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Canada, the second-largest country in the world, is a vast land of dense forests, expansive tundras, and rugged coastlines. Our diverse landscapes are home to folklore, legends, and tales of mysterious creatures. These elusive beings have captured the imaginations of locals, researchers, and enthusiasts for generations. In this, the first of five spookier-themed episodes for October, let’s explore a few of Canada's most intriguing legendary creatures. We’ll learn about a weird giant frog in Coleman, New Brunswick, a mythical people-eating creature in B.C., grumpy fairies in Quebec, and a few mythical and often terrifying creatures from the indigenous lore of Canada’s north.

On September 5th, 1998, between 11:00 and 11:30 pm, Brianne Ruth Wolgram was last seen at the 7-11 store in Revelstoke, BC., in the company of three young females whose identities are unknown. Five days later, Brianne’s abandoned car was discovered 30 km south of Revelstoke, towards the Akolkolex Falls & River, on Echo Lake Road. Inside the car was her wallet, driver’s license and $200, but there was no sign of Brianne. Nearly 25 years later, Brianne’s family and friends are left wondering whatever became of the shy 19-year-old. Police have not ruled out foul play in her disappearance.

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.

On March 26, 1997, police found the bodies of 39 members of a religious UFO cult known as Heaven’s Gate in an 830 square-metre (9,000 square foot) home in Rancho Santa Fe, a San Diego suburb. All, including the group’s leader, Marshall Applewhite Jr., had died in a ritualistic act of mass suicide. The headline on the cult’s website, which remains online today, stated, “Hale-Bopp brings closure to Heaven’s Gate.” Over the following weeks, as investigators probed what happened in the home, the story of the Heaven’s Gate cult emerged, each detail weirder than the next. I wrote about this story in part three, The Madness of Crowds, in my first book, Murder Madness and Mayhem. I have always wanted to cover this on Dark Poutine. I have expanded on what I wrote, especially toward the end of the story, I get into more detail about the victims. The medium of a podcast also allows for other content, including audio clips from individuals involved in the case and other details I was otherwise unable to convey in the book including a Canadian connection. That’s right, this is not an away game.

