Happy Holidays

I'll have some new stuff up first week of January.

Grant

1000!

I don't know if this breaks blog decorum, but OQH just went past 100 hits, way more than I ever expected to get! So to the hundred or so folks that have looked at this site 10 times (at least that's what I figure), thanks.

Grant.

Sketchy bars

Last week, I was interviewing Charles. He was talking about the Lord Elgin, what it was like there, to drink and to try and court someone there. Fascinating stuff. At one point he was describing the layout of the lower level bar (the name of which I now know but have forgotten, but at least I have it recorded!) and I thought I'd try out something I've read about people doing, but hadn't done yet; I asked Charles if he could draw the space for me. This is what I got:

I may not seem like much, and the top part of it did not scan (which shows that Elgin street ran along the top of the page), but It was great to be able to visualize the layout of the tables, the two swinging doors to the top of the picture, and the small door to the right of the room where the waiters came out of with drinks (there was no bar in the room). At the bottom of the drawing is the jukebox: it's the square marked with the X. The four squares in the picture are pillars, which apparently made sight lines difficult and selecting your table to look at the people coming in, or the person you found really hot, crucial. According to Charles, one did a circuit around the bar before you picked a table; luckily the layout allowed for this.
So now I can conceptualize the space a lot better, which is the strength of asking folks to do these. Although the map is not great, and does not hint at it's size or atmosphere, I have something, and with a lack of photos at this point, it is better than nothing. I email Charles afterwards to ask him about the color or the walls, ceiling height, etc.. and this is what he replied (thanks Charles):

"If my memory is correct, the walls were beige and there was dark wood railings and cross pieces (in the form of a large horizantal 'X' in the wainscotting part (i.e. lower third of the wall). The place was lit with 'ranch style' chandeliers with, along with the woodwork gave it a definite western feeling. I think the floor was carpeted in brown low cut (industrial style) carpeting but I'm not 100% sure on that..."

Underneath is another quick sketch, this of a bar in Hull called Sacks (sic?) that was one of the earliest and best disco bars of its time - late 70's- if I recall Charles interview correctly. I have to look it up. The circle was the stainless-steel dance floor, while the rectangle is the bar that had a few stools next to it. Apparently in the basement (again) and it was small, so small that it didn't have tables, and no divisions between dancefloor and the rest of the bar. Charles recalls this as a good thing, since the place was so small, people would end up dancing all over the place, not just on the steel. Compared to the formalized space of the L.E. I can see why this place was so busy!
Naturally I don't know how solid Charles memory is, but it's all I have so far. Does anyone see anything wrong with these sketches?

OQH and Archives Carleton: A home for your queer stuff.

One of the goals of my master’s thesis On Ottawa’s Queer History is to find a place that would be able to store and preserve the writings and interviews that my thesis will generate and the historic materials that I hopefully will encounter as I meet and talk to members of Ottawa’s queer community. Some of the individuals I have chatted with have made their preferences clear, that they would rather have their documents and materials kept in Ottawa than shipped to the archives in Toronto or elsewhere. On top of that, I hoped to find a place that would make the materials as accessible to the community as possible, and not keep them stored in a dusty vault, away from the people who created them.

Last month, I exchanged emails with Patti Harper and Lloyd Keane, who run Carleton University’s Archives and Research Center (ARC), located in MacOdrum Library. They were referred to me by my supervisor, Patrizia Gentile, as a possible institution that would be a match for these demands of security, accessibility and community interaction. I am happy to say it seems like I have a winner!

I sat down with Lloyd one afternoon to see what ARC could offer. I was pretty happy with what I heard. ARC wants to start an Ottawa queer archive and see an Ottawa queer archive as a research collection open to both academics and the larger Ottawa community to use. Lloyd stressed that ARC wants to collaborate with the local community and with other GLBTQ archives and centers to promote the archive. An example of this philosophy is that digital records could be referenced and shared with the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto, or Western university’s GLBT centre. Another example of outreach would be the staging of exhibits and events based on the materials collected to which the queer community would be encouraged not only to attend, but to participate in as well. That said, Lloyd stressed to me that ARC is an archive, so while ARC ensures 100% reference accessibility, books and material cannot be loaned out like in a library. Furthermore, once material is donated, it becomes property of the archives so they can do what they can to preserve the materials.

ARC has a lot to offer in terms of support, especially for larger or more fragile collections. Staff can help you process materials before pick up, and can come and collect whatever boxes you have. Once they do, the materials will be reboxed into archives-quality containers. Then over a short amount of time (depending on the size of the collection, but quicker than a larger archive) each item entered into an online database. Materials that are fragile will be protected and/or digitized.

Finally, what sealed it for me is that as part of the university library system, ARC has access to plenty of space, and has steady funding not only for archiving, but for adding rare books on queer history and theory to their collection supplementing the donated data.

