Well we've finally reached the end of the line on our Big Gay Road Trip: Northern Edition. It's been great visiting all these places we've never been and digging around for the most homosexual entertainment imaginable. We've met beautiful queens and dirty nuns, we've sung and danced, and even found Cajun food in the cold white north. Hopefully the next time you visit any of these cities, you'll have a bit more fun because of us. While a lot of folks have visited Minneapolis and Chicago, we know that Canada is not the most popular tourist destination, so let us leave you with a few reasons to travel north:

1. Lumberjack culture
2. Cheap drinks
3. Cute and easy men with fine features

And of course the best reason of all, after the jump.

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Daytime brought us some new views of Vancouver that didn't involve a man girating around under a stream of water (thank goodness!), and of course we devoted an afternoon to wandering around Davie St., the center of Vancouver's "gay village" (that's what they call the gay neighborhoods in Canada. We think it is cute and reminds us of Smurf Village for some reason).

We started with breakfast at the Elbow Room Cafe, where everyone flocks not only for their pan-fried cinnabon buns, but also to be insulted by the waitstaff. When we were looking at the ketchup bottle to see if it contained corn sweetener, the waitress smirked at us and said, "It's ketchup honey. What, you don't have one of those back at your trailer? You've only ever seen those squeezy bottles?" Later she playfully berated a foreign woman for not getting her own coffee, which is one of the house rules. We posted them all after the jump if you're curious.

Next stop was the legendary Little Sister's bookstore, which was embroiled in a legal battle with the Canadian government a few years back over importation of "obscene" materials. Most of the smut they sell is imported from the U.S., and Canadian customs was confiscating some of it! We won't ask what they did with it if they don't tell. Little Sister's has an ample selection of fiction, self-help, and art books, and also a nice rack of vintage porn mags, but we were most excited about finally getting to flip through this book. We haven't laughed so hard in recent memory.

We had another nice shopping moment when we discovered this rack at a vintage store on Davie Street:

After a little research, we discovered that yes, the hanky code is still alive and well in at least one Vancouver gay bar. Most of the bars and clubs are also located in the neighborhood, so you can have a very homosexual day and night and only walk a few blocks. See a couple more photos of the Elbow Room after the jump.

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While Calgary was a charming city (and by charming, we mean creepily conservative and unwelcoming), we had to push on to Canada's shining western jewel, and the last stop on our road trip: Vancouver. It's a city that has it all: beaches, mountains for hiking, shopping, restaurants, and lots of hideous, expensive condos clogging up the otherwise beautiful waterfront. Since it was Thursday night, we were happy to be there instead of say, Saskatoon, because we knew that there was fun to be found.

After a false start at a club called Shine in historic Gastown (and by "false start" we mean a club full of straight frat boys dancing ironically to the Eurhythmics), we ended up at Odyssey for their Shower Thursdays, which involves the not-entirely-original concept of a live man "bathing" in an installed shower for drooling homo spectators. Odyssey also has a large patio out back, but we could not check it out because there was a huge line of smokers waiting to get a puff outside, and unlike real Canadians, we cannot abide waiting in line, especially for anything nightlife related. We would rather sit at home and watch Top Model. Actually we would rather watch Top Model than even go out to a club at all, so maybe that's a bad comparison.

Nevertheless we had a good time at Odyssey in the spirit of travel. The music was good, the place was packed, and the shower experience was larger than life. See what we mean after the jump [NSFW].

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The bad thing about Calgary, Alberta is that all but a couple of the gay clubs have closed in the last year (one gay we talked to said that as the city gets bigger the gay community is getting smaller). The upside though is that the few clubs that are left draw quite a crowd.

The place to be on most nights is the Twisted Element, and Tuesday night there was gay karaoke in their lounge, which you have to enter from the back alley (we're just used to it by now).

We had a great time singing some old country songs and meeting the locals while drinking $2 draft beer. The host of the night is actually a famous Canadian celebrity that we ended up interviewing for Queerty, but for now we'll let you guess who he is based on the far-away photo after the jump.

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On our way out of Edmonton, we had to have a quick bite to eat at Dadeo, a small Cajun restaurant on Whyte Ave. (a main drag that had just been ravaged by hockey fans the night before after the local team, the Oilers, won their match against the Anaheim Might Ducks). Reader Tony had told us that Dadeo was one of the best restaurants in the city, and also a rare find because Edmonton is quite a ways from New Orleans.

We usually judge a Cajun restaurant by its gumbo, and we were not disappointed, plus the fried oyster po' boy sandwich had the biggest and juicest oysters we had ever seen battered and fried. Our one gripe would be the lack of crawfish on the menu. They were nowhere to be found either in a sandwich or on a big platter (how we like them... sucking the heads is so satisfying). We suppose they can be forgiven since Edmonton is pretty far from any water. There are photos of our meal and the restaurant after the jump.

