0:14

Hello. Good luck in the life. funnows. I'm

0:15

your host. David Flora. On

0:18

this episode, we welcome back author Travis

0:20

Watson who returns to the show to talk about

0:22

his new book Canadian monsters and

0:24

mysteries, and exploration of

0:26

high strangeness in the Great White North.

0:29

Here is my interview with Travis

0:31

Watson. Enjoy.

0:38

We welcome back Travis Watson,

0:40

author of Canadian monsters

0:43

and mysteries. Travis, welcome

0:45

back. You are dangerously close getting

0:47

yourself free iced coffee for how many times

0:49

you've come here. I'll tell you what.

0:51

I I I'm starting to feel like

0:54

I spend more time with headphones on than I

0:56

do in front of my computer sometimes. Well,

1:01

let's pay it all for you, man. This is

1:03

this is the latest from you. tell

1:05

me a little bit about it. This stuff,

1:07

is it research you've done in

1:09

addition to the other books

1:11

that you've written, or is this a special thing you've

1:14

worked on? Did it come out of the other

1:16

research? It's actually, you know,

1:18

a standalone project.

1:20

I moved to Canada in twenty

1:22

twenty. My spouse got

1:25

a job as a as a lecturer

1:27

at the University of Waterloo, which is

1:29

quite a coup, quite a career coup,

1:31

because this is Waterloo is

1:34

is basically the kind of

1:36

the MIT of of Canada or or one

1:38

of them anyway. So they're

1:40

they're doing a their thing is a

1:43

a computer science lecturer. And

1:46

I was part of the reason that

1:48

I've been able to put out somebody books in the past

1:50

couple of years since I have, you

1:52

know, not been able to work here until

1:55

fairly recently. And

1:57

now, things are rolling along pretty

1:59

well. So, you know, I'm

2:02

I'm kind of taking my

2:04

time about returning to the the

2:06

the everyday workforce. So

2:09

I moved to Canada and I looked

2:11

around me and I said, well,

2:13

you know, I'm a I'm a researcher of all

2:15

weird. I wonder what kind of weird things there are

2:17

in Canada. Sure. And I

2:19

quickly discovered, you know,

2:22

as with mysteries and mysteries, when I

2:24

thought, gee, I wonder if fog in clouds

2:26

and stuff appear in the paranormal a lot.

2:29

Once I went down the rabbit hole, I was

2:31

like, oh my goodness. There's

2:33

there's so much stuff that

2:35

I literally had to cut large

2:38

chunks of things out of the book.

2:40

you know, for instance, I don't deal with Sasquatch

2:42

at all in this book because that's

2:45

my next book, basically. Is is Sasquatch

2:47

Canada. Yeah. I, you

2:49

know, I I chose not to do

2:51

the the Lake Champlain Monster because

2:54

that's been very ably. That's being

2:56

very ably done by somebody else.

2:58

I also chose not to do the when to go for

3:00

the same reason, and hauntings.

3:03

That may be the book after this one because

3:05

just in Ontario alone, there

3:07

are tons of haunting,

3:10

you know, ghost stories, lots

3:12

of history stuff. So,

3:14

you know, I touch on hunting's maybe little bit

3:17

in in this book with fans and trains and

3:19

things like that, but fan of ships.

3:21

But I don't go full bore into you

3:23

know, I went to this place and blah blah blah, you know,

3:26

all that sort of stuff. Mhmm. So

3:28

but even that then, you

3:31

know, this book is is another book like mysteries

3:34

and mysteries. It has AAA wide

3:36

variety of things that

3:39

would interest people who are interested in the

3:41

paranormal, ranging

3:43

from cryptids through UFOs. I

3:46

do section on ferry lore. And

3:48

I even close out with a section that's just

3:50

basically forty on a Phantom

3:53

Fire or so. What do they call?

3:55

firespooks, firespooks, and

3:58

and other strangeness like

4:00

that. So as I got into the

4:03

the research, I found all kinds of interesting

4:05

things. The thing that

4:07

really interested me though

4:09

was I had to

4:11

find a number of

4:13

different sources because

4:16

a lot of the stories from

4:19

Canada you only find

4:21

with Canadian authors. So

4:24

I had to explore whole

4:27

new set of of of

4:29

writers some of whom have written

4:31

some really fantastic work, but we

4:34

don't hear much about them

4:36

in United States. So

4:39

I I thought that was pretty cool. Good

4:41

example of that. The guy

4:43

named John Warms -- Mhmm. -- has written

4:45

a fantastic book called

4:48

strange creatures seldom seen, which

4:51

most people probably never heard of.

4:53

It's a a collect he he

4:56

hails from I I I'm not sure whether

4:58

he's still alive or not, honestly, but

5:01

he was from

5:03

Manitoba. province in Manitoba

5:05

here in Canada. We have provinces instead

5:08

of states. And there's quite

5:10

there are far fewer of them than there are states.

5:13

Oh, yeah. So he hailed from

5:15

Manitoba. And apparently,

5:17

he had connections in the

5:19

First Nations communities of Manitoba.