If you have any questions or would like to reach ARC in person please contact me through my email (gburke@connect.carleton.ca) or contact:

Patti Harper, Department Head, Archives and Research Collections

Or

Lloyd Keane, Ph.D., Archives and Rare Book Coordinator, at:

Archives and Research Collections

MacOdrum Library

Room 503

Carleton University

1125 Colonel By Drive

Ottawa ON K1S 5B6

http://arc.library.carleton.ca/

Tel: 613-520-2600 x 2739

Fax: 613-520-5600

Thanks for reading, and please donate!

Grant Burke, researcher, Ottawa Queer History.

Submission!

A little while ago I created an online questionnaire for anyone who wanted to participate, but did not want to be interviewd for my thesis. Frankly, I didn't know if I would ever get one reply from it but thought i should avail myself of as many tools as possible.

I am happy to say that I got one! Huzzah for me! But more important huzzah to "Abe" (totally an alias) for taking the time out to respond! Here are a few exerts, and if you want to see/fill in the questioniare, scroll through the previous posts until you come the one call "questionnaire."


And now, here's "Abe", How many people recall places like Pips, The Vault, and Daphne and Victor's? I have never heard of them. I'd love to hear for people out there reading this, of if you feel like filling out the questionnaire, please do!



ME-How would you describe it as a place for a GLBT person to live?
ABE: OK. There have always been a lot of closeted people in Ottawa, who leave the city to "have their fun". Ever notice how the gay population seems to drop on any long weekend? With Montreal so close, people in the Ottawa LGBT "communities" often go elsewhere to let their hair down. Honestly, there were more places to go out to in Ottawa/Hull in the 80's than there are now. There was also more of a community feeling. Gay social spaces were more mixed. Less "competitive". It wasn't about having the perfect body. People seemed generally more friendly and human/humane. Everything seemed more "innocent", less "corporate". I guess the "gay dollar" hadn't been discovered yet by marketers.

ME-How would you describe Ottawa’s GLBT community, if you were/are a part of it?

Abe: I don't like the word "community" as it implies homogeneity. There is no one LGBT community - anywhere. We are many communities. Ottawa's seems small, because many people keep to themselves and lead more quiet lives.

ME: Please list 5-10 of your favorite queer places in Ottawa over the time you have (try to date the span of time you frequented the places. They can be whatever sort of places you thought of as queer: bars, baths, parks, bookstores, tearooms, community events, etc…

Abe: The Vault and Shades on Laurier W, Club 100/101? on Metcalfe at Slater (on the ground floor of the same building my father worked in!!!) It was a coffee shop in the day and a gay club in the evening. 166-B on Laurier (that place was a dump). Pips in the Market Square. Taktiks on York Street. Daphne and Victors on William. Coral Reef in the basement of the parking garage on Nicholas (behind what used to be Ogilvy's department store), Le Club, Le Pub, Club Zink in Hull. What was first known as Central Park (now CP on Somerset). A zillion places to have sex - University of Ottawa, 240 Sparks, Rideau Centre, The Bay on Rideau, Place du Portage in Hull, Majors Hill Park (before the National Gallery was built), L'Esplanade Laurier, Carleton University, any mall or shopping plaza in the city including on the Quebec side, what used to be the Holiday Inn and also what used the be the Skyline Hotel at Place de Ville, Place de Ville too, Place Bell, some of the shopping arcades that used to be along Sparks Street. This was all before major police crackdowns on sex in more public spaces (hangover from the 70's? before HIV/AIDS?) and also before the phone lines and the internet. The nudest area at Meech Lake. I didn't "do the canal" but it was a popular cruising spot. I actually lived for a short while in a basement apartment on Gilmour, near the Canal, but wasn't really in to cruising at that time as I had broken up temporarily with my partner. Of course my friends would never believe that I didn't take advantage of all the action outside my door - and the cars would circle the block all night long! lol) I was more pissed off by the lights that kept shining in my window.

Introducing Michael.

He has some great memories, especially about coming out, which he graciously shared with me. Imagine coming out in letters nowadays? So inefficient, but he had his reasons.

Does anyone remember the space he is talking about in the video?

How times have changed.

Imagine, protesting the CBC for not liking queers! This was a protest of CBC's refusal to air PSA's for gay and lesbians organizations. There was actually a national boycott of CBC by queer groups and college newspapers, which refused to run any ads from the CBC. I am not sure if this will go into my thesis, but I think the early relationship between Ottawa's queer community and the city's media is grounds for a excellent paper, especially if it tracks the softening of the media's attitudes towards queers, while concurrently tracking how queer activists become more sophisticated in their handling of the media.

Now does anybody out there remember this event?

Questionnaire!

Okay, I have had a few folks ask me if they could just answer questions via email, or even by post, rather than in person. Initially, I was reluctant to do so, because to would be hard to verify the veracity of the answers, or that someone is not answering the questionnaire multiple times. but as the hubby pointed out, there is no saying the people I am interviewing are being any more truthful, and if I get enough of these I can 'baseline' the results, meaning that there should be some generalities coming out of the majority of the questionnaires. Any answers that seem incongruous I can either throw out, or examine more thoroughly and see if they offer up an interesting counterpoint.

