This year marks the tenth anniversary of the first Pride parade in Truro, Nova Scotia.
For decades, Truro’s 2SLGBTQIA+ community would often gather in rural fire halls, out-of-the-way venues, and whatever businesses would be accepting enough to host them in town. In 2016, the community could finally be celebrated openly in the town’s streets.
Since then, Truro Pride has hosted its annual Pride Parade and Fun Day every year (2020 and 2021 being the only exceptions). On Saturday, June 27, it will celebrate its 10th anniversary Pride parade.
Yet, the right to celebrate openly did not come without conflict. Whether it be the safety of secrecy shielding queer events or disputes with local government, Pride would not exist in Truro without its past leaders and members and the wider 2SLGBTQIA+ community, paving the way for inclusion and acceptance.
The beginning of a community
Al McNutt could be considered one of Truro’s most prolific gay rights activists.
McNutt is both a founding member of Truro Pride and the founder of the Northern Healthy Connections Society, a non-profit organization focused on harm-reduction and awareness. His story mirrors those told by many gay men during the 1980s—raised in a rural town, settling down with a wife and kids, but coming to an understanding that something doesn’t feel right. He didn’t fit in with the mold carved out for young men at the time.
After conversations with his family, McNutt left the Truro area to discover more of himself and people like him in the urban nightlife of Toronto.
He was living in the city when he was diagnosed with HIV during the AIDS crisis. His partner at the time, also HIV-positive, passed away in 1991.
After another two years in Toronto, he moved home.
“I had this pull to go back,” says McNutt. “That’s how it all started for me. I don’t think I would have started a Pride parade, or getting a flag raising, if it hadn’t been for the strength I had in me when I came back compared to when I left.
“I came back to let everybody know,” he continues. “Here I am. This is who I am. If you don’t like it, go to the other side of the street. I don’t care. I have plenty of friends and I don’t need anymore.”
Some of these friends were members of the local queer community, finding a place amongst each other in Truro. Some people were out. Others were closeted. McNutt, of course, was out-and-proud.
“Someone had to start standing up and creating some awareness,” says McNutt.
When it came to social groups in the Truro area, McNutt says there was a network of queer folks that he became involved with who would hold dances at the Truro Lions Club or the Onslow Fire Hall—McNutt says these locations were often under the cover of darkness, away from prying eyes.
“The first dance I ever went to was the one at the Lion’s Club,” says McNutt. “It was a pretty rowdy bunch. They let their hair down and they were having a good time, and they felt safe in that particular area.”
Eventually, they would hold socials at the Armoury in Truro, a location that was a little more central, and coffee meet-ups at the now-closed Fair Trade Cafe. McNutt says it was run by a retired teacher he knew, and asked him if they could have semi-regular potlucks in the evening.
This social scene would eventually evolve into a group of like-minded queer activists and advocates who, like McNutt, wanted Truro to be a more comfortable place for the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
Turbulence
For a long time, Truro’s queer community would stay a not-so-well-kept secret. This would change over time as other rural Nova Scotian communities, including in the Annapolis Valley, South Shore, and Pictou County would become more public with the rising acceptance of gay and lesbian folks. This included flag raisings, public dances, and a wider attendance at queer-organized events, often including allies.
However, the fight for something as seemingly simple as a flag raising would cause tension between burgeoning Pride organizers and the Town of Truro.
In 2007, the Town of Truro voted 6-1 to deny the flying of the Pride flag, with the mayor at the time citing religious values, as well as a potential flood of requests from other equity-deserving groups. This was contested in both council chambers and in the media by members of Truro Pride. In response, the Municipality of the County of Colchester agreed to fly the Pride flag.
The mayor’s words at this time were inflammatory, but they didn’t stay within the community. Truro made national headlines for its council’s decision. Members of council were also quoted by the media, stating misconceptions regarding the queer community. This would result in the filing of a human rights complaint against the mayor by a member of Truro Pride.