5:23

And so he wrote a book

5:25

that's a collection of encrypted

5:28

sightings from Canada. and

5:31

some of which we'll probably talk about, well,

5:33

I hope we'll talk about later because

5:35

he wrote some really interesting

5:38

stuff. Yeah. But just

5:40

just as an example, you know, there's

5:42

a couple of people a couple of other people

5:45

that I found that were really, really

5:47

helpful in this research. And speaking

5:49

of the First Nations' sources,

5:51

as you say, John Warms had

5:53

a lot to draw from. Did you have any other

5:56

First Nation sources that you drew

5:58

from? Or did you find that,

6:01

like, in many places in America, a

6:04

lot of the indigenous peoples don't really

6:06

like to discuss this kind of lore.

6:08

Yeah. Unfortunately, because

6:12

of the the history of European

6:15

colonization, you know, both

6:17

in the US and in Canada, many

6:20

people are just not likely

6:22

to talk to somebody that they don't know.

6:25

So I I did not. I do

6:27

have, you know, of

6:30

course, the John War's book that I just

6:32

talked about. There's also some newspaper articles.

6:35

you know, sightings of things that have been

6:37

seen, you know, in

6:40

First Nations reserves, they call them reserves

6:42

up here in our reservations. Mhmm. But,

6:45

directly, no. I didn't have any

6:47

any direct sources. But I certainly

6:49

do cite native people throughout

6:51

thought. Yeah. And not to mention

6:53

the fact that a lot of times talking

6:56

about something taboo like that

6:58

is bad as well to to -- Yeah.

7:01

-- certain cultures because it invites that

7:03

sort of bad negative in aogene. Yeah.

7:06

Warms makes the point of saying that,

7:08

you know, one of the things that he had to work

7:10

against in in collecting these stories

7:13

was, you know, on the one hand, had these people

7:15

who'd seen these incredible things And

7:19

and and and almost

7:21

needed to talk to somebody about it.

7:23

On the other hand, the elders were very

7:26

clear to them that they should

7:28

just forget this stuff and walk away -- Mhmm.

7:31

-- that, you know, you don't want to

7:33

talk about this You don't want

7:35

to dwell on it. You don't want think

7:37

about it. You just want to

7:39

go on about your everyday life and

7:42

let the mystery be the mystery basically.

7:44

Yeah. And so they're very

7:47

torn a lot of times telling these

7:49

stories. You know, you see this a

7:51

lot in amongst

7:54

the Navajo, for instance, the Danae, when

7:56

they talk about skinwalkers. On

7:59

the one hand, a lot of these people,

8:01

not a lot of these people. Some of these people have

8:03

these really incredible experiences with

8:06

things that they cannot explain. you

8:08

know, but on the other hand, there

8:11

is a strong, strong spiritual

8:14

taboo about talking about the subject

8:16

at all. because -- Mhmm. -- again, as you

8:18

say, you know, to name the thing

8:21

is to attract its attention. You

8:23

know? So if they do talk about it, they

8:25

talk in circles around it, and

8:28

don't actually and try very hard

8:30

not to refer to it directly. Yeah.

8:32

You know, they'll talk about how this thing

8:34

was walking around on their roof. you know,

8:37

they're not gonna say I saw a Skin Walker.

8:40

You know, they'll they'll say, well,

8:42

you know, I was driving down the road

8:44

and this thing was running along roadside

8:47

They won't refer to it directly

8:50

if they can help it. And we see

8:52

the same kind of thing happening in Europe.

8:55

the you

8:55

know, in an earlier time

8:58

when European people talked about

9:00

the ferry folk, they

9:02

would not named the furry folk. They had

9:04

all kinds of euphemisms for them,

9:07

so they could avoid saying them, saying

9:09

the name because saying the name

9:11

attracted their attention, And,

9:14

you know, not all fairy were were,

9:17

you know, happy, sloppy, you know,

9:19

flying around waving their wand and making

9:21

colors. kinds of creatures. Some of them

9:23

were pretty dangerous. Yeah. So

9:26

these folks had learned how to live with the spirits

9:28

in their land and some of the native people

9:30

here. Yeah. And this ties

9:32

a little bit into a part in the book where

9:34

you mentioned where you went to

9:36

the superstition mountains in Arizona.

9:39

and how the feeling that you got there. Right?

9:42

Yeah. Well, you know, I'm yeah.

9:44

I've always been kind of one

9:47

of those outdoors people, you know, I like to

9:49

hike and and do that sort of fan.

9:51

Haven't had as much of a chance to do it lately,

9:53

but, you know, just because of busy schedule

9:55

and such. But -- Sure. back

9:58

in the day when I lived in Arizona,

10:00

which was some time ago, over

10:03

twenty years ago, you

10:05

know, I did have a chance to visit

10:07

superstitions since

10:09

they were right next to where I lived.