The other thing is that a questionnaire could reach a lot more people. I could leave them in locations for random people to pick up, or you, my readers could copy and forward this to anyone you think would be willing to answer it. Be warned however; it is a loooong questionnaire (which will help prevent anyone answering it multiple times) so if you do send it to folks, make sure they are REALLY interested in participating, or really like you.

You could send it to people you really hate too, I suppose, but I don't think you'd be doing me any favors.

While you are sending it out the the dozens of friends you have that would love to fill this out (I hope) take some time to read through it and if you care to, comment on it and tell me what questions you would add or get rid of. Is there any topic I am missing, or am dwelling on? What would you change?

Thanks,
Grant

OTTAWA QUEER HISTORY QUESTIONNAIRE

Thank you for taking the time to answer this questionnaire. There are a lot of questions here and some of them are fairly open-ended. That is to allow you to write about whatever comes to mind. Don’t feel that you have to answer each question (especially the ones regarding your biographical info if you want to protect your privacy); I’d rather you write a few long answers than many short ones. That said, I’ll take whatever you care to give me. Please include the number of the question you are responding to in your answers. It will help me organize my data a bit better, hopefully…

When possible, please try to give me as much details as possible, such as addresses, dates, descriptions or names. Do not worry if you aren’t exact, but even if you can estimate (say it was on this block, or between 1979-84) that would be great. Don’t worry about spelling or grammar; I am not interested in that. If you are used in any written work, I’ll clean the writing up, but not to the point where your written ‘voice’ is lost. If you want to hand-write this out, feel free to. Email me at gburke@connect.carleton.ca and I will send you a mailing address. All electronic responses should email to this address as well.

PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU WILL NOT BE CONTACTED BY ME AFTER YOU HAVE SUBMITTED THE QUESTIONNAIRE, UNLESS YOU CONTACT ME FIRST. YOUR QUESTIONNAIRE WILL BE STORED ON A PASSWORD-PROTECTED HARD DRIVE OR IN A LOCKED FILING CASE, AND THE RETURN ADDRESS/EMAIL WILL BE DELETED.

Finally, if you are giving me your full name and info, please read the consent form that follows the questions, and copy whatever conditions you accept onto the end of your answers. That way, you can determine who gets to see this questionnaire aside from me. IF YOU DO NOT SIGN THE CONSENT FORM, OR DO NOT INCLUDE YOUR FULL NAME, AGE, OR OCCUPATION YOUR INFORMATION WILL BE MADE PUBLIC AND ARCHIVED FOR FUTURE RESEARCHERS TO USE.

Again, thank you for taking the time out to do this. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact me at the above email.

-Grant Burke

1. Date when the questionnaire was completed

2. Name (an alias here is fine, but use only a first name)

3. Age

4. Gender (please answer this one, it is essential to my study)

5. Sexual orientation

6. Occupation

7. Relationship status.

8. -When did you come out? Why then?

a. -If not, why are you still closeted?

9. -How long have you lived in Ottawa? What brought you to the city?

a. Where are you from?

10. -Generally speaking, how would you sum up Ottawa as a place to live? Do you like it?

a. -What do you think are the factors that contribute to your point of view?

11. -How would you describe it as a place for a GLBT person to live?

12. -How would you describe Ottawa’s GLBT community, if you were/are a part of it?

a. -Why were you not a part of it?

b. -What activities did you partake in (ex: political, social)?

13. -What and where was your first encounter with GLBT life in Ottawa?

14. When you came out, how did straights and Ottawa as a whole relate to/treat queers? How has it changed?

15. How did you experience Ottawa’s reaction to the GLBT community?

16. Were you ever a victim of violence? Where and when? By whom?

17. How were the police?

18. Did your professional/work life affect where you went or whom you associated with?

19. Please list 5-10 of your favorite queer places in Ottawa over the time you have (try to date the span of time you frequented the places. They can be whatever sort of places you thought of as queer: bars, baths, parks, bookstores, tearooms, community events, etc…

20. How free did you feel to be open about your sexuality in these places?

21. What were your least favorite places?

22. Where did you not go? Why?

23. Do you think there were/are a lot of divisions in the community? Do you think they were expressed in terms of who went where?

24. How did you find out about new Queer spots/clubs ? Has that changed over time?

25. As you can best remember, what neighborhoods were considered ‘queer’ in Ottawa, and when? Why do you think queer folks lived there?

26. What do you remember about Hull, how did the spots in Hull related to Ottawa’s GLBT community?

27. -Was there a very sharp divide between French and English Queers? How was that expressed?

28. Who used the spaces that you remember? When? Why?

29. Did you notice any class, race or gender divisions in any of the spaces you frequented, for example were some places more working class than others?

30. -In your opinion, how did bigger cities like Montreal and Toronto affect Ottawa’s gay community? How did you see/used the communities and spaces in other cities?