During this time of turmoil, Truro Pride had changed its name to Rainbow Proud, perhaps to avoid associations with the Town of Truro while they remained in conflict. As reported by Brent Creelman of Xtra! magazine in 2008, the legality around the Town’s right to deny the flag raising was tenuous, and their argument would likely fall flat if brought before a human rights tribunal, as it had with similar cases in the past.
This would culminate in an apology from the Town of Truro to Rainbow Proud in 2008. An article on the subject in Xtra! magazine from July of that year states the following:
“The town ‘agrees to work with Rainbow Proud… to move forward in a positive manner,’ the statement reads. According to the release, the town has ‘amended its affirmative action policy to include sexual orientation as a category of the designated employment equity groups.’ It also says that ‘the Town of Truro and Rainbow Proud commit to work together to conduct an educational and awareness-raising program to be provided to the mayor and council of the Town of Truro dealing with issues of heterosexism, homophobia and gender identity.’”
However, the town would not reverse its decision on flying the Pride flag. As another article from Xtra! reports, this likely had a greater impact on communities outside of Truro and Colchester County.
“This would have been an isolated incident until February 4, 2008 when Pictou County followed Truro’s example and changed its official policy to fly only official government flags. It’s a decision that seems out of step with the Pictou County Tourism website which talks of ‘community of communities’ ‘rich in cultural diversity’ and which invites visitors to ‘join in the celebration of our communities at our multitude of festivals, parades and community gatherings.’”
Although the groups seemingly made peace, another municipal incident sparked controversy in 2009. A proposal was made to place a gate at the Wood Street entrance of Victoria Park so it would be closed to vehicles at night. The mayor’s reason? It was a popular gay hook-up spot.
Words in the Truro Daily News about stopping these rendezvous once again made headlines. At this time, however, council began to distance itself from the mayor’s position, with the deputy mayor stating that it was not the view of members of council. While the proposal was not stricken completely at the time, it was delayed.
The first Pride parade
The relationship between the Town of Truro and Truro Pride had been one rife with conflict for many years. But, as times changed, so too did the members of council who once voted down the flag raising, as did the general perception and sentiment of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community. It wouldn’t be until 2016 that a chance conversation between McNutt and current Truro Police Chief Dave MacNeil that progress would truly be made in rectifying past mistakes.
In interviews with McNutt and MacNeil, they both tell a similar story, one that began with a rather simple question: “Why not?”
“Al had mentioned he was taking a group of youth to Halifax to watch the Pride Parade,” says MacNeil. “He was trying to organize that. I said, oh, that’s kind of cool, and not knowing the reason, I asked why don’t we have a Pride parade in Truro?”
McNutt divulged details on the sordid history of Pride efforts in Truro.
“I’m the traffic authority in Truro, at the time, the deputy traffic authority, so if you fill out an application, I’m the guy who approves it,” says MacNeil. “That’s my recollection of what happened… that’s how it transpired. An innocent conversation with Al.”
McNutt would have to fill out a form requesting a street shutdown for the parade, and the form would pass by MacNeil’s desk for approval. In reality, it required a little more effort than signing off on a piece of paper. MacNeil would have to defend his decision to council and the wider public.
“There were some questions: what is this all about, why,” says MacNeil. “It definitely raised some eyebrows.”
Yet, the decision went through without any controversy. The first Truro Pride Parade was now in development. Along with McNutt and the Northern Healthy Connections Society, there was a volunteer committee and organizations that would assist in various tasks, including the Downtown Truro Partnership, the Town of Truro, and the Truro Police Service.
One month before the parade, the Town of Truro would raise the Pride flag in observance of the Orlando nightclub shooting. This would be the first time in history that the municipality would raise the flag on behalf of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.
On Monday, July 11, 2016, the Town of Truro hoisted the Pride flag in front of the municipal offices once more, and on Saturday, July 16, 2016, Truro’s first Pride Parade brought out thousands of participants and onlookers as advocates and community members marched through the town’s streets.