10:12

Basically, I lived in Mesa, Arizona. And,

10:14

yeah, the Apache

10:16

people of that area, had

10:20

very strong no

10:22

no pun intended superstitions about

10:25

that mountain range. In

10:27

their legends, at least in some

10:29

tribes, it was it was supposed to be the whole

10:32

of the Nazim. who were the

10:34

the thunder beings of of Apache

10:36

lore.

10:39

And there's something special about that place.

10:41

IIII will say that just

10:43

outright, you know, just intuitively walking

10:47

paths and and climbing mountains

10:50

in that area. or something

10:52

different about the superstitions. It

10:54

it has a a distinct feel to it

10:56

that you don't I've not encountered

10:58

anywhere else. And there

11:00

are places in those mountains

11:03

where you really probably

11:06

shouldn't go. I

11:08

I had occasion on at least one

11:10

one time to to walk

11:12

into a side canyon off of off

11:15

of a path that I was following

11:17

up in the superstition range. And

11:21

the experience was really

11:23

bizarre because it was

11:25

a you know, it's the desert. It's a bright, sunshiney

11:28

day. The only time it's

11:30

ever not bright, it's sunshiney, and

11:32

and the Arizona desert is during what

11:34

they've you've basically referred to as the monsoon

11:36

season when they get thunderstorms coming in from

11:39

the Baja area. Yeah. Most

11:41

of the time, though, you know, the sky is

11:43

blue and the sun is beating down on you.

11:45

I walked into this canyon and it was like I'd

11:47

walk It's a it's kind of same kind

11:49

of feeling that some people describe walking

11:52

into a cold spot and a haunted house.

11:54

Yeah. Yeah. know, it seemed to me that the

11:56

temperature dropped. You know? And

11:58

of course, this is all perceptual stuff.

12:00

Right? But it seemed to me that the temperature

12:02

dropped, and it seemed darker in

12:05

this canyon. And it wasn't just the

12:07

shade from the canyon walls or that

12:09

kind of thing. I took about

12:11

five steps into this thing, and I had

12:13

a very clear intuitive feeling

12:16

that I didn't belong there. Mhmm. You

12:18

know? And I I was like, okay.

12:21

Alright. I'm fine with that.

12:23

I'm backing out now. You know, I'm

12:25

sorry I bothered you. And

12:28

I did you know, turn around and walk

12:31

right out. And as soon as I walked out of the

12:33

out of that area, everything

12:35

returned to normal. So,

12:37

you know, I There

12:40

are legends of people disappearing up there.

12:43

Yeah. And that sort of thing. And I'm

12:45

not surprised. because

12:47

there's definitely some sort of presence up

12:49

there that is not not

12:52

happy, not amicable with with

12:54

people. And I don't know whether that's

12:57

just people of European

12:59

descent or whether it's, you know,

13:01

everybody. Yeah.

13:03

Yeah. You know? But, definitely,

13:07

I I don't really

13:09

wanna know what would have happened if I had been hard

13:11

headed and decided that I was gonna walk back in

13:13

that canyon. You know? Right.

13:15

We might not be having an interview. Yeah.

13:17

Crazy. It's entirely possible. Can

13:20

you tell us about some places

13:22

like that in Canada that you lay

13:24

out in the book. Oh my goodness. So

13:28

all order. Yeah. Why don't we just

13:30

talk about the whole book? Now starting

13:33

on page one, I

13:35

didn't focus so much on particular

13:38

places. because there

13:40

are well, okay. So we can go to

13:42

one place. We can

13:44

go to Nova Scotia. Oh, yeah. k.

13:48

And there is AAA very

13:50

good fan of ship story

13:52

from from Nova Scotia. It's

13:54

called the the phantom ship with North the Northumberland

13:57

Strait. And this

13:59

one doesn't have like, a lot of

14:01

phantom ship stories seem to have

14:03

like a an origin story, you know, a

14:05

ship went down, something happened, blah

14:07

blah. Mhmm. This particular

14:10

one doesn't have an origin story

14:12

that any of the authors that I read could track

14:14

down. But throughout the course of history,

14:18

in in Nova Scotia, since the

14:20

settlement time, people

14:22

have reported seeing a

14:25

a massive three rig sailing

14:28

vessel out in the Northumberland straight

14:31

on fire. And, you

14:34

know, they can actually see figures moving

14:36

around and so forth. This

14:39

apparition is so realistic that

14:42

a a rescue team

14:44

launched from Charlottetown Harbor

14:46

at one point. And this must have been some

14:48

time ago because they talked about rolling out there.

14:51

but they they rode up toward this

14:54

toward this this apparently

14:56

burning vessel. They could see people running around.

14:58

They couldn't understand why nobody was jumping

15:00

overboard. because the the ship was

15:02

obviously lost. Right?

