Hidden history Digital tour takes Winnipeggers into city’s current and former queer-friendly spaces By: Ben Waldman Posted: 4:03 PM CDT Monday, Jun. 24, 2024 Last Modified: 8:21 PM CDT Monday, Jun. 24, 2024 Updates

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At 242 Manitoba Ave., there’s no honorary plaque on the white stucco wall that says so, but the one-time synagogue and current ministry in the North End is an important landmark in the city’s ongoing history of dedicated queer spaces.

Built in 1921, the building just west of Main Street became in the 1970s the first permanent home of Happenings Social Club, a members-only gay bar and dance club started by an organizing body called the Mutual Friendship Society.

Didn’t know that? Don’t worry — until last fall, neither did Devin Slippert.

After starting with the Winnipeg Architecture Foundation as its programming and outreach co-ordinator last September, Slippert, 22, quickly sought out ways to combine their admiration for the city’s built environment with their curiosity about and respect for the city’s undertold queer history.

So Slippert, who uses he/they pronouns, got to work on an important and personal research project: a digital guide to places in Winnipeg that factored into the city’s LGBTTQ+ story.

“I’ve been calling it my queer history tour,” Slippert says. “I always preface it by saying it’s a very non-comprehensive look at some of the queer spaces that have existed in Winnipeg throughout the last 50 years.”

In building the tour, Slippert relied heavily on the Manitoba Gay and Lesbian Archives at the University of Manitoba, as well as Saskatchewan historian Valerie J. Korinek’s oral and archival history book Prairie Fairies, which documents queer history in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba mostly throughout the 20th century.

Slippert also visited with the Rainbow Resource Centre’s 55+ LGBTTQ+ group to gain insight into an era of queer life he was too young to have experienced first-hand.

“It was probably the most rewarding part of the project,” says Slippert, who also plays indie music under the name Witchy Woods. “I just let them talk about the places where they used to go, and I gained a large list of places, most of which I couldn’t include in this tour. The only record of some of those places I could find was in that room.”

“I gained a large list of places, most of which I couldn’t include in this tour. The only record of some of those places I could find was in that room.”–Devin Slippert

Because queer history is often marginalized and the places mentioned existed under considerable threat of homophobia and hatred, a map of Winnipeg’s current and former queer spaces — even a non-comprehensive one — could be a starting point for more awareness of the queer community’s relationship to the city’s built environment, Slippert says.

“It was definitely emotional hearing about all these places that don’t exist anymore,” says Slippert, who is trans and a lesbian. “As a young queer person, there aren’t a ton of queer-only spaces anymore.

“While all these places were relatively hidden in the 1970s and 1980s, there were so many of them. There’s pros and cons to that. There’s more inclusivity and more diversity, and people are able to go to mixed spaces and it’s just chill, but it is also nice to go to a place where you know your community is going to be there.”

In the research stage, Slippert became familiar with the backstories of dozens of queer spaces in the city, some of which still stand but were built for different purposes. For example, they learned, the Mount Royal Hotel on Higgins Avenue was for years a de facto working-class lesbian bar patronized by drag queens, sex workers and a “leather-scene clientele.”

“But now that the tour has come out, I’ve been receiving so much positive feedback. People are talking about it as a starting point. I’m happy they’re seeing it as that, because it’s exactly what I intended the tour to be — a starting point for building up this history.”–Devin Slippert

In compiling the tour, Slippert also capably traces name and location changes of cornerstone organizations such as Klinic, which began as Committee Representing Youth Problems Today (CRYPT), and Ms. Purdy’s, a lesbian bar located at the Women’s Building to 226 Main St. Established in 1983 as a private club, Purdy’s was the oldest continuously operating women’s bar in North America. The club was at 272 Sherbrook in the 90s for about a year before returning to Main St.

Slippert also learned of frustrating systemic barriers gay and lesbian groups faced in achieving broad independence and legitimacy, even as they provided essential services to their communities.

At the Women’s Building (730 Alexander Ave.), government-funded heterosexual feminist organizations risked their own financial futures by quietly funnelling money toward queer groups — Lesbian Phone Lines and Winnipeg Women’s Liberation — operating under the same roof that couldn’t apply for government funding owing to homophobic discrimination.

Featuring 13 locations across the city, Slippert’s tour is too far-ranging to complete by foot, he says. But there are certain areas — West Broadway, downtown — where sites tend to cluster. The first location listed in the tour is the Hill, the area between the Legislative building and the river, which was a popular cruising spot from the 1950s to the 1990s.

“At the Hill,” Slippert writes in the tour-accompanying text, “cruising would begin after dark, and it would get especially busy after bars closed. Police presence increased in the area when gay bashings began occurring more frequently.”

Because this tour is architectural in nature, Slippert had to leave out several places that either no longer exist or weren’t architecturally significant. Some of these include cruising sites highlighted in Prairie Fairies, such as the third floor of Eaton’s, the fifth floor of the Bay, and the second floor of the demolished Rialto Theatre.

Launched during Pride Month, the tour has been well-received, Slippert says.

“I was really nervous people would be disappointed something wasn’t included,” he says. “But now that the tour has come out, I’ve been receiving so much positive feedback. People are talking about it as a starting point. I’m happy they’re seeing it as that, because it’s exactly what I intended the tour to be — a starting point for building up this history.”

ben.waldman@winnipegfreepress.com