Organizers of upcoming Pride Month events have chosen an iconic Sunshine Coast inhabitant as its 2025 role model: the salmon.
“Like the salmon who return to their home waters, we swim against the current of hate, fear, and political backlash — not just for ourselves, but for each other, for our queer youth, for our Elders, for our Two-Spirit kin, for our ancestors, for the future,” said members of the Sunshine Coast Pride Society in a news release.
The annual celebration of unity and visibility for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community kicks off with successive marches. On Sunday, June 1, grand marshall Kao Lawrie will lead a foot parade from Davis Bay Pier to ts’úkw’um (Mission Point) Park. Lawrie is the founder of the skill-inclusive This Tournament Has Everything (TTHE), a draft-style hockey tournament. The Sechelt-based tournament was founded in 2023 for people who identify as women, trans, two-spirited, non-binary, and gender expansive, and has since attracted financial support from the National Hockey League.
The next weekend, on June 7, Talaysay Tours leads an Indigenous Pride Walk through ?iyals (Cliff Gilker Park) in xwesam-stelkaya (Roberts Creek) to jointly celebrate Pride Month and National Indigenous History Month. A “Pride Paddle” is scheduled for later that day in Porpoise Bay Provincial Park.
The June 1 foot parade will inaugurate a four-hour festival at Mission Point. “It’s my first time hosting a big event like that,” said master of ceremonies (and eminent local drag king) Davis Gay, “so it’s kind of exciting. It’s going to be bigger and better: we’ve got way more tents, so hopefully no one’s going to be as drenched as last year. I just keep telling people it’s going to be sunny.”
The festival will open with prayers from the shíshálh Nation, and include a return of the “pet parade” that made its first appearance last year. Pine ‘N’ Sandy Drag performers — Davis Gay, Candi Struts, Bindiya House, Manly Nipkiss, Ryan Ginger, Lil Grease Trap, and Poysin — are slated to perform musical spoofs from the musical Wicked. “It’s going to be really fun this year,” said Davis Gay.
Festival headliner Queer as Funk — a nine-member funk and soul band based in Vancouver — will perform musical sets, including selections from its 2024 debut studio album. The group has played across Canada and wowed audiences during six sold-out shows at the Commodore Ballroom. “We believe that the radical power of queer friendship can help knit our communities back together during these divisive times,” said vocalist Jocelyn MacDougall. “By building loving relationships of all kinds — friendship, neighborly, and even acquaintance love—across lines of difference, we can strengthen our ability to care for each other.”
The Pride Festival will also include an artisan market — featuring 2SLGBTQIA+ makers — plus representatives of social services and community organizations. Specific areas are designated for kids, teens and Elders. Attendees can contribute to a community mural designed by shíshálh artist Manuela Salinas. Salinas previously designed a motif for the Sunshine Coast Pride Society’s “Be a Gem” fundraiser: a circle of salmon eggs to represent perseverance.
Perennial Pride Month events like the Pride Golf tournament (June 22), youth and adult dances (June 20 and 21 respectively), and family storytime (June 14 at the Sechelt Library) will be complemented by innovations like Birding with Pride (June 15) and a Pride Family Picnic (June 29 in Gibsons). The Pine N Sandy drag artists plan a full-scale performance on June 14 at Tapworks in Gibsons.
“We are doing more than marking the start of Pride season,” said Adriana Lademann of the Sunshine Coast Pride Society as the rainbow flag was raised in Sechelt on Wednesday. “We are making a visible, public commitment to inclusion, dignity, and belonging for 2SLGBTQIA+ people across the Sunshine Coast.”
For full event listings of Pride Month activities on the Sunshine Coast, browse to sunshinecoastpride.com and prideonthecoast.com.