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Having moved last year to Saskatoon from Calgary, David is pursuing a painting career and seems happy with his choice despite the small gay scene in Saskatoon. Since we're heading to Calgary tomorrow, we thought it fitting to print an interview with a native who left it all behind. After the jump, David tells us about the Saskatoon gay scene and also a bit about why he left Calgary.

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On our way out of Saskatoon, we stopped in for a bite to eat at Headquarters, which is a spacious bar that is known for hosting some wild gay events. As he made our BLTs, owner Dave told us about what's coming up this summer.

June 15: The theme for Saskatoon Pride this year is "Queer We Go Again," which we don't really understand, but the Headquarters toga party promises to be a free-flowing and free-balling night of local guys with no underwear. Oh yes, and there will be hedonism: lots of it.

July 15: The one-year celebration of Headquarters. Dave and his partner, who manages the bar, got city approval to use the back alley and parking lot to create a giant beer garden behind the bar. Queerty loves beer gardens, especially when they are full of cute gays and not drunk fratboys (though that can be fun in a different way).

Saskatoon Pride [Official Site]

Visit GayCities.com, the sponsor of Queerty's Big Gay Road Trip: Northern Edition.

On our way to the beautiful river city of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan we kept hearing gays whisper about Diva's, which is one of very few gay destinations in town, and is certainly the place to be on Saturday night. With an excellent sound system, great DJ, cheap drinks, and a lively (if slightly camera-shy) crowd, it's hard not to have a good time at Diva's.

We encountered a few things that are becoming themes of our trip: pinball machines, hot 19-year-olds, and weird back alley entrances. While we did not have to "crawl through trash cans" as one reader warned, the entrance to Diva's is not obvious and you need to be vigilant or you could walk right by. The other two themes speak for themselves, and you can see more proof after the jump.

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We were lucky to be in Winnipeg on Friday night, because that is the wild night at Gio's, the favorite club in town where we met Destiny the night before.

The place was jam-packed by the time we arrived around 1am, and entering we were happy to see a sharply dressed crowd with a disproportionatly high number of attractive men and ladies. The dancefloor was bumping, and the large back patio was filled with diehard smokers lighting up in the rain.

Within five minutes of entering the bar, Queerty readers (and Road Trip fans) Mike, Mark, and Kenny recognized us immediately and bought us some drinks. They introduced us to all their cute friends at the bar and made sure we had a great time. Kenny threw an afterparty at his beautiful house in the lesbian neighborhood of Winnipeg so we didn't get much sleep that night. Who would have thought that Winnipeg would be one of the highlights of our trip so far? We got some nice photos of the beautiful people at Gio's so make sure you look after the jump.

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According to everyone we talked to, there are no gay coffeehouses in Winnipeg, which left us feeling very sad. It had been a few days since we had received our required dose of walking through the door of a cafe to have dozens of gay eyes simultaneous pierce and judge us. So we settled for the Mondragon: a cute anarchist cafe and bookstore that is exclusively vegan, unlike the place in Minneapolis. The bookstore is small, but has a queer section that even has a vaginal coloring book (don't ask).

We love anarchists because of their strong principles: not bowing to "the man," etc. But what do we love more than principles? Businesses that accept American Express, and thank goodness Mondragon took ours. We will be going back and bringing all of our capitalist, AmEx-bearing friends with us the next time we go to Winnipeg. See a couple more photos of the cafe after the jump.

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Last night we met the young and gorgeous Destiny, one of Winnipeg's star drag performers who was hosting an event at downtown gay hot spot Gio's. Destiny is the winner of the 2006 Miss Gio's title and hosts events and fundraisers three times a week while also performing out-of-town across Canada and the U.S. She will be representing Winnipeg at Vancouver Pride this year.

Destiny has been active in the Winnipeg gay scene since she was 15 years old, and started performing drag at the age of 17. She is now 21 and is one of the most visible faces in gay Winnipeg.

She took a few minutes to show us her crown and dish on the inner workings of Winnipeg's small-but-lively gay scene. Read the interview after the jump.

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We spent much of yesterday driving through the Manitoba countryside, which looks mainly like this:

Finally we reached Winnipeg and were excited to go check out the city's best 80s dance party at the Die Maschine, which is a little hole-in-wall, 2nd floor venue with a great sound system.

We walked in and the first thing we saw was the caged-in dancefloor where the young, mixed crowd was dancing, and a larger-than-usual number of side ponytails were bobbing up and down. The vibe was kind of like a grown-up high school dance, and if they had played "Under The Bridge" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers, we would have summoned the courage to ask this hot breaker guy for a dance. But alas, it wasn't meant to be and we had to settle for watching him bust a move to a remixed "Like a Prayer," which he was really excited about.

You can see some more of his moves after the jump, along with the some other shots of the club and the decked-out crowd.

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