15:04

But they're they're looking at

15:06

this. They can actually feel the heat

15:08

of the flames as they're approaching this this

15:11

apparition. But as they get

15:13

closer, suddenly, it's

15:15

enveloped in fog. And then

15:17

when the fog clears, it disappears. when

15:21

the writer who wrote about this started

15:24

the section on this on this Phantom,

15:27

talks about two two husband

15:29

and wife who were staying

15:31

in a hotel in Nova Scotia looked

15:33

out their window and they saw this this this

15:36

ship on fire out in

15:38

the street. They called the local

15:40

coast guard, which

15:42

handles water search and rescue here in Canada,

15:45

much as they do in the United States. They

15:47

don't do so much law enforcement. They're more

15:49

of a search and rescue organization. called

15:51

the local Coast Guard. Coast Guard asked him,

15:53

well, what are you seeing? And they described this,

15:56

you know, massive sailing vessel, blah

15:58

blah blah. It was on fire, so on and so parts

16:00

as, oh, that's the that's the ghost ship that

16:02

outbound outbound is straight. You're you're okay.

16:04

It's alright. Don't worry about it.

16:06

Don't worry about Yeah. There's

16:09

a story of a ferry boat because

16:11

there were ferries that go back and forth between Nova

16:13

Scotia and the mainland that actually cited

16:15

this thing and they tried to get radar on it, and,

16:17

of course, they got no return. But they're all

16:19

standing, they're looking at it going, oh, it's the phantom

16:22

ship of North Street. You know? because

16:24

Everybody in the area apparently knows the

16:26

story. So it's it's

16:28

a it's a very it's

16:30

an interesting I I found a bit about

16:33

the guys rolling up to it and feeling the heat

16:35

and the heat disappears was just

16:37

just wonderfully spooky. Yeah.

16:39

So you wonder what it is that actually

16:42

cause that you know, because

16:44

all of these fan of ships type

16:47

stories give

16:49

you the impression that there was

16:51

some traumatic event

16:53

is kind of the stone tape theory that

16:56

imprinted itself that keeps replaying

16:58

over and over under certain circumstances.

17:01

yeah, you wonder what what horrible thing

17:03

happened that that caused this caused

17:06

this phantom to start appearing. We're

17:08

talking about spooky places too.

17:11

you have Nova Scotia or

17:13

Nova Scotia. I'm sorry. Prince Edward

17:16

Island has its own phantom

17:19

train which which runs

17:22

kind of on the tracks around

17:25

Wellington, which

17:27

is you know, town in that area. Prince

17:29

Edward Island's a little tiny island that's its

17:31

own province off the coast of Canada.

17:33

It's famous for its red beaches and for

17:36

think it's Anne of Green Gables, but

17:39

the the the fan

17:41

of train is is spooky because

17:43

this is a thing that people see

17:45

on December evenings, almost

17:48

always in December. They

17:51

will actually see it traveling

17:54

traveling the tracks. They

17:56

can see lights on in in

17:59

in the train, but

18:00

there are no

18:02

no people And

18:03

when folks have tried to

18:05

come down off the hill where they're looking

18:07

down on this thing and get closer to

18:09

the tracks where this thing appears, the

18:12

people that are close to the tracks can't

18:14

see it. Yeah. But the people who are up on

18:16

the hill still can't. That's wild.

18:19

And they're really it's interesting

18:21

because you know, this is a

18:24

this is a and and it always stops at

18:26

the same gate, and then it disappears. So

18:30

this is interesting because

18:32

there are other phantom train stories

18:35

in in that area where

18:38

a phantom train decided for a certain period

18:41

of time, and then someone dies

18:43

as result of a train accident. Mhmm.

18:46

Someone dies. and then the train doesn't

18:48

appear anymore. It's almost like the train

18:50

is coming to pick up that that particular

18:52

stall and then off it goes.

18:55

In this particular phantom train, though,

18:58

it keeps coming. You know,

19:00

so some someone wonders, you know,

19:02

December in in European folklore,

19:05

you know, that that time between Stalin,

19:08

approximately Halloween and and

19:10

Yule, the the This

19:13

winter solstice is

19:15

a time when the dead are most likely to walk

19:17

the earth. Right? The restless dead,

19:19

so to speak, Sure. And, you

19:22

know, one wonders if if, you know,

19:24

the train's not stopping to pick some passengers.

19:28

you know, take them off to to whatever version

19:30

of the after life they're going to. Mhmm.

19:33

It's just a it's an incredibly wonderfully

19:36

spooky story. Now was this the

19:38

same one where a

19:40

conductor saw it,

19:43

had everybody bail out of it, his own

19:45

train? Yeah. No. That wasn't That was that

19:47

was in another area of Canada entirely.

19:49

That was in Manitoba. Oh,

19:51

again. I think it was Manitoba.

19:53

Yeah. Medicine. Yeah.

19:57

Pretty sure that's Manitoba. So

20:00

in that story, conductor and

20:03

his firemen are on

20:05

the train. He looks

20:07

up to see a train coming at them

20:09

on the same track. And, of course,

20:12

he's like, you know, he tells farm and

20:14

save yourself because there's no way he's gonna make it

20:16

off of the train in time. Right? So farm

20:18

and bails out. He bails off of the

20:20

train. The train comes

20:22

straight at him. and then

20:25

seems to divert off to the side and go around

20:27

him except there's no track there.

