New Brunswick’s Accidental First Provincial Park
A monument marking the 50th anniversary of the provincial park system being unveiled at Glenwood in 1985. At this event, Arnold Mann, who built…
July 6, 2026
1900s North Shore Long Read
Long Reads
Deeper Backyard History stories selected from the migrated long-read collection.
Categories (2)
Showing stories in 2 categories – clear categories
24 stories are shown.
The Great Sussex Shale Gas Swindle
Albert County was once a real hub of a booming oil industry, however, not everyone it attracted was strictly speaking above-board. One curious individual…
June 2, 2026
1900s Strange Tales Long Read
The Underground Lake of Albert County
The darkness goes deep in Albert County’s gypsum caves. In 1937, a reporter from the Telegraph-Journal descended into one on a tip from two…
May 19, 2026
1900s Forgotten Ruins Strange Tales Long Read
Marilyn Monroe’s Secret Trip to Miramichi
Find a longer version of this story – and many others – in the fourth Backyard History book ‘Mysterious Stories From Atlantic Canada’s Past,’…
May 5, 2026
1900s North Shore Women Long Read
The Ghost of Ryan’s Castle
A ridiculously wealthy and extremely eccentric dentist built a mansion in Hampton, New Brunswick. The ghost said to be guarding a hidden treasure on…
March 31, 2026
1900s Forgotten Ruins Saint John Strange Tales Long Read
The Night The Crocodiles Attacked
A Fredericton Commando’s Second World War Victory Had The Japanese On The Run. Then Came The Crocodiles. Frederictonian Bruce Wright’s (left) idle daydreaming during…
March 17, 2026
1900s Fredericton Strange Tales War Long Read
Kethro The Barber’s Curious Singing Career
One of the oldest photos of Fredericton’s Christ Church Cathedral, taken in 1857. Ten years after this photo was taken, the letters of British…
February 16, 2026
1800s Fredericton Strange Tales Long Read
The Woodman’s Ghost
A crew of woodsmen pause for a photo deep in the forest, axes in hand and snow at their feet. What they did out…
February 3, 2026
1800s North Shore PEI Long Read
The Curse of the Anna Currier
A ship drifted ashore near St. Martins in January 1884, her crew missing and her cargo untouched. The mystery of what happened aboard the…
January 6, 2026
1800s Bay of Fundy Strange Tales Long Read
Nearer to Heaven on Sugarloaf
Joseph Lacasse had been told his whole life what he couldn't do. Born with one leg nearly a foot shorter than the other, he'd…
November 24, 2025
1900s North Shore Long Read
The Man Who Found The World’s Biggest Gold Nugget
I spent so long searching old Australian newspapers from the 1850s for what I understood was going to be a photo of New Brunswicker…
October 28, 2025
1800s North Shore Long Read
The Ghost of Paddy Hollow
An 1861 diary reveals the chilling truth behind a New Brunswick ghost story involving a murder mystery and a fire-eyed monster prowling about an…
October 21, 2025
1800s Strange Tales Long Read
The Great Fire of Miramichi
New Brunswick Legends Tapestries – Great Fire of the Miramichi, 1996, Designed by Micheal McEwing, Woven by Ivan H Crowell. (Provincial Archives of New…
September 30, 2025
1800s North Shore Long Read
The Mystery Crater
A photo of the "Mystery Crater" in its heyday. (Provincial Archives of New Brunswick) New Brunswick was once home to a quirky popular tourist…
September 1, 2025
1900s Forgotten Ruins Strange Tales Long Read
The Prison Camp Poem of Alfred Elsliger
Alfred Elsliger (Canadian Virtual War Memorial) Alfred W. Elsliger enlisted with his friends, including my Great Uncle Wilfred Smith, in his little hometown of…
August 30, 2025
1900s North Shore War Long Read
The Great Campbellton Cowbell Controversy
Is this the face that launched a province-wide debate? In the summer of 1886, New Brunswickers found themselves fiercely divided — over cowbells in…
July 15, 2025
1800s North Shore Strange Tales Long Read
Tim Lynch, Mad King of the Moose
This illustration was published in a tourism brochure Frank Risteen made for the City of Fredericton (for promotional purposes, he bestowed Fredericton with the…
July 1, 2025
1800s North Shore Strange Tales Long Read
Roadside Attractions of New Brunswick
You're cruising down a New Brunswick road, windows down, thinking about lunch, when suddenly — there it is. A giant concrete potato, rising out…
June 17, 2025
1900s Forgotten Ruins Strange Tales Long Read Popular
Comedy on the Rocks: A Maritime Tale of Ice and Improv
A map of Pictou Island in 1879, from the book "Illustrated Historical Atlas Of Pictou County Nova Scotia." Pictou Island, Nova Scotia, is so…
May 27, 2025
1900s Nova Scotia Strange Tales Long Read Popular
The Stolen Rare Ducks of Old Simeon Cheney
The Eider duck’s warm, lightweight down made it a target for hunters across the Maritimes. But thanks to an old fisherman, a nest of…
May 19, 2025
1800s Bay of Fundy Strange Tales Long Read
The First Murder in New Brunswick
New Brunswick’s first-ever murder took place in 1784, only two months after the province was created. The murder weapon was an ordinary table fork.…
May 13, 2025
1700s Bay of Fundy Saint John Strange Tales Women Long Read
Woodsman’s Slang: A Guide to Lumberjack Lingo of New Brunswick
While researching the story 'The Woodsman's Ghost,' which appears in the fourth Backyard History book 'Mysterious Stories From Atlantic Canada's Past,' I kept stumbling…
April 19, 2025
Strange Tales Long Read
Allen Ginsberg’s Controversial Easter Reading of Howl in a Church
On Easter weekend, 1967, The Turtles’ Happy Together knocked The Beatles’ Penny Lane from the number one spot on the music charts — and…
April 15, 2025
1900s Saint John Strange Tales Long Read
Dynamite, Danger, and Log Driving on the Restigouche
Log driving was tough work, and when things went wrong and the logs got jammed, as we see here, they would be a real…
April 8, 2025
1900s North Shore Long Read