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

*Top Episode of 2023!

In the 1920s two hermit brothers on Grand Manan became internationally famous as the mysterious “Dark Harbour Hermits.”

Hundreds of tourists from the United States and even faraway Europe came to visit them in their homemade shacks on the beaches of the strange and isolated place known as Dark Harbour, where the hermits would entertain the tourists with their art, their poems, and their songs.

backyardhistory.ca

The Maritimes were briefly the Dutch colony of Nova Hollandia..

We’re always taught in school that ever since European colonists arrived in what is now Canada, that it was always a colony of either England or France. However, it’s a little-known fact that for a brief time the Maritimes were conquered by the Dutch, and were a short lived colony with a remarkably bizarre history, named Nova Hollandia.

https://backyardhistory.ca/f/when-the-maritimes-were-dutch

An unlikely trio is celebrated by a US President for their heroic rescue of sailors stranded for days on a rock in a storm.

https://backyardhistory.ca/f/wreck-and-rescue-of-the-velma

“They will not allow me to go home,” begins the haunting diary that Mary Huestis Pengilly wrote while locked up in the Saint John Lunatic Asylum, Canada’s first ever mental health institution.

She wrote vividly in a secret diary about her experiences as a patient in the Asylum in the 1880s, which she later published into a book. After her release, she became a high profile and outspoken advocate for reforming how mental health was treated in both Canada and the United States.

https://backyardhistory.ca/popular/f/secret-diary-in-the-lunatic-asylum