Backyard History

Little Pictou Island, Nova Scotia, gets its first ever play in the most unusual of circumstances ... after a winter ferry from PEI gets stuck in the ice and drifts over to the island!   Get the Backyard History books at backyardhistory.ca

A special LIVE podcast of "Only Men May Vote!" starring special guests Fredericton Mayor Kate Rogers, Green Party Leader and MLA David Coon, Poet Laureate Fawn Parker, Minister of Opportunities New Brunswick Luke Randall and City Councillor Cassandra LeBlanc!   Recorded in front of a crowd of a hundred people at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre in Fredericton on March 7th, 2025.

A mysterious Englishman sailed to New Brunswick in the 1850s. His name and his fate are unknown. All that remains of him is his diary, which recounts an incredible adventure.   Buy the Backyard History books at backyardhistory.ca

A long-lost interview in the forest sheds light on the man behind the Maritimes most famous so-called ghost...   Buy the three Backyard History books at backyardhistory.ca/books

A young girl keeps a secret diary to solve a mystery as she is growing up on an island where new immigrants to Canada are quarantined.   backyardhistory.ca

A dark murder mystery on Christmas in the old garrison city of Halifax changed the Maritimes.

100 years ago, a tragedy led to two crosses being painted on Sugarloaf in Campbellton. This is the story of what happened.

A Victorian aristocrat moves to PEI and encounters a ghost in her new house: the biggest mansion on the Island called Binstead Manor. She decided to investigate the haunting herself...   This story appears in the new book 'Backyard History: Rebellious Women In The Maritimes'! Order your copy at backyardhistory.ca

Causing riots wherever he went, this Maritimer became a leader in the KKK, making a fortune spreading hate and division all over the United States! (He wasn't as popular in the Maritimes, where locals tried to throw him off a cliff!)   Buy the book 'Backyard History: Forgotten Stories From Atlantic Canada's Past' at backyardhistory.ca

When alcohol was banned in Nova Scotia during Prohibition, reluctant liquor control inspector Clifford Rose encountered a charismatic woman leading a gang selling illegal booze. Her name was Amy Mason but everyone knew her as "The Queen of the Bootleggers."

A small-town boy from the Maritimes becomes obscenely wealthy and ridiculously famous in America for dentist circuses...   This story appears in the brand new SECOND Backyard History book! Order a signed copy at backyardhistory.ca/book

A trip to the Yukon Gold Rush leads to a series of completely unexpected twists, with a young Maritimer becoming the Speaker of Parliament ... and ending up sent to a lunatic asylum!

Detective William Carr (who appeared in the Joe Walnut episodes) goes for a relaxing trip into the forest to learn to hunt and fish, but ends up being hunted by rogue trappers...   Order the Backyard History book at backyardhistory.ca/book

When a Wolastoqiyik man wasn't allowed on a stagecoach, he vowed to race it to its destination, and won!   Buy the book: backyardhistory.ca/book

The dramatic grand finale of the rum running boat The Liberty in part three of the Liberty On The Rocks trilogy.   Order a signed copy of the Backyard History book at backyardhistory.ca/book

At age 15, Hugh Corkum becomes a rum runner to provide for his family after his father, a Lunenburg Nova Scotia sea captain, loses his job after crashing into an American sumbarine.   Part Two of the 'Liberty On The Rocks' trilogy about the Liberty, the fastest rum running ship of Atlantic Canada!   Buy the Backyard History book at backyardhistory.ca/book

The Mounties lay a trap for The Liberty, the most famous rum running ship in the Maritimes during Prohibition!   Part one of a three part series called "Liberty On The Rocks." Book: backyardhistory.ca/book

A killer sent boxes of poisoned candies to religious leaders of Saint John, in this, the Backyard History's magnum opus episode!

Isolated islanders find a unique way to let Canadians know a storm cut them off from the mainland.

As Babe Ruth's life fell apart, he headed into the woods of the Maritimes in a secret and mysterious effort to get better...

The Canadian Forces in Italy during WW2 rescue a horse who they name Princess Louise who accompanies them throughout Europe and back home.

Juliana Horatia Ewing, a Victorian British author in Fredericton, formed an unlikely friendship with Welastekokewiyik master canoe builder Peter Polches, challenging societal norms; her transformative experiences led to a notable confrontation defending Indigenous people at a prestigious New Year's Party in 1869.

Backyard History's Christmas Special for 2023!

