Our Trip to Alberta’s capital city for Gay Edmonton Pride Festival 2018 – It is time for the beginning of our gay travel blogger Pride Season 2018! We planned our first gay pride festival this year in the West-Canadian city Edmonton, the capital city of the province of Alberta. The one-week LGBT event Gay Pride Parade Edmonton Canada was a great (gay) reason to travel to Canada again and to participate in the colorful gay pride parade hand-in-hand for LGBT rights, equality, and love #lovewins #loveislove #YEGpride.
– in paid collaboration –
Together with more than 50,000 members of the LGBTQ+ community, we marched, danced, and waved our rainbow flags taking beautiful photos and videos of handsome bearded men, spectacularly dressed drag queens, kissing queer couples, and LGBTQ2S+ people celebrating. The pride parade of 125 floats started on (82) Whyte Avenue and ended at Strathcona Park in Old Strathcona, the southern riverside part of Edmonton. Join us at our Gay Pride Parade Edmonton Canada Festival adventure and see the country-themed and family-connected pride in Alberta’s capital city through a couple of men‘s eyes!
Happy Pride 2018 from Canada! | Gay Edmonton Pride Festival © Coupleofmen.com
Best of Gay Parade of Edmonton Pride Festival
The Edmonton Pride Festival has a unique and remarkable history to tell. The first Pride Celebration in Edmonton took place in 1980, became a week-long queer celebration in 1983, and an annual event feature in the early 1990ies. In 2013, a rainbow flag was raised at the military base of Edmonton, the first-ever in Canadian history. Today, the Gay Pride in Edmonton attracts more than 50.000 spectators from all over the world every year and became one of the most important and biggest LGBTQ2S+ and gay pride events in Canada. In 2018, the Edmonton Gay Pride Parade was temporarily interrupted by a group of protestors from within the LGBT community demanding the police and military to leave the gay pride parade. The protestors and organizers of the pride came to an agreement after a 20-minutes discussion and the parade could continue with a big applause.
Our Gay Pride Experience in Edmonton
The gay-friendly demonstration with 125 colorful decorated floats, gay, lesbian, and queer people from all over the world and local companies, as well as the wiener dog and pugs community, continued the march and once more turned Edmonton into the gay capital of Canada for this early summer week in June 2018. Honestly, we have never experienced a gay pride festival where so many dogs have been present, all dressed in rainbow capes and pride outfits, of course. Although it was not possible to march in the parade, we could change our position along the route to get the best of everything. After the parade, everybody walked towards the park where we enjoyed the DJs and dance performances on stage and met some lovely locals who danced with us the clouds away.
More pictures of Gay Pride in Alberta’s capital city
Gay Canada Travel Guide
Alberta, British Colombia, Ontario: And now we are just back from our trip to Edmonton and the north-eastern lakes of Alberta where we collected wonderful memories sharing our best Canadian experiences with you in our Canada Gay Travel Guides >
Doughnut Party! Edmonton: The best Local Sweets
Do you like sweet, colorful, and delicious treats? Well, we think we discovered just the right bakery for you! During pride weekend, we had the chance to meet the gay couple Simon and Matthew, the guys behind Doughnut Party! and Moonshine Doughnuts. After tasting some of their ridiculously delicious doughnuts, we shared our experiences of working together as couples in times of economic downturn and, of course, took some time for one or two gay couple selfies. Their doughnut store with the cute Japanese-inspired logo is located at 10938 119 Street in North West of Downtown Edmonton and is open daily. Good to know: don’t come too late as they often sell out by the early afternoon. We can imagine that a treat of Doughnut Party! is probably the best sweet temptation in town, and not only during Pride. Although we must admit that we really loved their Moonshine Doughnuts ever more, especially since they are a little smaller (European size) and vegan! You might find their pop-up doughnut stand at the Old Strathcona Farmer’s Market.
Local Brewery Ally Kat
Beer Sponsor of Edmonton Pride 2018
You know we are the beer guys, especially while traveling the world. We love to taste a good craft beer and enjoy the diversity of local brewing as every destination offers a slightly different beer assortment. Therefore, we put a tour to the 4th oldest brewery in Alberta on our agenda. The Alley Kat Micro-Brewery has a current capacity of 18,000 hectoliters (5.1 million bottles) annually using local products and local suppliers where possible. Additional to that, Alley Kat is a proud supporter of Edmonton’s LGBTQ2S+ community and the Pride Festival and decided in 2018 to become the official beer sponsor of the Pride Edmonton Festival for the next 3 years. During our brewery tour, we learned about the Full Squeeze Pride Beer, the open-minded mindset of the owners, staff, and their suppliers, and had the chance to try the best beers during a beer tasting. When you are planning to travel to Edmonton, do not forget to try at least once a Full Squeeze or their famous Aprikat beer. It is simply delicious!
Our best of Gay Pride Parade Edmonton Canada of the Festival 2018
We were super lucky with the weather! Already the Sunday after gay pride turned into a rainy, windy, cuddle day. Enough time to reminiscence the best moments of the 2018 Edmonton Pride Festival. Our keywords for Gay Pride in Edmonton: Family, Unity, and Diversity packed in colorful rainbow dresses and decorated with proud LGBT people and their dogs. But this was just the beginning of our trip to Alberta. From Monday on, we started our Road Trip in Alberta heading east towards Cold Lake excited about what surprises this relatively unknown touristic area has to offer. If you want to know more about Edmonton, Alberta, the Rocky Mountains, and Canada, check our Canada Gay Travel Guides for tips and inspiration. Tip: Since spring 2018, KLM Airlines is operating a direct flight connection from Amsterdam to Edmonton!
Do you want to know more about our gay travels around the world? Stay tuned on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. See you again in Canada, Alberta, Edmonton, or somewhere else around the world!
Karl & Daan
Please note: This trip was made possible in partnership with Tourism Edmonton. Anyhow, our opinions are 100% our own, as usual.
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