Image Credit: Kent Simmonds / CFJC Today

By Dylana Kneeshaw

KAMLOOPS PRIDE WEEK

PRIDE week kicks off in Kamloops; parade scheduled for Sunday

Jun 11, 2025 | 4:34 PM

KAMLOOPS — It’s PRIDE week in Kamloops and this year, the Kamloops PRIDE Society has organized plenty of ways for people to celebrate and show solidarity amongst the 2SLGBTQI+ community and allies.

Kamloops PRIDE kicked off the week with an open house and youth carnival in Riverside Park Wednesday afternoon (June 11), held in conjunction with the City of Kamloops.

There’s a packed schedule of events to follow the rest of this week and the local PRIDE society’s president, Alyssa Christianson, says hosting inclusive events like these has become particularly important amid recent changes to U.S. policies surrounding gender identity and a rise in online aggression and hate toward the trans community.

“It is definitely becoming increasingly tough to live as a queer person, and especially for our trans community members. But part of Kamloops PRIDE’s job is to foster that joy and happiness and bring the whole community together to celebrate queerness, to celebrate PRIDE,” reiterates Christianson. “Looking around at this event right now, it’s only been about a half-hour into the event and I already see a ton of people here so I’m very excited.”

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This is the first time Kamloops has done PRIDE week in June, moving from its previous week in August. And organizers say the festivities have grown every year in both scale and support.

“Ten years ago, Kamloops PRIDE was the only organization putting on queer events, putting on anything PRIDE related, and now we have over double the amount of community events as we do official PRIDE events. That just makes me really happy that the community really embracing PRIDE and really wants to work with us.”

PRIDE Week will cap off with the annual PRIDE parade in downtown Kamloops Sunday morning (June 15) starting at 11:00 a.m., followed by the wrap-up festival in Riverside Park.

The complete schedule of community events can be viewed on the Kamloops PRIDE website.