31. -What do you think of the current number of spaces in Ottawa, compared to the past?

a. -Is it better or worse? Why?

32. In your opinion, what caused the decline in spaces?

33. Were you ever involved in Queer activism? What do you think of Queer activism in General, and in Ottawa in particular?

34. How did the activist community create/use spaces? Did those spaces play a role in your life?

35. Can you discuss the phenomena of house parties in Ottawa? Did you go to them, why were they seemingly so popular?

36. Do you interact with queers of the opposite gender or transsexual/transgendered people? If no, why not?

37. What in your opinion, do you consider the 5 or ten most important events for the queer community that has happened locally?

a. -How about nationally?

38. How did the emergence of HIV/AIDS affect you? How does it still? Did it change the your understanding of queer space, and your use of it?

39. Do you think different classes (working class, poor, middle class) used space differently? Why? How? Did different classes interact together?

40. How did couples/married people use the places you remember?

41. How did bi folks use those spaces that you remember?

42. Did you ever go cruising? Where? When? Did spots you use come and go?

43. Ever use a tearoom or a bathhouse? Which one(s)? Any outside of Ottawa?

44. At this point, if you are not exhausted, please feel free to add any comments or remarks that you want to express that wasn’t covered in my questions. Write for as much as you want!

Again, many thanks for your time and efforts.

CONSENT FORM

PROJECT: A Queer Capital: A GLBT History Of Ottawa

PURPOSE: The objectives of the above titled research project is to collect oral histories of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered (henceforth referred to as GLBT) community for use in the master thesis of the principle investigator, Grant Burke. A secondary objective is to record these testimonies for future researchers (depending on the consent of the participant) and to store them at the Archives and collections centre at Carleton University, Ottawa and at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto. I have read the letter of information included with this consent form and understand its contents. I understand that this research project is an investigation of some of the spaces, places and events that have shaped the GLBT community of Ottawa.

CONDITIONS OF PARTICIPATION: Please review the following conditions and options with the interviewer. Feel free to ask questions if they appear unclear. When you have decided you level of participation, please copy whatever conditions you accept onto you’re the end of your answers.

____ I understand that my participation is voluntary and that I can withdraw from this project either during or up until 30 days following the interview. I have been informed in detail that I have the right not to answer questions of my choosing. I also understand that in the event that I withdraw from this project all and any information that I have provided will be destroyed and excluded from any published material authored by Mr. Burke. I am aware that that this project has been reviewed and received ethics clearance by the Carleton University Research Ethics Board

____ I understand that Mr. Burke will exclusively hold these questionnaires during his research. Once his work is done, he will donate copies to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives and a local archive for future historical research, depending on the consent of the participant. I understand that all levels of confidentiality will be maintained with this transfer.

____ I understand that answering this questionnaire may trigger traumatic memories associated with living as a GLBT person in Ottawa. Therefore I may refuse to answer any question and may stop the interview at anytime.

In terms of Identification I agree to (please choose one, then please copy whatever condition you accept onto you’re the end of your answers):

­­ ____ I will not be identified in any publications or presentations by name, position or other identifiers. However, I understand that if someone else for this study has recommended me, my identity could be known to other participants or assumed by others.

____ My identity and any personal information discussed in the interview may be disclosed in Mr. Burke’s thesis, and any other presentations or articles that he may produce. My identity will be publicly known and my comments or opinions may be attributed to me.

In terms of reproduction of my questionnaire, I agree to (please choose one, then please copy whatever conditions you accept onto you’re the end of your answers):

___ I agree that the questionnaire will be destroyed at the end of the study.

___ I agree that the questionnaire will be publicly archived for future researchers to access.

Question.

What would you consider the most important event for queers that happened in Ottawa?

Just wondering.

Contest!

Okay, here's the deal. the first person that can tell me what event in the 70's that this picture is referencing in 100 words or more, and you get a 20 buck gift certificate to the queer bookstore of your choice.

Game on! Huzzah!

(note: anyone in Carleton's History graduate program, or even tangentially associated with my partner ain't winning shit -you know who you are, and I know who you are...)

Internet fishing...

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

20 Questions (Okay, maybe 30...)

Finally,

My supervisor warned me that ethics clearance to do interviews can take a while, and I should get it done
sooner than later. That was May. I wanted to get going on interviews around July/August, so I thought if I did it in June I'd be in fine shape.

I just got a email saying I am cleared. Three months later. You gotta love university administrations. Lesson learned.

So, now begins the process of interviews. I've been thinking about the process of gathering oral histories; how the interaction between me and the narrator/interviewee is so crucial to building a level of trust that will put everyone at ease and willing to talk and the questions I'll be asking which hopefully elicit some interesting and thoughtful responses.