20:30

Yeah. There's no track there. So

20:34

he's so freaked out about it.

20:36

His name was Bob Tuohy, if I remember

20:38

correctly. He's so

20:40

freaked out by this incident that know, he

20:42

doesn't come into work the next day. It takes him a

20:44

couple of days to get his stuff together enough

20:46

to actually come back to work. And

20:49

then he promptly requests

20:51

a transfer to another line. Mhmm.

20:53

Apparently and and I don't know

20:55

if this is a railroad worker's superstition or

20:58

or what. But apparently, he

21:00

saw this as death portant.

21:03

And so he was scared to death.

21:05

Right? He thought sure he was gonna

21:07

gonna die in a train accident. So

21:10

he requests AAA transfer.

21:12

He gets a transfer to another location. another

21:16

another line. Still working

21:18

for the same railroad and so forth. The

21:20

fellow who takes over as conductor

21:22

for the line that he was on is the Lethbridge line.

21:25

I'm I believe, has the same firemen.

21:28

The exact same thing

21:30

happens to him. They're

21:32

going down, find in their own business

21:34

blah blah blah. See a train comment.

21:37

It's like, oh my god. We're gonna die. And

21:39

then it goes, around them

21:41

on a track that doesn't exist. They

21:44

testified that the train

21:46

was lit on the inside and

21:48

they could actually see passengers walking

21:51

around inside this train. Right? So

21:54

super weird. Right? But -- -- you know,

21:56

this conductor tells TUI, hey, you

21:59

know, I had the same thing happen to me and they're both

22:01

like, oh, well, I guess they were okay then,

22:03

you know, whatever. the

22:06

sad part of the story is that

22:09

Bob II was past was

22:12

conducting one train

22:15

and this other conductor

22:17

was conducting the Lethbridge train.

22:19

And then, unfortunately, they did end up on

22:21

the same tracks. and had a

22:23

massive collision that killed, you

22:26

know, over ten railroad

22:29

personnel just outside

22:31

of medicine hat. Apparently, the

22:34

the collision was so intense

22:36

that said that half the people

22:38

in medicine had actually heard the heard

22:41

the the train wreck. Mhmm. So

22:44

and both he both TUI and

22:46

the other conductor were killed. So

22:49

in that case, the phantom

22:51

train seems to have been a

22:54

death port. Yeah. Yeah. And,

22:56

you know, again, what

22:59

kind of a you know, is this a

23:01

psychic experience that happens to somebody

23:04

prior to their death? you

23:06

know, was somebody trying to warn them?

23:10

You just have to wonder what

23:12

in the world was going on that that

23:14

caused this very singular

23:17

experience -- Yeah. -- to happen to

23:19

two different people who then

23:22

ended up running into each other. Literally.

23:24

Yeah. Yeah. It's just a

23:26

very very strange story

23:28

that's, you know, now, of course, AAA

23:31

staple in psych a lawyer here in Canada.

23:33

Sure. Yeah. And trying to

23:36

warn them to try and figure out how to make

23:38

a train jump the track and go around

23:41

the other train. Okay. You know, we'll just

23:43

we'll just figure out a way to switch the other train

23:45

onto a track. doesn't exist. And,

23:48

you know, every everything will be okay.

23:51

Now it's something that, you know,

23:53

it's it's surprising. I think when someone

23:56

hears about the this section of the

23:58

book, But if

23:59

you think about it, it's really not just because

24:02

of the immigration, the settlers,

24:04

the co colonization. Mhmm. But there's

24:06

a lot of fairy lore -- Oh, yeah. -- in

24:09

the book. Did that just pop up

24:11

out of nowhere for you? Were you expecting to find

24:13

that much? I had

24:15

some indication. You know, you know,

24:18

anytime that you do research into the

24:20

strange, you're always going

24:22

to have little things that pop

24:24

up that make you go, oh,

24:26

wait, over there. And

24:28

when I did mysteries in the mist, I did

24:31

include a section on Fairy, and I

24:33

did talk a little bit about Fairy

24:36

story in Canada. honestly,

24:38

at this point, I don't remember which one it is.

24:42

But that got

24:44

me a particular

24:47

source that I referred to. There's

24:49

a a whole section in the book on the

24:51

the ferry lord Newfoundland one, which is

24:54

devoted to a

24:57

doctoral project or doctoral dissertation

25:00

that was done by

25:02

Barbara Rieady. Just called Strange

25:04

Terrain, I think. I don't remember the

25:06

name of the book right off the top of my head, but

25:09

I think it was strange terrain. And and it is

25:11

about the ferry lord of Newfoundland. Mhmm.

25:13

But let me back up for minute. Okay.

