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Peter Vasilievich Verigin, also known as “Lordly,” was a highly respected and influential leader among the Doukhobors. These Doukhobors had migrated to Canada in 1899, seeking a new life and religious freedom. Verigin was pivotal in guiding and inspiring them to create a strong and united community based on their religious beliefs. However, tragedy struck in 1924, casting a dark shadow over Verigin’s legacy. An explosion occurred on Car 1586 of the Kettle Valley Line, resulting in the loss of Verigin’s life, the life of his companion, and seven others. The devastating incident left people shocked and searching for answers. Some suspected that fanatics or government agents might have been responsible, while others believed that fellow Doukhobors or accidental causes played a role. The truth behind this tragic event remains a mystery, and the case remains unsolved.

Having just set out from Quebec City the previous day, in the early hours of May 29, 1914, the passenger ship Empress of Ireland sank in the Saint Lawrence River near Rimouski, Quebec. She was on a return trip to Liverpool, England and due to heavy fog, the ship collided with the Norwegian collier SS Storstad. Just two years after the Titanic calamity in international waters off the coast of Nova Scotia came the deadliest shipwreck in Canadian history. The event was so significant it is number 11 on the list of deadliest all-time Canadian disasters, just behind number 10, the Halifax Explosion. The collision occurred when most of the 1,057 passengers and 420 crew members were fast asleep. The aftermath was devastating; the liner plummeted beneath the waters in less than a quarter of an hour, resulting in the tragic loss of more than 1,000 lives.

In Montreal, Quebec on the evening of April 10, 1734, a fire broke out in the home of Madame de Francheville on Rue Saint-Paul and quickly spread throughout the city. Raging for hours, it destroyed over 46 buildings, primarily residential homes, and the Hôtel-Dieu, a hospital that provided medical care to soldiers and people who were too poor to care for at home. There were rumours that Madame de Francheville’s Portuguese-born black enslaved woman, Marie-Josèphe dite Angélique, started the fire as an act of rebellion on learning she was to be sold and sent away from her lover, a white man and salt trafficker named Claude Thibault. Angélique was arrested and subsequently tortured until she confessed to setting the fire. She was then convicted of arson and hanged on June 21, 1734. The fire significantly impacted Montreal’s development and created new building codes and fire prevention measures. The event remains integral to Montreal’s cultural and historical heritage and yet another dark spot in Canada’s history. Some have called Angélique a heroine, others a scapegoat. Unfortunately, the truth of the matter is lost to time.

At 8:00 PM on the evening of March 21, 2006, the B.C. Ferries-operated motor vessel Queen of the North departed Prince Rupert, British Columbia. The long-haul passenger and vehicle ferry, making the 18-hour overnight trip to *Port Hardy* on the Northern end of Vancouver Island, was carrying 22 vehicles, 101 people, 59 passengers and 42 crew. Many passengers were asleep when, at 12:21 A.M., at 17.5 knots, the ferry struck an underwater ledge on the northeast side of Gil Island in Wright Sound. The damage to the hull was catastrophic; it tore holes in the starboard side and took out the propellers. The ferry lost propulsion and began drifting and taking on water. Upon realizing the ferry was lost, the crew and passengers loaded into lifeboats to take them safely away from the foundering vessel, which sank in 430 m of water only 80 Minutes later. Sadly, two of the passengers, Shirley Rosette and Gerald Foisy, both of 100 Mile House, British Columbia, were unaccounted for and, as they’ve never been found, they have since been declared dead.

In January of 1922, the first of a series of fires broke out on a farm in the small rural community of Caledonia Mills in Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. The family who lived at the farm, Alexander, 70, and sixty-nine-year-old Janet MacDonald, 69, and their 15-year-old adopted daughter Mary-Ellen, claimed the unexplained blazes, 30 in all, had begun in rapid succession in places not close to either wood stove. The fires and other terrifying occurrences that drove them out of the home, they believed, were caused by a malicious poltergeist bent on their destruction and focused around Mary-Ellen. News of the events brought renowned international investigators of things paranormal, even catching the attention of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes detective stories.

Eighty years ago, on August 19, 1942, in Operation Jubilee began as the Allies attacked the French port of Dieppe on the English Channel Coast. Of the more than 6100 troops involved, five thousand were soldiers of the 2nd Canadian Infantry Division and a thousand British, many commandos, with a handful of others including Americans. The hope was to gain a foothold in Europe, breaching Hitler’s heavily-fortified Atlantic Wall. But unfortunately, the Germans were ready for them, and things did not go as planned. After nine excruciating hours of brutal fighting along the shore, the allied force retreated. Almost 1000 Allied troops lay dead, and at least 2000 more were prisoners of war, making this one of Canada’s darkest days ever in a time of war.

The strongest earthquake ever recorded in eastern Canada, measuring 7.2 on the Richter scale, occurred at 5:02pm Newfoundland time on the 18 of November in 1929. It was felt as far west as Ottawa and as far south as New York City. The quake, centred around 250 km south of Newfoundland along the southern edge of the Grand Banks caused a massive sub-ocean landslide. Two and a half hours after the quake a series of tsunami waves smashed into Newfoundland’s isolated Burin Peninsula devastating property, upending the fishery and causing 28 deaths.