Charles T. Morrissey wrote an article in 1971 titled On Oral History Interviewing, as a guide to neophyte oral historians. He begins his article by saying that there is no set method to doing interviews: that techniques and other aspects of oral history vary according to the person being interviewed. There are the variables of the interviewer, his experience and chemistry with the interviewee; where the interview is conducted; when the interviewee is questioned (late in the day? Is the person tired?); if you have a fixed amount of time, or can one let the interview go on until it ends of its own accord. According to Morrissey reducing an interview to a fixed set of techniques is akin to “reducing courtship to a formula”: while being versed in a range of techniques is important, experience and intuition should guide you as to what tools to use in order to engage your interviewee. As a beginner, Morrissey stresses that preparation and familiarity with the topic and the community that the interviewee is from can help overcome inexperience.

So, with all that in mind, I have prepared a list of questions I'd like some feed back on. I expect that I won't ask all of them to everyone, and probably will use them more as a framework to work from, ad-libbing when something someone is saying is interesting, or trying to direct the conversation in a certain direction. When a person does that, it usually indicates that they have something they really want to discuss, or thinks is more important than what you are asking; a good historian (Not that I am one, but I'm trying) follows their narrator, because often the prioritizing of subjects means that the subject a person wants to talk about first this is what the narrator remembers best, and also indicates what mattered most to people in thier daily lives.

Please, take a look and comment. What am I missing? Would you change the wording of some questions? Are their any events/places you thing I should mention specifically? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks and have a good evening.

Grant

SAMPLE LIST OF QUESTIONS:

-Name, age, gender, sexual orientation, occupation, relationship status.

- Where are you from?

-How long have you lived in Ottawa? What brought you to the city?

-When did you come out? Why then?

-If not, why are you still closeted?

-Generally speaking, how would you sum up Ottawa as a place to live? Do you like it?

-What do you think are the factors that contribute to your point of view?

-How would you describe it as a place for a GLBT person to live?

-How would you describe Ottawa’s GLBT community, if you were/are a part of it?

-Why were you not a part of it?

-What activities did you partake in (ex: political, social)?

-What and where was your first encounter with GLBT life in Ottawa?

-When you came out, how did straights and Ottawa as a whole relate to/treat queers? How has it changed?

-How were the police?

-What places did you frequent the most? Why? What was/is your favorite place? What was your least favorite?

-Where did you not go? Why?

- Do you think there were a lot of divisions in the community? Do you think they were expressed in terms of who went where?

Who used what spaces? When? Why?

-As you can best remember, what neighborhoods were considered ‘queer’ in Ottawa, and when?

- Could you talk to me about Hull, and how the spots in Hull related to Ottawa’s GLBT community?

- How did you experience Ottawa’s reaction to the GLBT community? Were you ever a victim of violence? Where and when? By whom?

-Did your professional life affect where you went or whom you associated with?

-In your opinion, how did bigger cities like Montreal and Toronto affect the gay community? How did you see/used the communities and spaces in other cities?

-how free did you feel to be open about your sexuality in these places?

-How did you find out about new GLBT spots/clubs ?

-What do you think of the current number of spaces in Ottawa, compared to the past?

-Is it better or worse? Why?

-In your opinion, what caused the decline in spaces?

-How did the activist community create/use spaces? Did those spaces play a role in your life?

-Can you discuss the phenomena of house parties in Ottawa? Did you go to them, why were they seemingly so popular?

-Did you life as a queer person result in any interaction with queers of the opposite gender or transsexual/transgendered people?

-What in your opinion, do you consider the 5 or ten most important events for the queer community that has happened locally?

-How about nationally?

-Do you think different classes (working class, poor, middle class) us space differently? Why? How? Did different classes interact together?

-How did couples/married people use spaces?

-How did bi folks use spaces?

-Was there a very sharp divide between French and English Queers? How was that expressed?

-Did you ever go cruising? Where? When? Did spots you use come and go?

-Ever use a tearoom or a bath house? Which one(s)? Any outside of Ottawa

-What do you think of the village initiative?

What 130 bucks gets you (into).

So the first week of school in upon me and I find myself the victim of excessive grad-school meet-and-greet; I am wildly hungover after hosting the welcome/welcome back history graduate student BBQ at my place. So, rather than pedal over to the archives, I decided I'd share with my readers (all three of you) my excitement over my new purchase: a HP printer.

And staying close to my bed and toilet is pretty appealing today, I must admit.

My old printer died after a surprisingly long life, considering how many times I swore at it, bashed it, and threw things at it when it would take up four pages printing all the web page backgrounds I told it NOT to do. Have a happy afterlife my friend, and frolic with plump toner cartridges , you deserved it.

The new printer I got at best buy, and am floored at what it can do: Color, 2-sided printing, fax photocopy and scanning. Did I mention wireless connection? Hell yeah! What really got me excited, in relation to my thesis and my extended goal is the scanner. It can do letter-sized high-resolution flatbed scans. Good enough for photos and documents. In fact, the posters in my new gallery to the left of this post is mostly the result of me figuring out how to use the scanner properly over an afternoon (2 sided printing is another matter; cue the baptism of the printer in profanities).