25:16

The native people here in Canada

25:18

have their own fairy lore. They have

25:21

they have what they call usually

25:23

call little people. One of the

25:25

one of the terms that's used for them,

25:28

I'm gonna take a ab with this. not sure exactly

25:30

how it's pronounced as managishi. So

25:33

these are our little people. They

25:36

have a reputation reputation for being

25:38

more mischievous than anything else, but

25:42

have been known to assist travelers

25:45

and that sort of thing. And they're

25:47

generally depicted as just that being little

25:49

people. John Warms

25:51

has a great story out of Manitoba. about

25:54

AAA first nations person

25:57

who ran into, not literally,

26:00

but who was driving AAA minivan

26:02

if I recall. down the road

26:04

and cited several of

26:07

these monogisha creatures, but

26:09

the way that she describes them

26:12

I was thinking to myself, you know, that sounds

26:14

a whole lot like the frog man. From

26:18

Loveland. From Loveland. Yeah. Loveland,

26:20

Ohio. because she

26:22

she described them as being sort

26:25

of hopping as they moved instead

26:27

of walking. They sort of hopped along. had

26:30

had skin that was,

26:34

like, very slick and smooth and kind

26:36

of a greenish color or greenish

26:39

or grayish color. very

26:41

smooth features and not at

26:43

all human looking. Right? They

26:45

they -- Yeah. -- closely resemble the frog.

26:49

you know, you had that search. So I was thinking

26:51

to myself, I wonder

26:53

yeah. Then then, you know, my mind

26:55

goes down the rabbit I wonder I wonder

26:58

if the guy the the police officer that

27:00

saw the thing, urgently was actually

27:02

a First Nations person. Oh,

27:05

interesting. Yeah. you know, because, you

27:07

know, they do have their own very

27:10

lore. But as I say, for the

27:12

most part, managashiro's supposed to be

27:14

or the the the the little people, whatever

27:17

name they go by, because every tribe

27:19

sees have a different name for them. they're

27:22

frequently associated with stones as well.

27:24

So they sometimes are called the stone people,

27:26

which lines up to Icelandic folk

27:28

lore about the holder folk. You know,

27:31

So, yeah, you can always cross

27:33

reference things going. But to

27:35

refer to back to

27:38

the lion's share of stuff, a lot of

27:40

the the very folklore of of

27:42

Canada is is centered in Nova

27:44

Scotia, obviously, New

27:46

Scotland, And

27:49

then in Newfoundland, which also has

27:51

very strong Scottish Irish

27:54

settlement proportion there. Mhmm.

27:57

As I said, Readey wrote a whole book about

27:59

the ferry lore of Newfoundland. And

28:02

that ferry lore is very

28:04

similar to what

28:07

we see if we go read things like,

28:10

you know, the fairy faith in Keltic country

28:12

by Evans Wentz any

28:15

of several of Katherine Briggs'

28:17

encyclopedic books on the ferry.

28:19

A lot of the lore that you see coming

28:22

out of Newfoundland, the stories that you see

28:24

coming out of Newfoundland are very

28:26

similar to the

28:28

the European ferry stories. So

28:30

you have to wonder, you know, it's like, okay.

28:32

Did did, you know, they just

28:35

attach their very

28:37

lore to the existing spirits

28:40

of that land -- Mhmm. Mhmm.

28:42

-- or Did they follow them?

28:44

Did they follow them? I bring this out in

28:46

in the book. I happen to

28:48

have taken some seminars

28:51

and and had some correspondence with a

28:53

guy named Archie Stewart, who is,

28:57

for one of better term, a fairy seer.

28:59

He is an individual who actually works

29:02

with fairy spirits.

29:05

fairy people, fairy folk, whatever you wanna call

29:07

it. And and RJ

29:10

told me, well, he goes by Bob,

29:12

but you know, I'm calling RJ because that's how

29:14

they actually that's how he writes.

29:16

It's like calling me WTI Watson. Right?

29:19

Right. So

29:21

RJ actually actually told me that,

29:24

you know, of course, there were these

29:26

very heelers and very seers who

29:28

lived in Scotland. Mhmm. And,

29:30

of course, some of those people were

29:33

caught up in the forced migration to the

29:35

new world. It ended up in

29:37

places like Appalachia. You know,

29:39

the British were intent on breaking the

29:43

the cultural history of Scotland, and

29:45

so they were just shipping people out

29:47

in mass and then and then pulling

29:50

English people in to replace them.

29:53

So these ferry Sears

29:55

would get sent over to the new world

29:57

and they would lose their ferry contacts for

29:59

period of

29:59

time. And

30:00

then over

30:02

the course of time, those contacts

30:05

would reestablish themselves on that side

30:07

of the world. So it's entirely

30:10

possible that, you know,

30:12

whatever theories are. you

30:14

know, and and we can go into, you

30:16

know, you can go into all kinds of theories

30:18

about that. But whatever fair theories

30:20

are, They may have actually

30:22

followed the people that they knew. And

30:25

so we ended up with

30:27

very similar, very stories in

30:30

places like Newfoundland. But

30:32

they did manage to put their own

30:34

spin on things. For

30:36

instance, you know, it's it's it's

30:38

known that there are

30:41

in in particularly in the Celtic

30:43

lands. But throughout Europe, there it's known that

30:46

and and even in Iceland, it's known

30:48

that the the ferry had particular paths

30:50

that they've trot. Right? And

30:52

that, you know, putting a house or whatever

30:55

on one of those paths, is

30:58

really not a good idea because

31:00

it's going to result in chaos in your

31:02

home -- Mhmm. -- ranging ranging

31:05

from poltergeist type activities to

31:09

just bad luck. Just general bad luck.

