Vancouver drag performer Jolene Queen Sloan, who got her start in the Yukon, is coming up for Rendezvous to put on the biggest drag show the territory has seen
Punjabi-Canadian drag artist Jolene Queen Sloan misses the Yukon. It’s where she got her start in a Rendezvous competition, but without much of a drag scene, she moved down to Vancouver a few years ago to pursue a full-time performance career. But since she’s always wanted to return to the Yukon and continue to build the drag scene Up North, this winter will be a special one.
“I really wanted to try drag,” Sloan told What’s Up Yukon, looking back on that first competition she entered in 2020. “People in the Yukon get to see drag very rarely.”
After honing her makeup and performance skills for around a year, Sloan headed down to the city where she now regularly hosts and organizes events two to three times a month. She’s grown her audience exponentially since her move, now sitting at nearly 63-thousand Instagram followers. Feeling confident about her event-production skills, she decided to take a swing at hosting a hometown drag show for the ages.
“I reached out to Yukon Rendezvous and pitched them my idea,” Sloan said. “I wanted to diversify the cast more and have inclusion, making sure everyone is given equal opportunity, and it all worked out, so here we are. It’s a wholesome moment; I’m coming back to where I started, but instead of being part of the show, I’m actually producing and hosting it.”
Sloan admits that she never wanted to leave the Yukon but had to in order to be able to make a name for herself in the drag world and put on well-attended events, regularly, in order to make a career of performance production.
“It really means a lot to me to have these big shows finally happening in the Yukon,” she said. “Honestly, I would love to move back if there is a bigger drag scene, and sometimes the opportunities are not created for you; you have to do them by yourself. That’s the mission that I’m on—to create a drag scene in the Yukon so I can move back and live a wonderful life.”
Speaking candidly, Sloan says she doesn’t enjoy city living and wants the peacefulness of living in the Yukon again. Still, she is devoted to her career more than anything and is willing to stick it out in the big city, for now, until the Yukon is a place she can stage drag shows full-time. Besides, the Yukon isn’t the first place Sloan has lived in without a real drag scene.
“When I started doing drag, I was the premier Punjabi drag queen,” she said. “Back home in Punjab, we don;t have many drag artists coming in and doing drag. It was something I always wanted to do. I wanted to create opportunities for people so they didn’t have to move to other places to do what they really wanted to do.”
Sloan’s drag show will take place as part of the 2024 Yukon Rendezvous Festival in Whitehorse and will feature a slew of performers from down south.
“I know there are some fabulous drag artists in the Yukon, but they don’t have the chance to perform in bigger shows,” Sloan said. “I think it’s a great opportunity for them to learn more tactics of how drag works. That’s my main goal … to make the community thrive.”
To keep up with Jolene Queen Sloan and find out more about her Rendezvous show, follow her on Instagram at instagram.com/jolenequeensloan