Episode 219 BONUS: In this episode we hear from several Dark Poutine listeners, and in one case, a family member of a listener, who are sharing their experiences and feelings around their own UFO encounters. Mike also shares his own experience as a youth, and at the end of the show Mike and Mathew talk about their recent visit to The Extraterrestrial Highway, Rachel, Nevada and the back Gate of Area 51.Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 219: In the first of two episodes released this week, Mike interviews Chris Rutkowski. Chris A. Rutkowski is a science writer who has devoted much time to investigating and studying reports of UFOs, writing about case investigations, and offering his insights into the broad UFO phenomenon publishing the annual Canadian UFO Report. Chris has authored numerous books on UFOs and two of his previous books, Abductions and Aliens and The Canadian UFO Report, were national bestsellers. He was recently referred to in a 2021 report to the Canadian Minister of Defense on UFOs in Canada as the person to which the government hands over reports of UFOs. He lives just outside Winnipeg.Sources:The Canadian UFO SurveyTwitter - Chris Rutkowski Facebook Page - Chris Rutkowski, WriterBlog - Chris Rutkowski Report a UFO in Canada - The Canadian UFO SurveyReport a Canadian UFO Sighting — The Nighttime PodcastThe Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System (CADORS)UFO sightings: Canada’s defence minister briefed | CTV NewsThematic Guides - Unidentified Flying Objects - Library and Archives CanadaWhat does Canada do with reports of UFO sightings? — The Big StorySupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 218: The history of humanity is rife with stories of unexplained things in the skies above us. Handed down first verbally and pictographically by way of depictions painted on cave walls and then in written accounts, there are scores of stories about strange lights and objects in the sky. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, as human technology has improved, we have been able to better document and disseminate information about these sightings. Over the next two episodes, we have a look at unidentified flying objects, more commonly called UFOs. In this first episode we’ll take a brief look at the phenomena itself, the stigma surrounding it and recent admissions by governmental officials of the existence of these objects. As well, we will peek at some of the stories from right here in Canada that we haven’t already covered. I have had to pick and choose some of the more interesting and detailed reports, as there are more than 1000 reports per year and the database of reports in Canada alone is massive. Sources:Chris Hadfield on exploring Mars and the growing conversation about UFOs | CBC RadioFormer Arizona Governor says he saw a UFO during the 1997 Phoenix Lights - Wikinews, the free news sourceThe Canadian UFO Report by Chris A. Rutkowski, Geoff Dittman - Ebook | ScribdParaResearchers Of Ontario - Welcome To Our Space On The WebSimeon Perkins Records UFO sighting October 12, 1796 | Queens County MuseumCanadian DND Report: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAP)Canada’s UFOs: The search for the unknown - Library and Archives Canadahttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Magnet_(UFO)Wilbert Smith on UFOs Project Magnet and his Contacts with the Boys from Topside — YouTubePentagon UFO videos - WikipediaDocuments | NAVAIR - FOIACivil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System — CADORS: Report 2016P1783Credible UFO Reports Are Being Ignored, Declassified Canadian Government Documents RevealUFO sightings: Canada’s defence minister briefed | CTV Newshttp://www.psican.orghttp://pararesearchers.orgList of artificial objects leaving the Solar System - WikipediaUS10144532B2 — Craft using an inertial mass reduction device — Google PatentsWalker ‘stunned’ to see ship hovering high above sea off Cornwall | Science | The GuardianNINA HAGEN 1985 “Gods Of Aquarius” (English) IN EKSTASY — YouTubeSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 216: In Quebec, on April 15, 1763, after a supposed confession and hasty trial by an English military tribunal, 30-year-old Marie-Josephte Corriveau was convicted of murdering in brutal fashion her second husband, Louis-Étienne Dodier, and was sentenced to death. She was hanged with haste, three days later. Her body was then put on display in a form-fitting metal cage and placed at a crossroad where for the next five weeks, she stood as a warning to others considering domestic homicide as an answer to an unhappy marriage. When her cage disappeared locals believed that the Devil himself had come and taken Marie-Josephte to hell. It said that La Corriveau's spectre haunts the crossroads still.Sources:Marie-Josephte Corriveau - WikipediaUncertain Justice by F. Murray Greenwood, Beverley Boissery - Ebook | ScribdKilling Women by Wilfrid Laurier University Press - Ebook | ScribdThe History of Gibbeting by Samantha Priestley - Ebook | ScribdLa destinée de la Corriveau « Histoire du QuébecLégende de la Corriveau – Voyage à travers le QuébecLes anciens Canadiens - Philippe Aubert de GaspéIl était cent fois La Corriveau : anthologie : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet ArchivePressReader.com - Macabre DiscoveryCanadian Mysteries of the Unexplained: Investigations Into the Fantastic, the Bizarre and the DisturbingBiography – CORRIVEAU, MARIE-JOSEPHTE, La Corriveau – Volume III (1741-1770) – Dictionary of Canadian BiographyThe Legend of La Corriveau: Québécois Folklore and The Politics of Nation-Making in Canada by Leslie SavathLa Corriveau: A woman victim of Society? by Isabelle ParentView of From Vilified to Victorious: Reconceiving La Corriveau in Anne Hébert’s La Cage | Studies in Canadian LiteratureLa Corriveau | The Canadian EncyclopediaThe Hanging Cage That Held An Infamous Québec Murderess - Atlas ObscuraCanadian Urban Legends: La Corriveau of Quebec City | NUVOA Shrine for Marie-Josephte Corriveau and for all women who are victims of domestic violence - UBC Library Open CollectionsA Shrine for Marie-Josephte Corriveau - KooZA/rchClassic French-Canadian Folktales: Volume I (English Edition; Annotated) eBook : Beaugrand, Honore, Frechette, Louis-Honore, Peters, Hammerson: Amazon.ca: Kindle StoreCage of la Corriveau on display in Lévis | CBC NewsLa Corriveau: The Gibbet of Quebec — YouTubeFrench Mourning in the 1700s - Geri WaltonSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 191: On the evening of July 30, 2008, Tim McLean, a 22-year-old Canadian carnival barker was returning home to Winnipeg riding a Greyhound bus when he was viciously stabbed, beheaded, and cannibalized by another passenger about 18 km west of Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. After arriving on scene, RCMP watched for hours as the perpetrator, Vince Li, 40, desecrated Tim’s body inside the bus after the driver and remaining passengers had fled, powerless to stop the man’s frenzy. Less than a year later, Vince Li was found not criminally responsible (NCR) for Tim McLean’s slaying, but held in a Manitoba psychiatric institution from which he was released just 6 years later.Sources:Cold Facts of the Case – Tim’s LawYouTube — R.I.P Tim McLean - July 30, 2008 Greyhound Bus TragedyYouTube — TIMOTHY MCLEAN KILLING (CAROL DE DELLEY INTERVIEW) AFTERMATH OF MURDER: SURVIVOR STORIESJustice served with the absolute discharge of Vince Li – The ManitobanBOOK: Shrunk — Crime and Disorders of the Mind by LoreProceed with Extreme Caution: The Not Criminally Responsible Defence | CanLIIVincent Li found not criminally responsible for murder - Winnipeg Free PressDocumentCloud — Manitoba Criminal Code Review Board decisionTimeline of decisions in the case of Vince Li - Winnipeg | Globalnews.caVince Li Archives - Dying WordsYouTube — Vince Li — “Please, kill me.”YouTube — The Fifth Estate — Bus 1170 : Vince Li and the Greyhound Bus Murder (2011)Killing of Tim McLean - WikipediaVince Li | News, Videos & Articles | Globalnews.caLooking back at the Greyhound bus beheading a decade down the road | Globalnews.caNot Criminally Responsible Reform Act (backgrounder) — Canada News CentreNot Criminally Responsible Reform Acthttp://summit.sfu.ca/system/files/iritems1/16395/etd9553_TMiller.pdfTalk:Killing of Tim McLean - WikipediaHow to Be a Juggalo: 12 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow FunA Conversation With Vince Li - Steinbachonline.comVince Li, man who beheaded Greyhound bus passenger, seeks absolute discharge | CBC NewsR.I.P Tim McLean — Facebook GroupMCLEAN TIMOTHY - Obituaries - Winnipeg Free Press PassagesTimeline to the Greyhound bus killing | CBC NewsVince Weiguang Li | Murderpedia, the encyclopedia of murderersSupport the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine

