Flin Flon Pride’s third go-around this August is getting closer with a planned expansion to the festival starting to take shape.
This year, the main initiative of the Flin Flon Pride committee was to get area schools on board with Pride celebrations. That has paid off, with Flin Flon School Division (FFSD) hosting their first-ever Pride week from June 24-28. They will host a flag raising at Ruth Betts Community School June 24. Frontier Collegiate in Cranberry Portage and Creighton Community School will also host Pride-related events in the same timeframe.
“It was our goal this year to make that happen. I approached the [FFSD] school board at the end of April,” said Jordana Oulette, Pride event organizer.
“We got the ball rolling and they approved it almost immediately.”
It is the biggest event for Flin Flon Pride during Pride Month.
Celebrated every June, Pride Month comes two months before Flin Flon’s main Pride celebrations, which have traditionally taken place in August. Oulette said the events were held later in the summer to provide a big community event in August, because of scheduling related to the first-ever Flin Flon Pride event and other June-based events in Flin Flon.
“The weekend that we should be doing Pride is Trout Festival weekend and we don’t want to take away from that,” said Oulette.
This year’s Flin Flon Pride will be the third in the city and is shaping up to be the biggest yet, with organizers expanding from two days to three and holding a number of family events, including Pride in the Park – an event Oulette said was a rousing success last year.
“We’re going to do a three-day thing, sticking with our family theme, of course, where we like to keep everybody involved. We’re going to do things that went over well last year. We learned from some events that we tried to do. This year, we’re going to do them differently,” she said.
The trans march, held for the first time last summer, will continue for another year, set to take place immediately after the ceremonial Pride flag raising at Flin Flon City Hall.
“We still have a pretty strong trans community in Flin Flon and we have a few new members who identify as trans on the committee. We’re absolutely going to keep that going,” said Oulette.
Other events, including a movie night, are scheduled for later in the summer. Pride’s first event of the season, a glow party, took place June 15.
One new event is scheduled for the Pride weekend – a drag show, featuring kings, queens and in-betweens both from Flin Flon and from nearby centres.
“It’s going to be great. I can’t wait,” Oulette said.
“We’ve got lots of people that are wanting to dress up that live here, but we’ve also reached out to a couple people from out of town and we’re hoping to get them to come up. We’ve got some talent here. We’ve got some people who just can’t wait.”
The last few months have not been all positive for the Pride movement in Flin Flon. A Pride-themed mural on a rock cut near Hook Lake was vandalized earlier in the spring, with the artists behind the mural suspecting the piece was targeted for its subject. The piece was soon restored, with an unknown artist later adding extra accents to the mural.
Oulette said the Pride committee has looked into adding more Pride-themed art around Flin Flon, mentioning that the group plans to repaint the Rainbow flag crosswalk at Main Street and Second Avenue this summer.
“It’s something that we’ve kind of played around with. We’ve floated it at our meetings. Now that summer is getting into full force, we will be meeting more often. It’s something that we’ve talked about, absolutely,” Oulette said.
“It’s Flin Flon. We can paint anywhere we want. It might get a little bit more ‘rainbow-y’ around in the next couple of months. There may be a little more colour.”
For Oulette and other organizers, the goal is not only to show Flin Flon as an inclusive place for LGBTQ+ people, but to provide a positive example for people who may not otherwise be involved with Pride.
“I want to leave the town a better place for my nieces and nephews. I want them to be like, ‘Hey, I can do something,’” Oulette said.
“If you look at our community, it’s so diverse. We have people from all walks of life on there and it’s been like that since day one. That’s another thing with the parade, too. People realize, ‘Hey, I can just go in the Pride parade.’ You don’t have to be gay. You can be an ally; you can just support love. You can be whatever. It’s for everybody. I think the more that we kind of spread our message, the more people are going to see that.”
Oulette can recall her late grandma’s support of the Pride movement once activists brought it to Flin Flon.
“She was at both parades. She made sure she came to every event and showed her support. She was in her 70s. That was amazing to see somebody like that,” she said.
