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.