Queering Atlantic Canada: Stories, Histories, Archives

by Jess Wilton

Cradled by the Atlantic Ocean, the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island (PEI), and Newfoundland and Labrador occupy a unique place in queer and Canadian history. “Queering Atlantic Canada: Stories, Histories, and Archives of Atlantic Canada” is an ActiveHistory.ca series guest edited by Jess Wilton. Over the next year, this series will offer an introduction to the work of activists, archivists, historians, community members, and artists in the region as we come together to share our stories and preserve our histories. This first post offers a brief foundation to the history of Atlantic Canada and its queer pasts. 

For some, this region is a popular tourist destination with red cliffs, white sand beaches, quaint fishing villages, glacier-formed rocks, the highest tides, and everything in between. You might hear of the iconic kitchen parties and chicken bone candies or perhaps fun and folky holiday traditions like New Year’s day levees or Tibb’s eve. You might have even heard about the necessary question of “who’s yer father?” which not only cements our interconnected kinship, but also serves the very necessary purpose of making sure you are not related to the person you’re looking to date.  

For others, this is home. Still with its traditions and bucolic landscapes, but also united by circumstance. Historians have outlined the regional economic character impacted by seasonality and environment and cultural background with much of the area located within Mi’kma’ki as well as histories of French and British colonialism. These same scholars—often publishing in the Acadiensis journal—have sought to consider the Maritime provinces and Newfoundland and Labrador as a category of analysis for these reasons. In his notes on region in an address to the Atlantic Canada conference in 2000, Ian McKay asks historians to consider what makes a region and what makes Atlantic Canada a region specifically. Lachlan MacKinnon’s 2019 “Region in Retrospective” takes up these questions again, outlining especially the power in Indigenous methodologies to a regional approach.  

In addressing this region, we must also avoid the pitfalls of historical flattening or generalizations. Even though the provinces share cultural, economic, and environmental backgrounds that offer potential boundaries for a regional study, each province (and even specific areas within those provinces) have their own unique histories. Newfoundland did not join Canada until 1949 and its past is rooted in Naval government. This is set apart from the long history of Black loyalists in Nova Scotia and the systemic racism in the history Africville in Nova Scotia. In the mid-1700s, Great Britain enacted the Great Upheaval in the Acadia region, which resulted in many Acadien Refugees in New Brunswick after the expulsion. While PEI might have hosted the initial meeting for Confederation in 1864, they did not join in until years later amidst a financial crisis.  

Atlantic Canada is often sidelined in Canadian historiography, but perhaps even lesser known still is the region’s queer history and archives. Over the years, we have witnessed numerous episodes of solidarity and joy as well as disappointments and loss over queer rights, freedoms, and protections. While Nova Scotia added sexual orientation to their human rights act in 1991, it was only last year that a provision was added to allow both lesbian mothers with a known donor to be on their child’s birth certificate without an expensive adoption process. The recent attack on trans rights in New Brunswick (and across the country) cannot be ignored and is reminiscent of much of the rhetoric used to remove queer people from their jobs through the 1970s and 1980s in the name of “saving the children.” Across this region, there were recent counter-protests against this same rhetoric. Even in rural Newfoundland there were massive pride celebrations.

There may only be a few print published sources, but all are riveting and reliable. Robin Metcalfe’s exhibition catalogue Queer Looking, Queer Acting: Lesbian and Gay Vernacular and Rebecca Rose’s Before the Parade: A History of Halifax’s Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Communities, 1972-1984 both explore topics in Nova Scotia while Rhea Rollmann’s book A Queer History of Newfoundland tackles community-building on the island province. Notably John R. Sylliboy’s various works on queer and two-spirit L’nu from an Indigenous perspective while a documentary series called Before Grindr: The Secret Social History of Gay & Lesbian PEI approaches the topic of queer life on PEI. Looking at queer love and rural life in New Brunswick, there is also Meredith J. Batt and Dusty Green’s Len and Cub: A Queer History.  

But there are even more stories and histories and archives of queer Atlantic Canada that have yet to be explored and disseminated. This ActiveHistory.ca series seeks to share some of these stories to start a conversation about our heritage in advance of the 2026 Queer and Trans+ History Conference to be held in Halifax.

To launch the series and sketch out the region and some of the existing history and archives, I join Meredith J. Batt on an imagined road trip across Queer Atlantic Canada in our next installment. 

Further Reading: 

Canadian Museum of History, 2SLGBTQIA+ History and Identities in Canada, 2025 online exhibit. 

Dean, Amber. “Queer archives preserve activist history and provide strategies to counter hate.” Theconversation.com.December 22, 2023. 

Frank, David “Public History and the People’s History: A View from Atlantic Canada.” Acadiensis 32, no. 2 (2003): 120-133. 

Jess Wilton is a doctoral candidate in history at York University. Her work focuses on the queer history of Nova Scotia from the 1960s to the 1990s through material history and archival practices.