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Reviews
Out North: An Archive of Queer Activism and Kinship in Canada by Craig Jennex, Nisha Eswaran
babyfacedoldsoul's review
adventurous
challenging
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
4.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Transphobia, Hate crime, Homophobia, and Death
aus10england's review
informative
medium-paced
4.0
I well assembled queer history of Canada! Loved all the archival images.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Homophobia and Transphobia
raix's review
informative
4.0
A nice overview of various events and organizations in Canadian queer history, with a nice sampling of archival materials. Doesn't go very in-depth about any one thing, but gives a lot of good branching off points for further research
loloreid's review
emotional
informative
slow-paced
5.0
Beautifully designed and well written, a wonderful combination of a book to flip through and read one entry but also works when read front to back. A history of Queer Canada that gives insight into the vast collection of the ArQuives and in the experience of Queer life, mainly since the early 1900s. Aware of the gaps missing in the collection and in the Toronto-centric nature of the archive, the acknowledgement of this bias builds trust in the institution knowing that there is the intention of efforts to widen the scope of the collection.
librarycowboy's review
challenging
informative
inspiring
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
Finally! A book about Canadian Queer history!! It was amazing to finally learn more about the gay liberation movement in my home country rather than through an American lens. It's astounding that as a Canadian citizen I knew about Stonewall YEARS before I knew about the Canadian protests.
I got some great music, pulp fiction, and documentary recommendations from this book and have gone on to discover that many have been digitized by various Canadian archives and are available for free online.
My only wish is that the book had been longer.
I got some great music, pulp fiction, and documentary recommendations from this book and have gone on to discover that many have been digitized by various Canadian archives and are available for free online.
My only wish is that the book had been longer.
thebacklistborrower's review
informative
reflective
3.5
After seeing Out North on my feed a handful of times, I reserved it at the library -- it sounded fascinating, and was pink and full of pictures to boot! Published by the ArQuives and Figure.1 Publishing, it covers the queer history of Canada, from the very early days to the 2020s. Divided into eras, each section discusses the various ways 2SLGBTQ+ people engaged in activism and came together to support each other.
Of course, there is too much history to sum up in a single book. Out North focusses on activism and kinship, specifically activist groups, clubs and other gay establishments, performing troupes, protests, publications, and more, with plenty of visual materials pulled from the ArQuives and a few other archives throughout Canada. Prefacing each section was a summary of the era, including societal impressions, legal changes, and the major social movements. I think what I found most valuable was the reminder that despite the legal and social progress made, it was not linear but ebbed and flowed over the decades.
However, one gap that I’d seen others reference in my feed was that the book does not thoroughly discuss where the community had failed to come together in kinship. In most cases, the creation of organizations for marginalized groups, like trans, women, Black and Indigenous queer groups are mentioned as counters to the predominantly white hetero male narrative of most queer organizations, but the extent to which they were marginalized is not thoroughly detailed. The bulk of the detail on this topic is in the afterword.
So in summary, I think this is a really good book to read if you’re looking for a summary of a history of Canadian LGBTQ+ history, particularly the amount of effort that went into building community in the face of violence and discrimintion. However, read critically and be aware of the history missing from the pages.