(Sherbrooke, June 25, 2025) – The Quebec Anglophone Heritage Network (QAHN) is pleased to announce that Dr. Ross Higgins has been chosen as a Marion Phelps Award recipient for 2025, one of two people to be selected for this honour during this our 25th anniversary year. This award is presented annually in recognition of outstanding long-term contributions by an individual to the preservation and promotion of Anglophone heritage in the province of Quebec.
Ross is the co-founder and former president and principal archivist of the Archives gaies du Québec / Quebec Gay Archives (1983-1998); he is an historian and teacher with many publications on Quebec queer history in Canada. Additionally, he was a founding member of the collective for the City of Montreal’s first gay and lesbian bookstore Androgeny, which managed the store between 1975 to 1982.
Ross’ doctoral thesis was the seminal study on gay life of Montreal in the 1940s and 1950s; it led to the creation of the archives. Dr. Higgins taught at McGill, the Université du Québec à Montreal (UQAM) and Concordia. Still active 40 plus years later in preserving and promoting the stories and heritage of LGBTQ2S communities, Ross has a long list of scholarly publications to his name, including two books and numerous articles and conference papers. His focus is bicultural and bilingual, with Quebec’s Anglophone heritage front and centre.
With Ross’ “tireless pursuit of archival material from the 1920s to the present, he has helped amass an impressive collection of artifacts,” said Marhan Mozetich. His work continues to play an important role for researchers in “understanding the historical development of the gay communities in Quebec.”
Dr. Ross Higgins is among this year’s five volunteer recognition award winners selected in honour of QAHN’s 25th anniversary year, and in recognition of their contributions to the preservation and promotion of Anglophone heritage across Quebec.