McNutt wasn’t sure what to expect as he rode in a convertible alongside MacNeil.
“Dave, duck your head,” he recalls saying at the time, “if there’s any rotten eggs thrown at us.”
His nervousness was trumped by what was the biggest celebration of queer joy Truro had ever experienced.
“Both sides of the streets were fairly packed,” McNutt says. “Everyone was clapping.”
Ten years of Pride
The Truro Pride Parade and Fun Day would become an annual event, recurring every summer with help from volunteer members, local community organizations, and municipal governments. As Pride grew, so too did the need for more structure to handle an event that was growing to be bigger and better every year, eventually transforming into a full week of events.
In 2020, the community group known as Truro Pride incorporated as a non-profit organization, the Truro Pride Society. This would present several opportunities to the group, including the ability to apply for substantial grant funding, have a dedicated board with specified roles, and eventually, hire staff to work on the parade and carry out year-round programming.
At this point, McNutt had stepped away from the organization, as had many of the volunteer members who had founded the parade. And yet, there was still plenty of interest in the community to hold the parade and ensure its success year after year—even when a pandemic threatened to shut it down entirely.
Raelee Rath was one of those volunteers, eventually becoming chair of the board. She moved back to her hometown of Truro during the pandemic in 2020. At the time, a small working board was transitioning the community organization into an incorporated non-profit.
Rath joined the Truro Pride board in early 2021. The newly registered Truro Pride Society had a small grant for capacity building, no staff to speak of, and a recent Pride event that had to be held fully online. In fact, 2021’s Pride events would also be virtual.
“There really wasn’t a lot of corporate sponsorships happening, but part of it was there were no large scale events,” says Rath. “2020 was a virtual Pride. There wasn’t a big gathering or anything. Same with 2021… 2022 was our first Pride parade I was a part of.”
To Rath, that first parade coming out of the pandemic was the most memorable. She suspects it was one of the first big events in Truro coming out of COVID.
“It was by far the most chaotic,” she says. “We were trying to figure out how to plan a parade and do it properly, because it had been years since we had one. That one felt the best. It felt like the town came together out of COVID and were gathering, celebrating again.”
2022 was also the first year Truro Pride had staff, thanks in part to more grant funding coming in from all levels of government. Throughout Rath’s time on the board, that would involve staff taking on multiple projects of regional significance.
During the 2025 celebrations, the Town of Truro and Truro Pride experienced a first for the community—representation from all levels of government, present at the Truro Pride Parade and Fun Day.
After many years of conscious repair, the new mayor of the Town of Truro, Cathy Hinton, celebrated the day with the 2SLGBTQIA+ community, sharing words on behalf of the town. Hinton had been participating in the parade since 2016 as a community member and councillor for Ward 3.
Also present were Municipality of the County of Colchester mayor Christine Blair, Truro-Bible Hill-Millbrook-Salmon River MLA Dave Ritcey, and Colchester-Cumberland MP Alana Hirtle.
History is not often pretty—it’s a messy timeline of conflict, hardship, and for marginalized communities, a struggle for acceptance and belonging. However, it is thanks to those who were willing to act in defiance of their conditions, wanting to experience joy despite what others may say, that Truro and Colchester County have had the opportunity to work towards safety, inclusion, and acceptance of the 2SLGTBQIA+ community.
While there is always more to be done to advance equity and equality, it’s also important to celebrate our victories along the way.
Editor’s Note: This article is written by newsletter editor Brendyn Creamer, who also works as a program coordinator with the Truro Pride Society. Despite his affiliation with the society, he has made it his best effort to tell an accurate depiction of the society’s history through articles, interviews, and photographs. Furthermore, he wrote this article without seeking additional compensation from either The Coast or the Truro Pride Society for his work, and chose to write the article in his free time out of his own interest in the subject matter.
