As of 2011, HIV/AIDS has been around for 30 years. It has had a longer life than my friend Peter, who succumbed to it in the early nineties after he was maliciously infected by a monster who knew what he was doing.

The AIDS Calgary Awareness Association has been organizing a response to this kind of occurrence for 27 years, and is surpassed in size in Canada only by the Toronto and Vancouver’s networks. This is the 17th annual Aids Walk that has been held in Calgary, and Simonne LeBlanc, Aids Calgary’s Executive Director, is proud to point out that "Ours was the first fundraising walk of any kind established in Canada."

As you probably realize, HIV/AIDS has brought about social and human rights issues that don’t exist for most other medical conditions. For example, Canada is one of the few countries that have criminalized HIV non-disclosure by a sexual partner instead of actual transmission of the disease (like in Peter’s case). This can, however, create the somewhat complex situation where a person may appear in court, even though they did not give HIV/AIDS to their partner. Some choose to walk based on such awareness-raising concerns, though not suffering from the conditions themselves.

This fundraising walk helps the ACAA to: "provide HIV prevention and education; provide support and advocacy, and enhance the quality of life, for people living with HIV; promote awareness and understanding of these issues; and assist the larger community to create a caring and compassionate society in the face of HIV/AIDS."

This year, Calgary’s walk occurs on Sunday, September 25th, starting with a breakfast at 9:00 am for the most successful fundraisers from last year, and this year’s sponsors. Registration for the walk begins at 10:00 am, and there will also be a Marketplace for anyone who comes down, to purchase jewelry and other things from local artists. If participants wish to express themselves artistically or politically, there will be a banner-making station with supplies for them to create an AIDS Walk identity for themselves.

There are different foci for Alberta’s different regional Aids walks: Calgary’s is for people who are affected by, and to raise awareness of, HIV, AIDS and surrounding issues like stigma and discrimination. The people who participate are pretty much "from every walk of life," continues Ms. LeBlanc, "Families; kids and dogs that show up for the walk, people who are there just because they do walks, and people who are there because they’ve been touched (by HIV/AIDS) in some way; people who want to teach their kids about giving back to the community. Last year we had just about every alderman that was running - almost every mayoralty candidate showed up. We get a huge turnout of people from TD Bank, and the Royal Bank."

To help this fund- and awareness-raising event succeed, you can sign up as teams or, as individuals, to gather pledges. AIDS Calgary has collected nearly $2 million in pledges since the walk’s inception.  Given the constantly growing awareness and diminishing stigma, that number will hopefully grow faster as each walk occurs.

Though the walk is now nationally organized, the funds each region collects are retained within the region for their own programs. For example, according to Jennifer Vanderschaeghe of the Central Alberta AIDS Network, Red Deer’s Aids Walk funds the transportation of HIV patients to either Calgary or Edmonton where there are the necessary facilities for medical treatment.

Outside our conversation about funding details and walk logistics, she agrees that there is greater acceptance and support even in this, the most American of provinces. Though these sentiments may not be shared by the overtaxed workers in smaller, more blue-collar regions, in Red Deer and Calgary at least we agree that younger generations are much more enlightened.

So, though it has been five years since Red Deer’s last official AIDS walk, they are quite excited to reintroduce the event to their area. "We just decided we wanted a bit of a break, and it was just a bit longer than I would have liked," says Jennifer. "You try out different events, and do different things, but certainly (the participation of) the Canadian AIDS Society and Scotiabank is super, and we’re excited to just be getting at it this year.  ...Because it’s a really family-friendly event, it means you can do something with a lot of folks, so it brings in lots of different kinds of people."

The fact that the fundraising walk is a little more media-palatable in Red Deer than the Vagina Monologues helps also.

Regarding community acceptance or palatability, the people working in the Ft. McMurray Health Promotions Centre definitely deserve the Hero Cookie of Alberta for attempting to get an AIDS walk going. Like other frontier towns through history, one can’t imagine that there’s a broad-based desire for development of a higher self or acceptance of diversity in what everyone recognizes as a ‘working town’, where people are drawn by the promise of hard work for good pay.

"It has been historically a small event," admitted Kate McBride, Community Education Coordinator, when I spoke to her prior to the news that the walk had been cancelled.  "We’ve (begun to) organize a walk from 10:00 until noon on September 24th at Borealis Park, which is our central downtown park with a skate park and a youth centre."

When asked how they can make this event more visible and accepted with what is clearly a difficult audience, Kate replied, "We think it has to start with events like this one... The LGBT Community just had a fantastic event: they showed the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and it sold out!"

"We’re seeing a change in the community here, as we get more people: families rather than just single young men. There’s more openness in the community, and we have hope for this walk (but) you really have to fight for those few moments of attention... We know it will be a small and close-knit group walking, but the people who are coming out care so much more than anybody else you’re going to meet."

Other Alberta cities that are hosting AIDS walks are of course Edmonton (Sunday, September 18th), Grande Prairie (Wednesday, September 24th) and Peace River (Saturday, September 17th).  Unfortunately we were unable to speak to a representative from these organizations before time of press.