David Williams - Fireside Canada

It's unlikely I'll post any further on this site, but you can find me on other platforms, and at FiresideCanada.ca

Thanks to everyone who has listened, commented, contributed, and donated over the years. I hope this little show has contributed in some small way to the understanding and celebration of Canadian folklore, and the stories that can be found in our shared history.

I just discovered that the Frequency Podcast Network has been effectively gutted by Rogers Media. It happened while I was waiting to hear from the team regarding my latest episode, so I think it's safe to say that this is the sudden end of the road for Fireside Canada.

This illustration by Frank Solteaz, from the May 1960 edition of "Action for Men" magazine, shows a VERY mid-century "Maria Cobham" (AKA Maria Lindsay, the Pirate Queen of Canada) forcing a lieutenant to strip. According to legend, she'd run him through and wear his clothes.

NEW EPISODE! Hear about pirate power couple Eric Cobham and Maria Lindsay, said to have once sailed Canada's eastern waters, sinking every ship they found. The legend can still be found from New York to Newfoundland, but is there any truth to the tale? firesidecanada.ca/the-pirate-kin…

This is the modern recreation of the infamous Bean puzzle gravestone in Waterloo County, Ontario, located next to the original. Can you solve it? The second image contains the answer. Credit: Mac Armstrong, CC BY-SA 2.0. Second image altered by me to show the answer.

NEW EPISODE! Hear the story of the Bean gravestone in Ontario, a century-old puzzle and one of the strangest graves in Canada. Along the way, you'll learn about a questionable doctor and fascinating local folklore. firesidecanada.ca/the-puzzling-g…

@ShanonSinn What was the story? I keep being surprised these stories still appearing in the 2020s.

@fireside_canada Black Press Media published another racist Halloween story about Victoria this year almost entirely fiction. It even included slurs, in quotes, to make it sound legit.

One thing I've learned while making Fireside Canada is that a LOT of historians and storytellers don't do their research, but just blindly repeat others. It's not just annoying—it can also be damaging to our sense of history and the dignity of others.

While "Del" Moses has, thankfully, managed to reclaim his identity in recent years, Charles Morgan Blessing continues to be portrayed as a rich, white guy. You can learn more in my latest episode, Historians, do your damned research.

The other, Charles Morgan Blessing, most likely a Black miner from Ohio, was transformed into a rich, white "scion of a wealthy Boston family." These ideas show up in places like the Vancouver Sun, popular books on Ghost Stories of BC, and even serious history books.

NEW EPISODE! Hear the true story of Charles Morgan Blessing—the lonely occupant of a single grave in Canada's smallest provincial historic site—and the legends that still linger over a century after his murder. firesidecanada.ca/the-haunted-ba…

@BL_Owens Hope you enjoyed it!

For decades, a mysterious pair of spirits—a horse and its rider—have been said to haunt a long-vanished stretch of train track that once cut through the northern expanse of the Great Plains in Saskatchewan. firesidecanada.ca/the-phantom-ri…

Would you live in a haunted house if the rent was cheap enough? That was a question that one couple faced in the summer of 1957. Once a rough lumber town, now drowned at the bottom of a lake, Waldo, BC is the unexpected location for a classic ghost story. firesidecanada.ca/the-haunted-ho…