In terms of my work, it means I can easily put photos and paper ephemera into my database and hopefully into my thesis. In relation to my mandate to collect and preserve whatever materials I encounter and am asked to find a safe, secure home for, this is awesome. I can scan them, ensuring a long-term record of any fragile materials, and reproduce them for any number of archives, regardless of where they materials are physically kept.

This purchase is timely too: Last week, I was contacted by a person who said that they had 3 boxes of old newspapers, organization documents and photos that are their basement and are beginning to get moldy. The person wants the documents to be preserved and kept in Ottawa, and not sent to the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives. My initial response was, "cool, I can scan all the materials I think are really important and give a disk of them to the archives!"

However, with deeper reflection problems present themselves:

- I can scan all this stuff now, but what if I get deluged with material(oh please oh please oh please deluge me)? How much scanning can a 130 dollar scanner do before it's fried?
-do any archives have the technology to use an external hard drive and make the material available for researchers?
-how much time could scanning and sorting add to my thesis time? Ideally I'd like to be done by next August, maybe December. Yet, if I am preserving materials as well as interpreting them for my thesis, can I make the time? Will I have a mountain of work to do after I publish, to keep my promise to myself and to the people whose memories I've been entrusted with? Don't get me wrong, I don't mind doing it, but I am wondering how much I've decided to take on, and if it's manageable in a year.
- Where can I send it, if not to the CLGA? To me, Toronto makes sense for several reasons: it's one of the first places people doing queer history go to when they start research; it has a permanent, funded home with staff and a stable core of volunteers to look after the collections. In Ottawa, I am not sure there is a place that would be both prominent enough for researchers to find materials, and funded and stable enough to preserve materials. Perhaps the Woman's Archive at U of O, or the city archives. Any suggestions?

Finally, I am left pondering how all this commitment will be reflected in my thesis review. Now don't get me wrong, I am not doing this blog/gallery/forum just for marks, but it would be nice if it was considered by my committee. Especially if it's a senario where they go "well, his theory is weak, --he doesn't even mention Foucault-- but look at all the work he's done for the community; let's pass him."

Hell, I'm not fussy: a pass is a pass. So long as you call me Master.

Reflecting 25 Years of Pride: the exhibit.

So, for anyone who didn't know -which would be the majority of you- Ottawa pride celebrated its 25th anniversary this year, by having two window displays during pride week and an exhibit in city hall on the day of the parade. I was lucky enough to finagle a table at the last minute next to the exhibit; pride said they were happy to have me there, since no one really knew what they were doing. This comment kinda surprised me, because if you couldn't find someone who didn't know how to put an exhibit together in this town, it suggested to me that Pride didn't really try too hard to put this together.

Unfortunately, my suspicions were confirmed when I saw the exhibit: they tried, but not too hard. The result? Not many more people know more about their history now than they did before pride week. I have plenty of evidence to back up that previous statement after Sunday, when I saw equal amounts of senior and baby-queers walk by the exhibit (and me) without slowing their pace. That was a shame, because Ottawa's queer community has a lot to be proud of in what it has achieved over the decades.
Now, the blame should not totally be hoisted on pride's shoulders. I am glad they did something, anything, to show the gay community its own history, a history that generally is under-appreciated, by young an old alike.That said, the displays could have been so much more; if they had perhaps more people would've stopped and the generosity of the folks who provided material would not have gone mostly unnoticed.

While I am really grateful pride even bothered, the exhibit was not very effective in conveying the evolution of Pride, which is a drag since exhibits like these represent one of the few opportunities Queers get to learn about their history, especially their local history. While I am loathe to whine and moan about the work of a bunch of volunteers, I feel a critique is necessary, considering that next year is the 40th anniversary of the first gay rights protest in Canada (known as 'We Demand'). I have heard that Pride wants to do another exhibit to commemorate that date, but I believe it needs someone skilled to do a better job.

First off, before I (humbly) present my critiques, I want to say I am not a public historian; I don't know how to make one historical exhibit more attractive, engaging and informative for a non-academic audience than another. However, to paraphrase Monty Python, I know what doesn't work, and the display in After Stonewall Books didn't:

First off, my friend Maureen pointed this out to me after she waited for a bus in from of the bookstore (the one advantage to this exhibit was that it had a constant audience of people waiting at the stop): putting old newspapers in the sun for a better part of the week is a bad thing. There is a reasons all those horrible, brutalist libraries that sprouted up in the 60's and 70's have small windows, and it is not just because of some anti-human aesthetic (although that is a part of it): the sun destroys newspapers! Maybe because they are only 25-ish years old that no one thought of it, but if you have been around archivists long enough, you learn that it does not take too much to make newsprint really brittle and delicate, and a week in the sun does plenty. Once these are gone, they are gone, 25 years young or not.
At least the were not in direct sun, since the window had posters for other pride events in it, effectively covering the papers and photos. Why have a exhibit if it is blocked by other posters?