31:11

Mhmm. There's a story in in

31:13

reality about some people

31:15

situated their house on a very

31:17

path and could

31:19

not have a child. They

31:21

kept losing babies --

31:24

Mhmm. -- until they moved out of

31:26

that house and into a different location

31:28

where you

31:31

know, where they were perfectly successful

31:33

in in, you know, having a family.

31:35

Mhmm. The other interesting thing

31:37

about paths with fairies in

31:39

Newfoundland is that if you

31:42

go walking along a particular path

31:44

that belongs to the ferry, You may

31:47

find yourself obstructed. There's

31:49

a story of a couple of young ladies

31:51

who are walking from village a to village

31:53

b. and they came

31:55

across a forest in a place

31:57

where there hadn't been a forest before.

32:00

So, of course, this freak about a little bit.

32:02

They're like, don't know if we wanna go in

32:04

there or not. So they went back to the house

32:06

that they came from and they talked to the

32:09

you know, the authority that the answer

32:11

or mother or whoever it was that they a

32:14

female figure who who knew about these

32:16

things. She

32:18

she blesses them with holy water, which is

32:20

a a classic method

32:23

of avoiding being taken by the ferry.

32:26

She blesses them with holy water, and then

32:28

she gives them bread, and

32:31

she tells them, okay, you hold when you get to the forest,

32:33

you hold this in your left hand, and

32:35

you just start hitting bread out

32:37

all around you.

32:38

Again, very classic European

32:41

motif where in order

32:43

to incur the good good

32:46

feeling of the the local fear you give

32:49

them all freaks. Right? Mhmm. So

32:51

they go. They come to this force again, they

32:53

start to, you know, handing out their bread

32:55

and so forth. And sure enough, force disappears.

32:58

And they've go on about their way. So

33:00

you give offering to the local ferry and they

33:03

let you pass. But the

33:05

the the mom did their the Ant.

33:07

I believe it was an Ant. Did comment

33:09

that you know, you really shouldn't

33:11

take that path. The the north way is for the

33:14

ferry and the south way is for people. So

33:17

they're like, okay. Alright. we won't do

33:19

that again. Right. Right. Yeah.

33:22

But now we're we're trying to go from point

33:24

a to point b, the the quickest that we can because

33:26

it's gonna get dark you know. So

33:28

yeah. Yeah. So we're we're gonna we're

33:30

gonna do the offering to the sure you can get through

33:32

there. Mhmm. There was even Yeah.

33:35

because one of the the the classic

33:37

things in fairly low in Europe was

33:40

the the idea of a changeling that the

33:42

the ferry would take a a human

33:44

infant and leave something

33:46

in its place, an

33:48

old wizard fairy to look like a baby

33:51

baby. And

33:54

the story that Riaiti

33:56

has came from

33:58

one of her students

33:59

who

34:01

collected it from somebody

34:04

in in their their hometown And

34:07

this actually happened in nineteen sixty

34:09

eight that these

34:11

folks had a a fine young bear

34:14

little baby boy, if I recall, and,

34:17

you know, very happy,

34:19

outgoing, you know, sort of baby.

34:21

Right? Sort of baby, everybody loves.

34:24

Yeah. And one day,

34:26

this child just becomes the solid,

34:28

you know, unhappy crying, you

34:31

know, wretched thing. And,

34:35

of course, they know the local fairy lord.

34:37

They're like, we've been gifted with a changelain

34:39

here. Jeez. So they

34:41

try to couple of different things, but

34:43

and remember again, this is nineteen

34:46

sixty eight. Yeah. They ended up

34:48

with this baby on a shovel. over

34:51

an open fire and

34:53

told the the they just held

34:55

the the baby out there and they said, you know what?

34:58

you give us our kid back or we're dumping this

35:00

change thing in the fire. And,

35:03

sure enough, according to the story,

35:06

baby on the shovel disappears and

35:08

they hear their own child crying in the house.

35:11

So yeah. Then we

35:14

wanna get into the whole alien abduction thing.

35:16

Right? Oh, boy. Like,

35:18

you know, you you read Joshua Cutch and

35:21

Steve's in the night, and you're like, yeah.

35:23

Yeah. Okay. So maybe it's not aliens.

35:28

The the changeling to to defeat

35:30

the changeling to switch them back

35:32

they're always such a brutal Oh, yeah.

35:35

You have to do something to do. You have to

35:37

do something really nasty in

35:39

order to get the ferry to take their their

35:41

or being back and give you your they hate,

35:44

you know, you have to hold them over a fire

35:46

or Should have a red hot

35:48

poker down their throat, like, some

35:51

a really awful, terrible thing. Yeah.