The dramatic rise and fall of Fredericton's curious detox centre, which involved patients taking a gold-based medicine to cure alcoholism!   https://backyardhistory.ca/the-long-reads/f/the-dr-leslie-e-keeley-gold-cure-institute-for-drunkards

As explosions rang out in Halifax in 1945, ordinary Haligonians raced toward the central ammunition storage depot to stop the flames before the city blew up … again!   backyardhistory.ca/f/the-second-halifax-explosion

Two young men volunteer to for a mysterious secret mission in Russia. One of them will not make it home alive.   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/canadas-forgotten-siberian-expedition-ollie-winslows-odyssey

One of the Maritimes' most popular ghost stories is the tale of a cursed, eternally burning sailing ship haunting the waters off of the Northern coast of New Brunswick.   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/the-ghostly-fire-ship-of-the-baie-des-chaleurs

Leon Trotsky missed the beginning of the Russian Revolution because he was in -of all places- Amherst, Nova Scotia.   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/trotskys-maritimes-revolutionary-roadblock

PEI didn't even know it was at war when the American fleet appeared. The invaders went house to house stealing clothes, carpets, and curtains ... and their Great Seal. However, one Islander who was taken captive went on to become an important spy...    

A spy arrives by U-Boat to sabotage Canada. He isn't very good.   https://backyardhistory.ca/the-long-reads/f/the-worlds-worst-nazi-spy

Houdini goes to Halifax. When his circus is arrested, he has to reevaluate his whole career.   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/how-his-maritimes-tour-saved-harry-houdini-pt-2-halifax

A young Harry Houdini was on the verge of giving up on magic until a Maritimes tour changed his life.   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/how-his-maritimes-tour-saved-harry-houdini-pt-1-saint-john

A forest fire approaches the thriving town of Musquash, sending its residents fleeing to a nearby marsh for safety.   Musquash was a thriving community on the Bay of Fundy, boasting several factories, mills, a railway station, and a port. All of that came to an abrupt end when the town was completely destroyed in only a couple of hours one afternoon in 1903.   https://backyardhistory.ca/articles/f/the-forest-fire-that-destroyed-musquash

Everyone ignored the warnings. But the predictions were right: the storm of the century hit at exactly the hour that one man had predicted a year before... www.backyardhistory.ca     #weather #storm #astronomy #astronology #Canada #history #strange #podcast #podcastsofcanada #backyardhistory #story #true #newengland #boston #halifax #novascotia #newbrunswick #pei #mystery #spooky #paranormal

Nova Scotia (and New Brunswick) came much closer to joining the United States than a lot of Canadians today would be comfortable with!   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/benjamin-franklins-worthless-nova-scotian-land

Two Kates go to the Yukon Gold Rush. One becomes famous, the other is forgotten. But who was the REAL Klondike Kate?   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/the-real-klondike-kate

In 1949, a little Canadian island off of the coast of Nova Scotia declared itself to be its own country.     Calling itself The Principality of Outer Baldonia, it quickly developed all of the trappings of an independent nation: it had its own currency, postage stamps, its own flag, and a coat of arms boasting on it pictures of a tuna fish, a sheep, and a smiling lobster.    It soon became “one of the zaniest hoaxes in the history of international affairs.”    https://backyardhistory.ca/the-long-reads/f/the-nova-scotian-island-that-declared-independence

How did 111 Russian coins get buried in Bathurst? Who did it? Where did they come from and what happened to them? Lets dig into this Backyard Mystery!

Giant squid attacked Newfoundland fishing boats in 1873. This was all the more shocking because at the time people didn't believe giant squid were even real. Soon, the entire world's attention would turn towards Newfoundland.   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/giant-squid-attacks-in-newfoundland

Flying Through History as The Red Devil Takes to the Skies!   On a clear Autumn day in 1912 thousands of people gathered to see the world famous Red Devil.   Amid a backdrop of the Saint John Exhibition -then the second largest in the country- competing with Toronto's CNE for position of biggest Exhibition in Canada, another rivalry was playing out.   The Red Devil's pilot, Captain Baldwin, was competing with the airplane's then rival for the future of the skies; the hot air balloon, and its pilot Professor Bonnette. Back then hot air balloons were considered much safer and faster than airplanes, and most sensible people thought the airplane would be a short-lived novelty.   The rival airplane versus balloon pilots competed for the public's approval by engaging in increasingly daring and risky behavior. After Professor Bonnette wowed the crowd by parachuting out of his balloon –and accidentally ending up in the Harbour– Captain Baldwin decided to one-up him by taking a local Saint Johner along with him aboard The Red Devil.   One extremely reluctant and very unhappy reporter was forced by his newspaper editor to go on a trip on the airplane, a then-brand new technology only invented nine years earlier. His vivid description of flying over Saint John in the earliest days of aviation memorably begins with the angry opening line: “The editor is an autocrat...”   https://backyardhistory.ca/articles/f/the-red-devil---new-brunswicks-first-airplane

Camp B-70, near Fredericton,  held captured German Nazis and Fascist Italians during the Second World War. The prisoners and guards played an elaborate game of cat and mouse, with constant attempts at escape. Remarkably, one escape was actually stopped by an actual real live cat, who had been performing in the camp as part of a traveling circus..

