One Great History

When homesteaders were coming to Canada by the tens of thousands in the late 19th century, William Beal was one of a small number of black pioneers who staked his claim in Manitoba. Though by all accounts he was never much of a farmer, Beal made his mark as a booklover and autodidact in the community at Swan River Valley.

On the evening of July 2nd, 1873, a visiting Scottish lord, Lord Gordon Gordon, was kidnapped from James McKay's Silver Heights home and rushed towards the American border. The events that followed would spiral into a full-scale international incident involving both the Canadian and American governments and the discovery that Lord Gordon Gordon was not who he seemed.

A huge thank you to Jon Benson with The WRENCH for joining us for Collecting Conversations! Visit thewrench.ca/archive-project/ to learn more about The WRENCH's efforts to build a cycling archive.

Once a year, in ye olde days of the late 90s, children across Manitoba would dress their teachers as cattle, wear their best milk moustaches to school, and go to bed dreaming of winning a giant, inflatable cow. In this episode, Alex interrogates the historical origins of this somewhat unusual childhood tradition known as Milk Spirit Week.

Listen to find out:

• Were six spilled cans of milk coincidence or conspiracy?

All that and more in this ultra-niche milk episode!

It's February, which means it's time for another deep dive into advice columns of years past! For Valentine's Day 2022, we're focusing on Virginia Vane Says (briefly called The Women's Forum) - a column that ran in the Winnipeg Tribune from 1933-1944.

Pressing issues include: how do I stop my husband from wearing a hat I hate, should I tell my mother I secretly married a soldier, and how do I convince my first love to leave her husband for me (and do I kidnap her)?

On this episode we take a leisurely stroll through the history of Assiniboine Park and the Zoo. Alex tells us about decades of underfunding, a crooked gardener, a completely unsurprising fire, and the German animal-lover who made our zoo what it is today.

Alex, Sabrina and Nick dust off their sleigh bells, pointe shoes, and bottles of (non-alcoholic) champagne to talk about more festive Winnipeg stories. Sabrina talks about the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's The Nutcracker and it's lengthy legacy, while Alex takes us on a pub crawl through New Years party's past.

Winnipeg's Gingerbread City Hall was, for many years, a distinctive local landmark. It was demolished in 1962 amidst safety concerns and a larger push to modernize Winnipeg. Sabrina's not here to talk about that, though. Instead, we're talking about the construction of the Gingerbread City Hall and the many, many scandals that plagued it throughout the 1880s.

In May of 1967, amateur geologist Stefan Michalak was looking for quartz in the Whiteshell when he saw something bizarre. Was it an alien spacecraft? An experimental rocket ship? A hoax? In this episode, Alex interviews UFOlogist Chris Rutkowski and we talk through the UFO sighting known as the Falcon Lake Incident as well as its aftermath and a few theories. Plus: a special guest who may or may not be Alex's dad.

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After almost a year out of the studio, Sabrina, Alex and Nick are back to recording in person! To kick us off, Sabrina recaps the unusual and unpredictable story of Harlequin Romance - a publishing house founded in Winnipeg that is now one of the largest romance publishers in the world. Their start, as it turns out, was not nearly as romantic. 

Also of note - One Great History will now be released MONTHLY!

In an attempt to be topical, Sabrina goes through the storied history of polio in Manitoba - from the early epidemic era, through bizarre treatment ideas and wonky science, to one of Canada's largest vaccination initiatives. We promise, we didn't want this episode to feel quite as relevant as it does.

Content Warning: This episode was recorded over a month ago, before the discovery of the bodies of 215 children at the former Kamloops Residential School. We are all heartbroken by the discovery, and unfortunately this episode contains a similar incident on a smaller scale. It is discussed from 54:46-57:03 so you can expect it or skip it if you aren't in a space for it.