The BC Gay and Lesbian Archive has found its home in the Vancouver City Archives
After decades of storing his archive collection at home, Ron Dutton has moved towards bigger facilities
Vancouver, BC – March 14th, 2024
After collecting gay and lesbian items found around the city of Vancouver for four decades, Ron Dutton has moved his impressive collection to the Vancouver City Archive. 2017 marked a new beginning for the BC Gay and Lesbian Archive (BCGLA), where it will be kept in the government facility, but will continue to be open to the public. In the first months of moving the archive, progress was already made when the pieces were published online for a bigger audience to look at.
Ron Dutton, the manager and creator of the BCGLA, was in charge of the decision on the final whereabouts of the archive. After being contacted by the Vancouver City Archives, he felt it was the right choice. He describes deciding to put his archive in a government institution as wrenching. “These are our stories,” Dutton said. “We have to control the narrative; we have to be the ones that decide what our lives mean.”
In the mists of the Initial movements of the Gay Liberation Front, was Dutton who after realizing that things were happening at a fast pace and nobody was keeping records, he converted his house to a makeshift filing system. Every item found went into it, Zines, posters, images, articles, nothing was off limits. He made sure there was proof of what the gay rights organizations resided in Vancouver during the 70s fought for.
“When we don’t collect these things, when we don’t make these records accessible, It doesn’t get included in History,” Magnus Berg a recent graduate Archivist said “With community archives, It’s the community stepping up and filling that gap.”
The BC Gay and Lesbian Archive, founded in early 1970 by Ron Dutton, is a resource for the queer community around British Columbia that contains a diverse collection of LGBTQ+ items with the purpose of mapping and showing the lives of queer folks in Vancouver during an important time like the Gay Liberation Fights. From personal papers such as diaries, photographs, films, reports from the government and academic researchers, can now all be found in the Vancouver City Archives and open to the public.
For more information please contact Anna Montaner, communication specialist for the BC Gay and Lesbian Archive at montanercolillasa19@tru.ca, or visit the website at https://www.vancouverarchives.ca/