Backyard History
🦞 Forgotten Stories From Atlantic Canada’s Past 🦞 Backyard History Podcast goes beyond traditional storytelling by using more than a dozen actors to voice actual historical quotes, immersing you in the drama and intrigue of the past. Whether it’s tales of daring exploits, mysterious events, or legendary figures, this family-friendly podcast offers an engaging and dynamic way to explore the rich history of Atlantic Canada. Hosted & written by Andrew MacLean, the podcast expands on his popular weekly Backyard History column which appears in 19 newspapers in the Maritimes. Produced by Jordan Lauzier. 📕 Buy the book! backyardhistory.ca/book
Episodes
Wednesday Oct 23, 2024
Wednesday Oct 23, 2024
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...
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This story appears in the new book 'Backyard History: Rebellious Women In The Maritimes'! Order your copy at backyardhistory.ca
Wednesday Oct 09, 2024
Saturday Sep 21, 2024
Saturday Sep 21, 2024
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!)
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Buy the book 'Backyard History: Forgotten Stories From Atlantic Canada's Past' at backyardhistory.ca
Monday Aug 12, 2024
Monday Aug 12, 2024
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."
Wednesday Jun 19, 2024
Wednesday Jun 19, 2024
A small-town boy from the Maritimes becomes obscenely wealthy and ridiculously famous in America for dentist circuses...
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This story appears in the brand new SECOND Backyard History book! Order a signed copy at backyardhistory.ca/book
Tuesday Jun 04, 2024
Tuesday Jun 04, 2024
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!
Saturday May 25, 2024
Saturday May 25, 2024
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...
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Order the Backyard History book at backyardhistory.ca/book
Saturday May 04, 2024
Saturday May 04, 2024
When a Wolastoqiyik man wasn’t allowed on a stagecoach, he vowed to race it to its destination, and won!
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Buy the book: backyardhistory.ca/book
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
Tuesday Apr 09, 2024
The dramatic grand finale of the rum running boat The Liberty in part three of the Liberty On The Rocks trilogy.
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Order a signed copy of the Backyard History book at backyardhistory.ca/book
Monday Apr 01, 2024
Monday Apr 01, 2024
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.
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Part Two of the 'Liberty On The Rocks' trilogy about the Liberty, the fastest rum running ship of Atlantic Canada!
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Buy the Backyard History book at backyardhistory.ca/book
Sunday Mar 24, 2024
Sunday Mar 24, 2024
The Mounties lay a trap for The Liberty, the most famous rum running ship in the Maritimes during Prohibition!
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Part one of a three part series called "Liberty On The Rocks."
Book: backyardhistory.ca/book
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
Tuesday Mar 05, 2024
A killer sent boxes of poisoned candies to religious leaders of Saint John, in this, the Backyard History's magnum opus episode!
Sunday Feb 11, 2024
Sunday Feb 11, 2024
Isolated islanders find a unique way to let Canadians know a storm cut them off from the mainland.
Sunday Feb 04, 2024
Sunday Feb 04, 2024
As Babe Ruth's life fell apart, he headed into the woods of the Maritimes in a secret and mysterious effort to get better...
Wednesday Jan 10, 2024
Wednesday Jan 10, 2024
The Canadian Forces in Italy during WW2 rescue a horse who they name Princess Louise who accompanies them throughout Europe and back home.
Friday Dec 29, 2023
Friday Dec 29, 2023
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.
Saturday Dec 23, 2023
Sunday Dec 10, 2023
Sunday Dec 10, 2023
The dramatic rise and fall of Fredericton's curious detox centre, which involved patients taking a gold-based medicine to cure alcoholism!
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https://backyardhistory.ca/the-long-reads/f/the-dr-leslie-e-keeley-gold-cure-institute-for-drunkards
Sunday Nov 19, 2023
Sunday Nov 19, 2023
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!
