The Edmonton Queer History Project, a community initiative documenting local queer life and culture since the 1960s liberation movement, uses public records, oral histories and personal interviews to paint a detailed picture of how the queer community has shaped — and been shaped by — the city. The project now celebrates its tenth year with the book Cruising the Downtown: Celebrating Edmonton’s Queer History. Edited by Dr. Kristopher Wells and published by NeWest Press, the essay collection expands on the Project’s mission “by moving through civic landmarks, sites of queer resistance, nightlife, celebration, and activist spaces.” Readers will recognize subjects like Michael Phair, the first openly gay politician in Alberta, and Wallbridge & Imrie, who ran the first female-run architecture firm in Canada. It’s both a celebration and excavation of stories that have been kept hidden for too long.
Cruising the Downtown: Celebrating Edmonton’s Queer History is published by NeWest Press and is available from your local bookseller.
Audiences first met Marty McFly, the skateboarding protagonist of Robert Zemeckis’s time travel movie Back to the Future in the summer of 1985. To celebrate the 40th anniversary of Back to the Future, the Telus World of Science is screening it in IMAX this weekend.
If, for some reason you’ve never seen the adventure sci-fi classic, McFly (Michael J. Fox) is a classic ‘80s hero — a resourceful underdog who thinks fast to avoid frequent hazings from Biff, the film’s signature bully. Back to the Future was the highest grossing film of 1985, and it turned Fox — already a household name thanks to his starring role in the sitcom Family Ties — into a veritable movie star and led to two blockbuster sequels. It also turned the DMC DeLorean into an icon — and if you don’t get that reference, then you’ve got homework to do this weekend.
Watch Back to the Future at the Telus World of Science running Oct. 30 to Nov. 2.
Olivia Street, the Edmonton-based musician who performs under the moniker King of Foxes, was just announced as the Edmonton Public Library’s 2025 musician in residence, the third since the program began in 2023. Based out of the Stanley Milner Library, Street will participate in workshops, consultations and events over the course of her tenure, giving young musicians a chance to learn from her experience as a musician and songwriter — talents that are on full display on her new album, Hall of Shame. The six-track EP is reminiscent of some of the best of female-led ‘90s grunge albums (think: Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville and Veruca Salt’s American Thighs). Hall of Shame might have you reaching for your plaid and ripped jeans.
Listen to Hall of Shame on CD or any good streaming service.