Episode 173 - On July 6, 2013, in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, an unattended 73-car freight train carrying crude oil rolled down a grade and derailed downtown, multiple tank cars exploded, resulting in a massive fire. More than 30 buildings in the town's core were destroyed, and, sadly, forty-seven people lost their lives. Sources: [Ville Lac-Mégantic - Une ville à coeur ouvert] [Déraillement mortel d’un train à Lac-Mégantic - Ville Lac-Mégantic] [Balado Découverte - Le Marcheur d’étoiles | Circuit touristique de Lac-Mégantic] [Cinq clés pour comprendre la tragédie de Lac-Mégantic | Radio-Canada.ca] [10 of Canada’s worst train accidents - Macleans.ca] [Firefighter watched ghost train barrel past him moments before Lac-Mégantic derailment | CBC News] [Rail at center of Quebec town tragedy and heart of its recovery | Reuters] [Lac-Megantic’s resilience tested after ‘le train d’enfer’ - CentralMaine.com] [Summary of Railway Investigation Report R13D0054 - TSB Canada] [Railway Investigation Full Report R13D0054 - TSB Canada] [Lac-Mégantic MMA Train Accident - 6 July 2013 - YouTube] [Audio: Train engineer and railway company talk as Lac-Mégantic burns - The Globe and Mail] [Lac-Mégantic engineer Thomas Harding’s firing ruled illegal - Montreal | Globalnews.ca] [YouTube - Angry Lac Megantic residents seek answers - Global News] [YouTube - Lac-Mégantic News Conference - Investigation Report Release] [YouTube - Lac-Mégantic engineer calls released] [YouTube - Tragédie Lac Mégantic - Pierre Duquet] [YouTube - Incendie à Lac-Mégantic - username Nitrof Taz] [Wayback Machine - Montreal Gazette - Lives lost: Remembering Lac-Mégantic’s victims] [Global News Search - Lac-Mégantic] [Lac-Mégantic rail disaster - Wikipedia] Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 172 - To curtail social ills like alcoholism, family violence, and other unsavoury behaviours, religious and puritanical proponents of the Temperance Movement demonized alcohol throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries. After numerous U.S. states had become ‘dry’ outlawing the production and sale of alcohol in the years prior, in 1919, the United States ratified the 18th amendment to their constitution, which banned the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within the country’s borders. As hoarded supplies quickly began to run dry over the next ten years, Americans looked outside their borders to keep the liquor flowing into the country.  Scores of Canadians stepped up, flouting the laws to move alcohol across the 49th parallel. Many were entrepreneurs with a daredevil spirit, a means of transportation and a desire to make a quick buck, but others were psychopathic, dangerous, mob-connected killers. We’ll talk about a couple of them here. Mike Browne's new book, MURDER, MADNESS, AND MAYHEM: Twenty-Five Tales of True Crime and Dark History, is available this November from Harper Collins Canada! You can pre-order your copy now: https://bit.ly/3oSnKXS Sources: [Prohibition: An Interactive History – Mob Museum] [Women Led the Temperance Charge – Prohibition: An Interactive History] [Captain Jack Randell] [Captain Jack Randell - Classic Sailboats] [The Sinking of The I’m Alone] [Heaving To Is a Valuable Skill for All Sailors] [Story of the I’m Alone | Decora-chan | Prince Edward Island] [Ernest Hemingway - Biographical - NobelPrize.org] [The Whisky King - Trevor Cole - eBook] [Molls of a mobster | Maclean’s | OCTOBER 5, 1987] [Biography – STARKMAN, BESHA (Tobin)] Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 140: On July 22, 2018, at around 10:00 pm, calls flooded Toronto's 911 call centre. There was a man on Danforth shooting at people in the streets and in the restaurants and cafes in Greektown. After the 16-minute rampage, 13 people were wounded, 10-year-old Julianna Kozis and 18-year-old Reese Fallon had been killed and the gunman had completed suicide. Even after two intensive investigations, one question remains - Why? Sources: https://globalnews.ca/news/4347334/toronto-danforth-shooting-timeline-map/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Toronto_shooting https://www.torontopolice.on.ca/publications/files/20190621-danforth_shootings_findings_of_investigation.pdf https://www.siu.on.ca/en/directors_report_details.php?drid=165 https://globalnews.ca/news/5416470/toronto-police-danforth-shooting-investigation/ |https://globalnews.ca/news/4346833/danforth-shooting-what-we-know-about-suspect/ https://globalnews.ca/?s=danforth+shooting https://globalnews.ca/tag/julianna-kozis/ https://globalnews.ca/?s=reese+fallonhttps://globalnews.ca/?s=faisal+hussain https://canadiantruecrime.ca/news/2018/4/24/canadian-crime-podcast-event https://www.arbormemorial.ca/highland-scarborough/obituaries/reese-fallon/21923 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incel https://youtu.be/xmiM91Elbn8  https://youtu.be/4mMgJML1pbY  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1igcEIdikZw https://twitter.com/stilez/status/1021242759401779201?lang=en Trigger Warning: Shooting Video Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine