Elska, our favorite queer photo zine, that is dedicated to sharing the bodies and voices of LGBTQ communities around the world, goes back to Canada for just the 2nd time in its history.  This time it’s the French/Canadian city of Montréal in Québec that is the country’s most fun and exciting urban area.

This popular city was the winner of a poll amongst Elska readers when editor Liam Campbell asked for nominations for their favorite queer city around the globe. Remarkably Montréal won the vote decisively, beating out global gay hotspots like San Francisco or Tel Aviv, showing that this under-discovered town is one of the greatest places for our community

This is Elska’s first-ever double-volume issue. Split between the two beautiful print‘ bookazines’ are seventeen chapters, each dedicated to a different local guy and containing a variety of photos of him and a personal story written by him. The images here are some of the most daring ever seen in Elska, revealing an incredibly open, uninhibited, and sex-positive society.

As for the stories, many of which are presented both in French and in English, as can be expected from this truly bilingual city, there is an intriguing mixture of bluntness and romanticism. They reveal a population that’s very proud of their city yet also aware of its faults, an imperfect bunch in an imperfect place who are unashamed to show their town and themselves with the utmost sincerity.

To complement the launch of ‘Elska Montréal’ comes a selection of sixteen unique Polaroid photographs which were taken in the city by photographer Liam Campbell and assistant Robb Muse. The proceeds from the sale of these will go to charity, divided between the Peter Tatchell Foundation and Rainbow Railroad, and buyers will have the chance to select what proportion of their donation gets split between each of these organizations.

Liam told QUEERGURU “This is our first charity endeavor, but hopefully it will not be the last. As our publication continues to grow, I am happy to be able to share some of our success. And as a project devoted to focusing on LGBTQ communities all over the world, I feel it’s important to help our queer cousins as much as possible. Indeed one of the lessons I learned from the men I met in Montréal is to recognise how lucky we are to be gay in the West, in a country like Canada, and we shouldn’t let ourselves forget that others aren’t so fortunate or so free.”

‘Elska Montréal vol.1’ and ‘Elska Montréal vol.2’ are 180 pages each. Copies are available from a select group of shops around the world as well as for order online from the Elska website. The list of stockists, details of the subscription service, and the ability to order one of the Montréal charityPolaroids can also be found on the Elska website: www.elskamagazine.com.