This first -person column is written by Bailey Ross, who lives in Halifax, and is part of a series of Canada days that explores what Canada means for people in this country. For more information about first person stories, see Frequently asked questions.
For me, there is nothing more Canadian than the sport of the curl.
I grew up in Digby, ns this rural community was picturesque, but there was not much to do as a gay teenager with Big City’s dreams. I didn’t always feel it belonged.
So, one day, I came across a community breakfast organized by the united Digby Curling Club. If you have not been in a curling club, you don’t know what you are missing.
Many Canadians, at some point in their lives, can be found within the four walls of a club, not only to scratch, but to raise funds, weddings, birthday parties and vote during the elections. In Digby, My Curling Club organized one of my sister’s birthday parties, a multitude of debates and political forums, as well as fundraising tournaments to raise funds for my curling team and volunteering trips in high school.
In addition to Digby, I have also curled up in Clare, Kentville and Dartmouth, NS, regardless of where I lived, I always found a home in a curling club. And in each club I joined, I was lucky to be surrounded by members who defended my identity unconditionally. However, I was always one of the few queer curizers in a room full of heterosexual people. I was received and loved, but not surrounded by my people.
I did not know what would mean finding a community of curizers who not only hug me, but understood me at a deeper level.
Meet other queer curizers
In 2023, I moved to Halifax to start my career as a French high school teacher. When I met an article about a curling league that operates at the Mayflower Curling Club, home of great curly ones like Colleen Jones and its little women’s track, I knew that this was the place it had to be.
The Sport Hall of Fame of New Scotland today announced its kind of induced 2025. Among the athletes, equipment and builders that will be induced is the veteran of CBC Colleen Jones. Tom Murphy spoke with Jones about the last honor of his historical history.
My first day in the Curling League of loose ends was an absolute emotion. For the first time, I found myself in a Curling League where Queer curizers dominated the scene.
I had no idea that my curling caught the attention of some of the other curizers on the track, who found them later were looking at me and commenting.
“Go see her! Yes, that one there. You can slide!”
(In our league, many of us refer to each other as queens, something that for a long time has been part of the queer culture).
The members of the Curling League of the members of the Curling League. It was as if he had been there from the moment of his beginning, in 2006.
Although I knew it was a good curling, I could not believe it when a team invited me to represent the League in the 2024 Canadian Pride Curling Championship.
The feeling of being in my first nationals in St. John’s was electric. Just a couple of months ago, I didn’t even know that this event existed. Now here he was, representing the National Community of Nueva Scotia of New Scotland in a national scenario. Curious fact: in my national team, with a lot of love and affection, our “royal” titles now range from their majesty to their real pain in our highness.
Now I have curved, trained and officiated for 18 years. I have developed life links with so many curizers. I am part of a Pan-Canadian community of people with related ideas that are never more than a phone call, no matter where you can be living in this country huge and impressive.
These local leagues provide me with my companions queer curizers an environment in which we feel completely safe, accepted and loved. When I have faced flagrant homophobia in the form of common microgresions and even threats of physical violence in a local bar, my colleagues of high height the members have sat me and demanded to know “tea” so that they can provide the listened ear that I needed at that time. No matter what is happening around us, we can be a lot of curizers that are under the same roof.
Our deep expression of pride queer made me an even more proud Canadian.
As the tides of the global order begin to turn, forcing me to reflect on what it means to be Canadian, an answer constantly comes to mind. Canada is a nation of goodness and acceptance, a pillar of democracy and human rights internationally recognized. Last but not least, we are lovers of Poutine, Hockey and, of course, curly.
In Curling, we call the annotation area “La Casa”. Our house is Canada. And although our country may not be perfect, my God, I feel privileged to call him home.
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