Toronto: Football, Falls, and a Piece of Gay History

The World Traveller Series — Entry No. 10

by Brett Hayhoe

America’s highways are something to behold. Not merely for their scale — though the scale is extraordinary — but for the reason behind it. Those vast, wide roads were not designed simply to accommodate traffic. They were designed, deliberately and strategically, to double as emergency landing strips for aircraft in times of conflict. Every time you cruise along an American highway and wonder why it is quite so wide, that is the answer. Infrastructure as defence. Ambition built into the asphalt.

I mention this because the road trip is, in America and Canada alike, an experience unto itself. Over many trips to the United States I did more road trips than I can easily count, and each one reminded me that the journey is never merely a means of getting somewhere. It is part of the story.

This particular road trip began with a phone call from my friend Paul, shortly after my election as Co-President of InterPride. He had an invitation: Toronto, a football game, an international fixture played annually between Toronto and Detroit, Michigan — funded, as I understand it, entirely by the owner of the Detroit team. A sporting event as an act of cross-border generosity. Very American, in the best possible sense.

I said yes before he had finished the sentence.

THE ROAD TO TORONTO

The topography between the border and Toronto is not, it must be said, the most dramatic landscape in the world. It is flat, functional, and quietly pleasant — farmland and freeway, the kind of scenery that invites conversation rather than commanding attention. The roads, however, are impeccable. Well maintained, well signed, and very, very wide.

We stopped first at a roadhouse for breakfast. There is something deeply satisfying about a roadhouse breakfast — the kind of meal that exists specifically for travellers, generous and unpretentious, fuel for the road ahead. It set the tone perfectly.

The second stop was altogether different.

NIAGARA FALLS: THE CANADIAN SIDE

There are things in this world that photographs cannot prepare you for, no matter how many you have seen. Niagara Falls is one of them. The sheer, relentless, thundering volume of water — the mist rising, the roar that you feel before you hear it, the way the whole thing simply overwhelms every sense simultaneously — is something that has to be stood in front of to be understood.

See it from the Canadian side. This is not a suggestion. The view from the Canadian bank is categorically superior — wider, more complete, more spectacular. You see the full curve of the Horseshoe Falls laid out before you as though the landscape is performing. It is one of the genuinely unmissable sights of the world, and it does not disappoint.

A brief note on the border crossing, since it is worth including for the insight it provides. My travel companions objected — rather strongly — to being required to present their passports at the Canadian border. The objection was not practical. It was philosophical. They appeared to feel that producing documentation to enter another sovereign nation was an imposition.

I was not sympathetic. “How arrogant,” I said. “You think you have the right to travel to another country without paperwork?” Sadly, they did. It is a peculiarly American affliction, that particular brand of assumed exceptionalism — and it is worth naming, because the rest of the world notices it rather more than Americans tend to realise.

TORONTO: A RECEPTION, A GAME, AND A FLAG

The first evening in Toronto began with a reception hosted by Pride Toronto — in my honour, which was extraordinarily kind of them and genuinely moving. To be welcomed in that way, by an organisation of that standing, on the occasion of having just been elected Co-President of InterPride — it was one of those evenings that you store away carefully, to return to when you need reminding that the work matters.

The football game the following night was a masterclass in American pomp and ceremony, which is to say it was spectacular. As the national anthems of Canada and then the United States were played, enormous flags — king-sized, the length of the stadium and nearly its full width — were slowly, ceremonially unfurled across the field. It is the kind of moment that, whatever your feelings about nationalism, stops you cold. Pure theatre, and brilliantly executed.

What was less theatrical, and considerably more surreal, was the broadcast arrangement. This was a live televised game, and every time the network cut to a commercial break — play simply stopped. Not a natural pause, not a time-out. Just: stop. Stand around. Wait for the ads to finish. Then resume. It was deeply strange to watch, and even stranger to experience in person. And yet, somehow, it worked. Somehow the crowd accepted it and the game absorbed it and the whole thing held together. American sport operates on its own logic, and the logic, however alien, is internally consistent.

QUEER AS FOLK: THE REAL VERSION

The third night was what Paul called, with characteristic directness, “the gay thing.” Toronto is, among its many distinctions, the city where the North American version of Queer as Folk was filmed. The show — for those who came to it late or missed it entirely — was a landmark in LGBTIQA+ television, depicting gay life in a particular neighbourhood of Toronto with a candour and authenticity that had rarely been seen on screen before.

Paul took me on a tour of every location featured in the series. The streets, the bars, the corners — all of it. It was the kind of guided experience that only a local who knows both the show and the city can provide, and it was wonderful.

The main bar was the revelation. On screen it appears as a modest, intimate venue — the kind of place that feels like a living room for its regulars. In reality it was enormous. A vast, heaving, brilliant space that the show had somehow compressed into something almost domestic. Seeing the reality behind the fiction gave the fiction a new dimension entirely.

Several years later, the bar closed. I am grateful — genuinely, deeply grateful — to Paul for making sure I saw it while it was still there. A piece of gay history, now gone. The tour he gave me that night is the kind of thing you cannot plan and cannot repeat. You simply have to have been there.

THE SUMMARY

Where: Toronto, Ontario — via the US border, Niagara Falls, and the open highway
When: Following my election as Co-President of InterPride
Travelled with: Paul — friend, guide, and keeper of gay history
Don’t miss: Niagara Falls from the Canadian side — non-negotiable; the Queer as Folk filming locations while they still exist in their original form
The football game: All-American ceremony, a flag the size of a stadium, and the strangest commercial break you will ever experience — wonderful
The border: Bring your passport. Bring it without complaint. You are visiting another country.
The bar: Bigger than the show suggested. Gone now. Worth knowing it existed.
What’s next: Montreal — Entry No. 11

The World Traveller Series is published in Q Magazine and on Ask Brett at bretthayhoe.me, where each entry is also available as a podcast episode. Entry No. 9 — Vancouver & Saskatoon — is available now.