Those venturing out to the Memorial University Botanical Garden this September are advised to have bread in their pockets to keep the fairies away. The university’s garden staff has combined resources with folklorist Dale Jarvis of the St. John’s Haunted Hike to present The Fairy Path, an exploration of fairy […]
Cryptozoology
Halifax Paranormal Symposium planners hope to make it an annual event
Halifax is going to witness its first paranormal conference in 17 years, and it’s something planners want to make a historical repeater. Elliott Van Dusen, president of Paranormal Phenomena Research & Investigation (PPRI), is collaborating with Dr. Darryll Walsh, executive director of the Centre for Parapsychological Studies in Canada, on […]
Giant squids are a tale as old as time in Newfoundland
Newfoundland is swimming in mariner folklore, but no other story about a run-in with Architeuthis dux captivates audiences more than the Squires-Picot sighting on Oct. 26, 1873. Two fishermen and a boy were fishing in the tickle near Bell Island, just a few miles north of St. John’s, when they […]
Kitchener writer Travis Watson compiles Canadian Sasquatch sightings in new book
Trepidation was stalking Travis Watson like a wild animal when he was writing Sasquatch Canada: Beyond British Columbia. Much like the eight-foot-tall suspected primate of Canadian folklore, his consternation loomed over him, giving him complicated feelings, as the subject of Bigfoot is one that heightens division. “There’s just an awful […]
Brampton writer puts a spotlight on lesser-known cryptids of Asia, Oceania in book
Carol Scott’s idea for her book The Cryptids of Asia and Oceania had been simmering on the creative burner since high school. The Brampton-based writer started the first draft of her book in 2015. Its publication came to fruition in September 2022, allowing her passion for digging deeper into cryptozoological […]
Photojournalist and filmmaker Jason Kenzie is no stranger to exotic wildlife
Photojournalist and filmmaker Jason Kenzie is no stranger to exotic wildlife, having worked with tigers, grizzly bears, alligators, monkeys, wolves and even the African serval. And he is no stranger to the sprawling forests and mountains of his native British Columbia, where he grew up hearing stories about the “hairy man […]
What lurks in Cowichan Lake? Stin-Qua adds to B.C.’s super, natural mystique
Canada’s westernmost province has a rich history of water monsters. There are those we know — the Pacific giant octopus, the white sturgeon, the orca whale — and then there are those that inhabit the folktales and urban legends of British Columbia: Ogopogo, Cadborosaurs, and Shuswaggi, among many others. One […]
Kamloops team investigates Sasquatch, digs up old ghosts in B.C.’s interior
Jason Hewlett’s cryptozoological mission into the wilds of British Columbia’s interior yielded some fascinating discoveries, including a ghostly side quest. The former crime reporter turned paranormal investigator shared his team’s discoveries on the Bonaparte Plateau, as well as in Shuswap and Barriere in the latter half of 2020 on the […]
Canadian adventurer Adam Shoalts explores the lore of Traverspine ‘gorilla’ in new book
Like a scene out of the AMC series “The Terror”, adventurer and writer Adam Shoalts captures the mythology surrounding Traverspine, Labrador in his book The Whisper on the Night Wind: The True History of a Wilderness Legend with an air of eldritch horror. Canada’s north is rife with mysteries including […]
Ogopogo, Nx̌aʔx̌ʔitkʷ’s spirit lives on through Okanagan communities
Nx̌aʔx̌ʔitkʷ, known as Ogopogo to those outside of British Columbia, is an important part of the communities around Lake Okanagan, from Vernon to Kelowna to Penticton. Pronounced n-ha-ha-it-kew, the spirit of the lake is both a spiritual and physical reminder of how important water is to both the natural environment […]