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backyardhistory.ca/f/the-second-halifax-explosion
Friday Nov 10, 2023
Friday Nov 10, 2023
Two young men volunteer to for a mysterious secret mission in Russia. One of them will not make it home alive.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/canadas-forgotten-siberian-expedition-ollie-winslows-odyssey
Monday Oct 30, 2023
Monday Oct 30, 2023
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.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/the-ghostly-fire-ship-of-the-baie-des-chaleurs
Monday Oct 16, 2023
Monday Oct 16, 2023
Leon Trotsky missed the beginning of the Russian Revolution because he was in -of all places- Amherst, Nova Scotia.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/trotskys-maritimes-revolutionary-roadblock
Sunday Oct 01, 2023
Sunday Oct 01, 2023
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...
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Friday Sep 15, 2023
Friday Sep 15, 2023
A spy arrives by U-Boat to sabotage Canada. He isn't very good.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/the-long-reads/f/the-worlds-worst-nazi-spy
Wednesday Aug 30, 2023
Wednesday Aug 30, 2023
Houdini goes to Halifax. When his circus is arrested, he has to reevaluate his whole career.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/how-his-maritimes-tour-saved-harry-houdini-pt-2-halifax
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
Tuesday Aug 22, 2023
A young Harry Houdini was on the verge of giving up on magic until a Maritimes tour changed his life.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/how-his-maritimes-tour-saved-harry-houdini-pt-1-saint-john
Wednesday Jun 28, 2023
Wednesday Jun 28, 2023
A forest fire approaches the thriving town of Musquash, sending its residents fleeing to a nearby marsh for safety.
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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.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/articles/f/the-forest-fire-that-destroyed-musquash
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
Wednesday Jun 14, 2023
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
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Sunday Jun 04, 2023
Sunday Jun 04, 2023
Nova Scotia (and New Brunswick) came much closer to joining the United States than a lot of Canadians today would be comfortable with!
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/benjamin-franklins-worthless-nova-scotian-land
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Tuesday May 23, 2023
Two Kates go to the Yukon Gold Rush. One becomes famous, the other is forgotten. But who was the REAL Klondike Kate?
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/the-real-klondike-kate
Tuesday May 09, 2023
Tuesday May 09, 2023
In 1949, a little Canadian island off of the coast of Nova Scotia declared itself to be its own country. Â
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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.Â
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It soon became “one of the zaniest hoaxes in the history of international affairs.”Â
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https://backyardhistory.ca/the-long-reads/f/the-nova-scotian-island-that-declared-independence
Tuesday May 02, 2023
Tuesday May 02, 2023
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!
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
Sunday Apr 23, 2023
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.
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/giant-squid-attacks-in-newfoundland
Monday Apr 17, 2023
Monday Apr 17, 2023
Flying Through History as The Red Devil Takes to the Skies!
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On a clear Autumn day in 1912 thousands of people gathered to see the world famous Red Devil.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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...”
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https://backyardhistory.ca/articles/f/the-red-devil---new-brunswicks-first-airplane
Monday Apr 10, 2023
Monday Apr 10, 2023
Camp B-70, near Fredericton, Â 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..
Saturday Apr 01, 2023
Saturday Apr 01, 2023
When a bank robber gets stuck in a chimney on April Fools Day, nobody believes a 12 year old boy trying to save him..
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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.
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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
Monday Mar 27, 2023
Monday Mar 27, 2023
“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.
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More than 1500 Canadians volunteered to fight fascism in the Spanish Civil War. The only New Brunswicker to join was Emile Goguen.
Monday Mar 20, 2023
Monday Mar 20, 2023
Prince Edward Island was the first place in Canada to have a car ... and the only province to ban them!
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https://backyardhistory.ca/f/when-pei-banned-cars
Sunday Mar 12, 2023
Sunday Mar 12, 2023
A beloved Canadian radio host and author had a radical past.
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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…
Sunday Mar 05, 2023
Sunday Mar 05, 2023
Elizabeth Beard fought in the American Revolution ... against the Americans.
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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.
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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.
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