Port of Montreal (.5 km away) and the Montreal Convention Centre across the street. Tip: The Montreal Convention Centre (also called Le Palais de Congres) will be home once again this year to the Black and Blue Festival taking place October 3^rd-9^th. Convenience doesn’t get any better than this.

Le Grand Entrance

The beautifully built grand entrance-way makes you feel like you’re pulling up to a castle.  Its colossal pillars (top image) change color which makes the illumination at night absolutely stunning.  Hovering above the hotel’s grand entrance-way is the indoor glass bottom pool (my personal favourite feature). It’s like walking on the glass floor of The CN Tower, if it were under water.

As you set foot into the lobby the one thing that catches your eye is the giant aluminum art piece that hangs right in the centre of the room. Made from 50,000 pieces of aluminum hanging on 600 pieces of rope, this incredible beast took five days to create and was crafted by a group called “Unit Five”. It consisted of two members, one artist from Toronto and the other from Montreal.

An Oasis Of Amenities

Boasting 454 rooms and suites with spectacular views of Montreal, tranquil spa music greets you as you enter your room. Floor to ceiling windows, and décor and color schemes look corporate but yet are so comfortable. Their heavenly beds come with down and feather filled pillows and premium white goose down and features; you feel like you’re sleeping on a cloud until you wake up to in-room Starbucks coffee. Other amenities include free internet usage in all public areas and rooms of the hotel. (If you’re traveling alone, the best safety feature Le Westin has is the use of your room key in order to get onto any floor in the building.) The rooms are also built around the elevators to ensure peace and quiet. And for the fitness addict, the  Westin Workout Centre is open 24 hours, with lot’s of equipment to choose from.

Bon Appetit!

Once housing the printing presses of the Gazette newspaper, gazette restaurant sits at street level with floor to ceiling windows and deep rich colors complimenting the marble counter tops and oak floors. The inspired cuisine of gazette includes the freshest local ingredients used in their popular tapas menu items.  Their community tables also make it a great spot to meet for a drink after work.

Stepping outside the my usual Montreal box offered me the gorgeous architecture of Le Westin in the heart of Old Montreal. A little piece of Europe right in our own backyard.

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