New Years A Century Ago
One hundred years ago, Maritimers rang in the New Year with optimism, oddball traditions, and a world on the brink of change (Provincial Archives…
December 30, 2025
1900s Christmas Fredericton Saint John Long Read
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The Forgotten Christmas Traditions of Old New Brunswick
Many of our beloved holiday traditions are surprisingly young. For example the old Loyalists would have been baffled at what a tree was doing…
December 9, 2025
1700s Christmas Long Read
The News Boys New Years Annual Address
My first ever job was a paperboy. I used to deliver the newspapers that Backyard History is published in. (That’s not relevant to the…
December 27, 2024
1800s Christmas Strange Tales Long Read
Christmas A Century Ago
Some exceptionally stylish women (note the scandelous new short haircuts) in 1924 posing painting toys. One century ago, many of the things we take…
December 18, 2024
1900s Christmas Long Read
Claus-trophobia and Santa’s Other Maritimes Misadventures
It turns out that Santa has had a remarkable number of strange misadventures in the Maritimes over the years. Here are four of them.…
December 10, 2024
1900s Christmas Saint John Strange Tales Long Read
Nova Scotia’s Queen of the Bootleggers: Amy Mason
During Prohibition when booze was banned, reluctant liquor control officer Clifford Rose found himself in the middle of a dispute between a corrupt politician…
August 12, 2024
1900s Nova Scotia Rum Runners Women Long Read
Liberty On The Rocks (Part Three) Captured in Charlottetown
Hear longer and more in-depth versions of the three stories in the 'Liberty On The Rocks' Trilogy trilogy come to life on the Backyard…
April 10, 2024
1900s Nova Scotia PEI Rum Runners Long Read
Liberty On The Rocks (Part Two) Initiation Of A Rum Runner
LISTEN to the full version of this story on the Backyard History Podcast! Read Part One: Liberty On The Rocks: Shootout At Bouctouche Listen…
April 3, 2024
1900s Nova Scotia Rum Runners Long Read Popular
Liberty On The Rocks (Part One): Shootout at Bouctouche
Hugh Corkum was the wireless operator of The Liberty, the fastest rum running ship operating in the Maritimes during Prohibition when booze was banned.…
March 28, 2024
1900s North Shore Rum Runners Long Read Popular
The Other “Mad Trapper”: Detective William Carr’s Battle Against Rogue Poachers
Fur trapping was big business in NB, as this 1925 photo of young Ronald W. Smith admiring the trapped foxes shows. The profitability of…
January 17, 2024
1900s Rum Runners Long Read
Nancy New Year of the North Shore
Nancy New Year is a centuries old tradition which still survives today along New Brunswick's North Shore of a fairy, imagined here by the…
December 28, 2023
1800s Christmas North Shore Long Read Popular
Santa’s First Appearance In The Maritimes
A photo of Charles Sampson that appeared alongside a profile on him in the New Brunswick Reporter in 1874. Notably for the time, this…
December 20, 2023
1800s Christmas Fredericton Long Read
A Halifax Christmas Murder Mystery
On Christmas night in 1824, a drunk and lonely elderly man stumbled through Halifax’s dark, cold and icy streets. Edward Shea had come into…
December 13, 2023
1800s Christmas Nova Scotia Long Read
The Dr. Leslie E. Keeley Gold Cure Institute For Drunkards
In the 1890s Frederictonians pooled money together to help fund a new health institute. It was based on an extraordinarily bizarre new health remedy:…
December 1, 2023
1800s Fredericton Rum Runners Long Read
‘T’was The Night Before Christmas’ Maritimes Connection
A 1903 drawing of Santa Claus by Rose O'Neill. Much of how we see Santa is from Clement Clarke Moore's poem 'Twas The Night…
December 24, 2022
1800s Christmas Fredericton Long Read
The Hottest Forgotten Game Of Christmas Past
The cover of 'Snap-Dragons' by Juliana Horatia Ewing, a childrens' Christmas story fictionalizing the extremely popular –some might say hottest– Christmas game of the…
December 16, 2022
1600s and Before 1800s Christmas Fredericton Strange Tales Long Read
The Spectre Of Rexton
A carload of four young people — two guys and two girls — were driving home from a dance on a dark and stormy…
May 20, 2022
1900s Moncton Rum Runners Strange Tales Long Read Popular
Joe Walnut & Detective Carr’s First Encounter
Joe Walnut, then just a small fish, began to set in motion the plan that made him the leader of The Maritimes and New…
May 13, 2022
1900s North Shore Rum Runners Long Read
I’m Alone: The Maritimes’ Most Famous Rum Running Schooner
In September of 1928, a massively overweight New York gangster named Jamie Clark came to Lunenburg to buy a schooner to smuggle illegal booze.…
February 25, 2022
1900s Nova Scotia Rum Runners Long Read
Christmas 1868 In New Brunswickers’ Own Words
Five years after the events in this article, Juliana Horatia Ewing would publish a Christmas short story called ‘Old Father Christmas’ which was set…
December 24, 2021
1800s Christmas Fredericton Saint John Long Read
Santa And The Flaming Christmas Tree Incident
This is a very rare photo of an indoor Christmas tree in 1905 taken in Bloomfield Station, New Brunswick. The child is a two…
December 19, 2021
1800s Christmas Fredericton Saint John Strange Tales Long Read
Before Santa Claus There Was The Queen Of The Fairies
“T’was the night before Christmas and all through the house, not a creature was stirring not even a mouse. The stockings were hung by…
December 12, 2021
1800s Christmas Fredericton Long Read
The First Christmas In North America
This photo is from 1904 in downtown Saint John, New Brunswick a massive week long celebration of the 300 year anniversary of Samuel de…
December 3, 2021
1600s and Before Bay of Fundy Christmas Nova Scotia Long Read Popular
Drug Use During Prohibition
This photo is of a New Brunswick pharmacy in the 1920s. The caption for it simply read “George Dalzell The Druggist.” I in no…
November 17, 2021
1900s Rum Runners Long Read