Although I am mentioning this here, this is a complaint for all the exhibits: few if any of them had any tags explaining what the artifacts were, or how did they relate to pride. Frankly, a lot of them didn't: they were just GO INFO's from the 80's thrown down on the floor along with some pictures of people I had no clue they were. Were they pride organizers? Activists? Both? Neither? Or were they included on the merits of their awesome haircuts?









The display at the Second Cup on Bank/Somerset was better, partly because the documents were in from the sun, but also because they attempted to explain what the photos up on the wall were about. However, there was no overall narrative to them, just a general theme of overcoming obstacles and protests to having pride.

More pragmatically were the issues of setup and access. These panels (examples are pictured left) were on the walls around the shop and above the tables. If you wanted to take a good look at them, you were often wandering up to a table and placing your crotch in the personal space of anyone seated there. While I am a great fan of faces meeting crotches generally, having them meet in this situation was not a great situation for either party. If there were two people at a table you would basically have to interrupt their conversation to look at the exhibit. So, keeping a respectful distance from the patrons meant also keeping the exhibit at a distance too.

The Sunday exhibit at town hall allowed people to get up close with the material on display, finally. The material at After Stonewall and at Second Cup weren't transferred to city hall on Sunday, and I am of two minds about that: It was good, because the diffusion of materials meant more people could see it, but the strongest of the displays -the Second Cup panels- were not at pride for an audience that I suspect would have found them really engaging, as I had.


The picture above shows how the place was set up after I rearranged it. Changing things around was not a problem: When I came in at 3pm, the time I was told to, pride was already in full swing and while there was a table there for me already, the whole day I did not see one pride official. I know they were busy, but really, anyone could have come over and either taken over the exhibit space, or simply taken whatever they wanted from the displays. I couldn't even find someone with duct tape to fix the banner that had fallen down (see pic).

Needless to say the exhibit was kinda a jumble and needed some help ASAP; It was set waaaay back against the windows, far from where most people were walking. I moved it forward by about 20 meters. all the tripods were clustered at one end of the exhibit behind a table. I spaced them out between tables so the exhibits had a more balanced feel and people could get up close to the tripods. The materials on the tables I didn't do anything with , what could I? The materials -pictures, pamphlets, newspapers and posters mostly- were assembled in a collage; lots and lots of stuff overlapping each other, making it impossible to read any documents of look at any picture with out part of it being obscured. The materiel was not even thematically assembled, it would have made sense to have the material on each table cover either a particular era, or a theme/event important to the community. But there was nothing like that, just a lot of gay stuff on a table covered with a plastic tarp to protect it, but also reflected light all over the place, making it difficult to look at some parts of the 'collages'.

While I was disappointed at the turnout for the display and the general disinterest showed by passer-bys (I suppose they were in a rush to go see the performances, or get to the beer tent), I can't say there was a lot to lure them in. I regret I was not thinking about pride until a week before the event. Had I, I would have offered my humble skills to the project, and wrangled a few hundred dollars and some AV equipment out of them, to make some narrative storyboards, and get some news footage out of the local archives to show.

Next year, I will to not just sit here and gripe, but will get involved. Promise.

Mastering technology.

Well, After a couple of tries, I have finally figured out how to use my new camcorder. Turns out that Cannon doesn't provide software to transfer its recording format to regular video for Macs. Grrr. Sixty bucks later, I installed software and have been able to convert this, my first interview, to a viewable format.

Other parts of the learning curve:
-Blogger allows only for 100 mb of video at a time but doesn't tell you that.
-imovie is pretty simple to get going with, but I think is going to be a pain to master.
-I think I need to take off my glasses when focusing my camera

I thought I would post this one as an example of what the interviews will be like, and also I am hoping to get a discussion going about John's comments (if there is anyone reading this). Do you agree with John's description of Ottawa and why it is so closeted? What would you add?

I think I will add segments of videos from time to time and if there are comments I would like some community feedback on. Please note however, it will only be from people that agree to have their videos released to the public: all confidentiality agreements will be strictly observed.

If you see someone staring at this poster:

Tell them I am friendly, trustworthy, generally awesome, and yes, should help a homo out and contact him. If you see anyone tearing down a poster, or otherwise messing with it, kick them, and then let me know. Thanks. Anyone have any suggestions where I should put these, that aren't the obvious bars/coffee shops/stores?

Grand plans...

So, I thought I'd outline to everybody who will (hopefully, eventually) read this blog what I am hoping to use this for, and what I'd like to add to the site:

-I'd like people who don't necessary want to be interviewed, but want to add their memories of Ottawa's queer community to feel free to write me here or add to posts via the comments section.

-As I write sections of my paper, I am hoping to put them up here for people to look at and comment on/critique/ suggest/ spell-check. Of course, final say will be left to me (it is my thesis after all), or perhaps my supervisor, but I think it would add something special to my writing, something I wouldn't get if it was just a process that included me and two or three other people editing my research.
I am thinking of it sorta like open-source programming, but for academics, and without an iphone app being the end result. Or maybe...?

