Town Launches Pandemic-Friendly Pride Month Celebrations

PORT HAWKESBURY - "COVID-19 may have cancelled a rally, but it can't cancel a community."

The words of Port Hawkesbury LGBTQIA activist Taylor Linloff are guiding this year's Pride Month activities in Port Hawkesbury, where Nova Scotia's strict gathering limits have meant the town won't be able to duplicate its groundbreaking efforts of just twelve months earlier. 

Last June, Linloff and their fellow Strait Area Pride Rally organizers welcomed an estimated 300 people for the first such event to be held in Cape Breton outside of the Sydney area. This time around, with the support of Port Hawkesbury Town Council and Mayor Brenda Chisholm-Beaton behind them, Linloff is revising her approach to host several pandemic-friendly activities.

Two days before Pride Month began, Linloff hosted a virtual workshop that encouraged people of all ages to make their own Pride flags. On the second day of June, as Linloff and Mayor Chisholm-Beaton raised the Pride flag in front of the Port Hawkesbury Civic Centre, the pair announced that everybody who created their own flags can take them - along with rocks and anything else painted with the rainbow colours of the Pride movement - and place them near the town fountain at Grant's Pond, which Linloff and Chisholm-Beaton have christened "Fountain of Love."

In an interview with TELILE 24/7 host Adam Cooke, Linloff noted that they are also working on hosting a Pride-themed coffee house for local musicians near the end of the month, with additional plans to partner with the Gay-Straight Alliance at the Strait Area Education and Recreation Centre (SAERC) in Port Hawkesbury as well as the St. Peter's-based Richmond County Rainbow Coalition.

Asked what they thought of the reaction to their Pride Month presentation at the May regular meeting of Port Hawkesbury Town Council, in which all four councilors and the mayor individually pledged to support them in their Pride Month efforts, Linloff didn't miss a beat: "It's like getting perfect tens from all the judges at the Olympics."