When a bank robber gets stuck in a chimney on April Fools Day, nobody believes a 12 year old boy trying to save him..   On the cold and moonless night in the winter of 1848, the only ever attempted robbery of the Bank of New Brunswick in Saint John took place.   It was not the least bit successful, and turned into quite the bizarre -but true- night long incident. https://backyardhistory.ca/f/bungling-bank-burglar-gets-stuck-in-chimney

“While I am writing to you the shells are screaming and the bullets are hitting but why should I care? I have just had a good meal!” wrote Emile Goguen, an Acadian lumberjack from New Brunswick who had volunteered to go fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War, and who would be interrogated about his activities while there.   More than 1500 Canadians volunteered to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. The only New Brunswicker to join was Emile Goguen.

Prince Edward Island was the first place in Canada to have a car ... and the only province to ban them!   https://backyardhistory.ca/f/when-pei-banned-cars

A beloved Canadian radio host and author had a radical past.   In the 1960s a Maritimer achieved Canada wide fame for his talent in gardening. Known as Mr Green Thumbs, this kindly old man put out no fewer than four massive bestselling books on gardening, and ran a popular regular radio show on how to grow plants. Mr Green Thumbs' many dedicated fans likely didn't know that behind the friendly voice and the kindly writing style of the old man, was a devoted lifelong communist who was so dedicated to his cause that soon after the Russian Revolution and the establishment of the communist Soviet Union, the radical gardener went to that new country to see the revolution in action for himself…

Elizabeth Beard fought in the American Revolution ... against the Americans.   One New Brunswick woman became something of a worldwide sensation for her remarkable feats fighting in the American Revolution. She was fighting not for the Americans though, but against them.   Her heroics were completely overlooked and forgotten during that chaotic time, but late her life, the public learned about what she had done decades earlier, and stories of her youthful acts became widely known all over both Europe and North America.   backyardhistory.ca

Saint John's genteel Rockwood Park was once turned into a modern electric circus. For several years Saint John's iconic Rockwood Park –the largest urban park in Canada at the time– was turned into a summer fair grounds based on Coney Island. In the early 1900s it featured rides that had never been seen before like a ferris wheel and merry go around, nightly fireworks, bars and restaurants, and acrobatic performances so daring the daredevil chickened out, but a local waiter stepped in to perform them instead. backyardhistory.ca

Like the Alamo, but in Fredericton.   Fredericton's first European settlement was a French fort, which was attacked and besieged by a fleet from New England. The story of the battle is kind of like the American myth of the Alamo. A small and beleaguered band of defenders is facing down a vastly larger and better equipped army of invaders. Except in this case they are coming up from what is now the United States. The invaders have a reputation for massacres, and losing the battle would likely mean death. However, just before the battle begins, the defenders' spirits are bolstered by a group of famous heroes of their time, who have come to aid the motley crew of defenders in their time of need…   backyardhistory.ca

In 1815 Nova Scotia was overrun by mice.   Dr. George Patterson later interviewed people who lived through what was called Year of the Mice. The horrors of that year left a mark on those who had experienced it so deep that he found that elderly people that had personally experienced the mouse invasion still used it as a measurement of time. ‘Sixty-two Years After The Mice,' Dr. Patterson wrote that these had been no ordinary mice: “They were very destructive and actually fierce. If pursued, when hard pressed, they would stand at bay, rising upon their hind legs, setting their teeth and squealing fiercely. A farmer on whom I could rely told me that having, after planting, spread out some barley to dry in the sun before the door, in a little while he saw it covered with them. He let the cat out among them, but they actually turned upon her and fought her.” backyardhistory.ca

A fleet of Fascist Italian airplanes stop in a little seaside resort town in the Maritimes … with a dark political agenda.   On July 13th 1933 a reporter for the Moncton Daily Times was rushing towards the newly built wharfs of the tiny seaside village of Shediac. He is trying to make it in time to catch a glimpse of an incredible sight: 24 massive airplanes flying in a giant V formation that were arriving all the way from Italy...   To see plenty of photos of the Italian Air Armada's arrival in Shediac check out: https://backyardhistory.ca/articles/f/when-the-fascist-italian-air-armada-came-to-new-brunswick