-I'd love to see people talk about places/spaces and events among one another, and see what sort of collective memory can be shaped by folks without me intervening too much in the discussion, if at all. It is a community history I want to construct, so why not have the community involved as much as possible?

-I want to find a way to have a place on here where people can post photos, if they feel like doing so. I know over this fall I am going to bike around Ottawa and take photos of old spots -at least exteriors- and post them up here to see if they get anyone's memories going. I think the best way to trigger memories about a place and to quickly understand it is to see it (yeah yeah, a picture says a thousands words and all that), and having a photo archive of submissions would be fun to use in any presentations and/or exhibits. Any suggestions how I should organize that?

-Finally, I want to have an interactive map, where people can place the spaces/places/events that they thought were important, even if only to them and what sort of space it was. Hopefully with each entry participants can give a time frame for the space (was it in the 70's? 50's? five months in 1999?) and people can comment and add to each individual entry. Ideally, I'd like the map to track the changes in the geography of the community, and also how each person's personal geography reflected their place in the community and in Ottawa as a whole.

Ambitious? Yeah, but there you have it, and my philosophy is that any little bit will help. Now that this has been all written, I think it is time to go public...

Profile!

Well, I put a face pic up here and the bio I used for the Lambda Foundation award I won. Funny, it says I've been on Blogger since 2008, although this blog isn't even 48 hours old yet. Queer, very queer...

A fast start.

Hello everyone,

Okay, full disclosure: I just signed up for this the day before Ottawa Pride week starts, as part of my multi-pronged strategy to get people to talk and write to me about their memories of Ottawa's queer community (the impetus to get this started is over the next week I am going to be putting up posters and handing out cards, and I need a place for anyone interested to contact me and to read up on my project). Why? I am doing a history of the GLBT community for my master thesis in history at Carleton University. I want this site to be a place where people can contact me, or engage in discussions with me and others about places and people they remember from their time in Ottawa's GLBT community.

I am going to make this brief and post parts of my official letter of information that I had to do for Carleton's Ethics panel to get clearance to do oral interviews for the paper. Hopefully these exerts will give everyone a good idea of what my project and I am all about.

Over the next few weeks I am going to figure out how all this blogging stuff works... patience please.


Thanks for reading.

LETTER OF INFORMATION

Re History Project: A Queer Capital: A History of Ottawa’s GLBT community

My name is Grant Burke. I am a Masters student in the department of history at Carleton University. I am being supervised by Dr. Patrizia Gentile, associate professor at Carleton university’s Pauline Jewett Institute of Women’s and Gender Studies/Department of History and recent co-author of The Canadian War on Queers. I am conducting interviews with older and/or long-term residents of Ottawa and members of its gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered community (for now on to be referred to as GLBT) so to write a history of it.

The purpose of this project is to describe the uniqueness of Ottawa’s GLBT community in comparison to larger cities with established villages, and how it’s history of using certain types of spaces and scattering those spaces across the region both reflected and helped to shape Ottawa’s unique gay culture. The study will also look at how Ottawa as a capital city has played a role in how GLBT people have interacted with each other and with the city as a whole.

The history of Ottawa’s GLBT has never been written, thus collecting the ‘stories’ of GLBT members is a central feature of writing this history. Your participation and willingness to be interviewed is voluntary. It will involve a conversation from 2-3 hours maximum. The language of the interview can be either French or English. Please be advised that you may be asked to participate in a follow up interview. If this is the case, I will ask you to re-read this letter of information and sign another consent form. All participants have the right to refuse a follow-up interview. All consent forms will be stored in a safety deposit box.

You may decline to answer any of the interview questions if you so wish. Further, you may decide to withdraw from this study at any time. I will ensure that all information acquired will be destroyed once you withdraw. You also have the option of choosing whether you agree to be recorded during the interview. If you choose not to be recorded, I will take notes for future use.

In order to minimize any possible social risks to participants, and to ensure any expressed desire for confidentiality and anonymity, I will use pseudonyms in both the labeling of your interview and in any research or conference papers produced based on your interview. All electronic files that contain personal information acquired during the interview will be password protected, and will be on a separate hard drive other than my computer. In the event that a researcher other than me transcribes or translates your interview, this person will be obligated to sign a confidentiality agreement indicating that any information learned during the transcription will be held in total and complete confidentiality.

Once my project is done, I would like to store these interviews at the Canadian Lesbian and Gay Archives in Toronto as a source for future researchers to use. If you do not wish your interview to be part of a permanent collection of records, you can choose to not have your interview archived. It will be destroyed upon the completion of my degree.

Please note that this study has been reviewed and received ethics clearance by the Carleton University Research Ethics Committee. If you have any questions about this letter, the research project, or if you wish to withdraw from the study, please do not hesitate to contact me at:

Grant Burke

Department of History

Carleton University

gburke@connect.carleton.ca