Episode 176: On the night of November 13, 1974, In the sleepy community of Amityville on the coast of Long Island, New York, a 23-year-old man named Ronald (Butch) DeFeo Jr. came running into a local bar. He was distraught and claiming his whole family, his mother and father and 4 siblings, had been murdered in their home, a large Dutch Colonial house located at 112 Ocean Avenue. However, it was later determined it was Butch himself who’d annihilated his family. A year later, Butch was convicted on six counts of second-degree murder and received an equal number of sentences of 25 years to life in prison for slaughtering his family as they slept. A month after Butch DeFeo’s conviction, the Lutz family, Kathy, George and their three kids moved into the property having purchased it for a steal, $80,000. But, after only 28 days in the house, the Lutz family fled. They claimed they’d been chased out by relentless psychic torture inflicted on them by some unseen presence; they thought demonic, who’d made life in the house impossible. A 1977 book on the case by author Jay Anson titled The Amityville Horror, and subsequent film in 1979 introduced the story to an international audience and has become one of the most well-known, most covered and at the same time, controversial tales of hauntings and demonic possession in history. Sources: [The Amityville Horror Website: Hosted By George Lutz - ARCHIVED] [The Amityville Murders—The Story Behind the Haunted House and Murders - ARHIVED] [The Real Amityville Horror: The Tragic Murder of the Ronald De Feo Family - ARCHIVED] [The Amityville Files - America’s Most Famous Haunted House Controversy] [Ronald DeFeo: The Original 911 Call Transcripts of the Murders] [The Real ‘Amityville Horror’: Chilling Facts About the Crime and Haunted House - Biography] [Slain Family Drugged, Police on L:I..Report - The New York Times] [Ronald DeFeo - Murders, Movie & Family - Biography] [Reel or Real? The Truth Behind Two Hollywood Ghost Stories | Skeptical Inquirer] [Inside the ‘Amityville Horror’ house today, Long Island’s most notorious mansion - New York Post] [Morgan Knudsen - Entityseeker Paranormal Research & Teachings] Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/darkpoutine