35:53

Or threatened to anyway. Or threatened to.

35:55

Yeah. My my favorite one is boiling

35:57

egg chills. Uh-huh. Yeah. And

35:59

it's not even something brutal or something.

36:02

It's just a way to trick them because the the

36:04

changeling's so curious about

36:06

it. Yeah. They stand up and -- Yeah. -- it's supposed

36:08

to be able to check how to do it. What are you doing?

36:10

You're weird. Oh. They could do.

36:12

You're like you. I do. You're a change

36:15

like Oh, man. Pardon? Alright.

36:18

I'll give you your baby. That's wild. Yeah.

36:21

So that that was yeah.

36:23

I mean, you know, it's

36:25

one thing to read about that happening in the,

36:27

you know, the eighteen hundreds or even the

36:29

early early nineteen hundreds. But in nineteen

36:31

sixty eight, you'd figure, hey, yeah,

36:33

nobody believes in that stuff anymore. Right?

36:36

Wrong. This

36:40

stuff is steeped in this. Mhmm. And

36:42

one one other things, tang tangential

36:45

little bit to the the fayfocus

36:47

stuff, but something that surprised me was

36:49

the amount of my folk citing

36:51

-- Oh, yeah. -- that are up there. Did that surprise

36:54

you too? Yeah. Yeah. I well,

36:56

first of all, honestly, I'm not

36:58

that conversant with Myr folk. Right? I

37:01

thought, you know, I mean, there are stories

37:03

about that. You know, as I mentioned in the

37:05

book, I'd read John Michael Greer's book

37:08

and and and, you

37:10

know, he talks about the the nerve focus

37:12

being, you know, basically spirits of the water,

37:14

spirits of the sea or whatever -- Mhmm. -- and the

37:16

type of ferry, basically.

37:18

But I had no idea, first

37:21

of all, that it

37:22

was fairly common for Scottish

37:24

people to see these things. which

37:27

I should have known because I'm a Scott.

37:30

My mother was born in Glasgow, you know.

37:34

you know, if you if you look at my DNA,

37:36

it's like I I'm so nor European.

37:38

I'm I should I should glow in the dark.

37:40

Right? But,

37:43

yeah, there are

37:45

sightings of what we

37:47

would call mer people, both on

37:50

the on the ocean in

37:52

in Atlanta, Canada. And

37:54

then more interestingly, in

37:56

the lakes, in Canada, which

37:59

you're not lacking for. Yeah. Which we are

38:01

definitely not lacking for. There's there's thousands.

38:04

It's one of the things that people don't know about. Canada's

38:07

second largest country in the world, first of

38:09

all. Mhmm. And it has

38:11

well

38:11

over ten thousand lakes that

38:13

are over three square kilometers. Yeah.

38:16

Wow. Yeah. So it's there's just

38:18

thousands and thousands that you can't go

38:20

anywhere with already in the water in this

38:22

place. you know, I I mean

38:25

because I I'm, you know, I'm in between

38:27

two lakes here in in

38:29

Kitchener and, you know, two great lakes.

38:32

And then there's, you know, lake Simcoe

38:34

that's up off to the north, and there there's lakes

38:36

everywhere. So

38:37

lake superior, you

38:40

know, which is famous for, you

38:42

know, the admin Fitzgerald and and the sinking

38:44

of the admin Fitzgerald. But there's a

38:46

story from Lake superior of a

38:49

explorer in the in the colonial period

38:52

who encountered one of these

38:55

beings on the lake

38:58

was observing it for a while

39:01

and then decided that he was kinda

39:03

shooting. So he picks his rifle

39:06

up and his native American

39:08

companion goes or native Canadian

39:10

companion goes completely nuts.

39:14

and basically, you know, attacks

39:16

him and starts, you know, pummeling

39:18

him and and wrestling the rifle away from

39:20

him. He's like, what is wrong with you? And she's like,

39:23

Are you mad? You

39:25

know, don't you know what happens if you

39:27

provoke one of the gods of the lakes and waters?

39:30

And he's like, well, no. What happens? She

39:32

says, well, you'll find out and she

39:35

bails out. She gets off the boat and

39:37

leaves. Right? he

39:39

and his men were like, well, okay. Weirdo,

39:41

you know, whatever, strange native folklore

39:43

or whatever, you know, blah blah blah, you

39:45

know, typical European arrogance. Right?

39:49

so they set up set up camp on

39:51

the shore of the of the lake. And

39:53

that night, the massive

39:55

storm blows in. And

39:57

it is all that they can

39:59

do,

40:00

you know, the wind and the rain and and,

40:02

you know, the the water is actually rising.

40:05

The wind is blowing so hard. It's actually pushing

40:07

the lake up the shoreline toward

40:10

them. They have to move their camp

40:12

back a good distance

40:14

in order to keep from from losing all their

40:16

supplies and drowning. Now

40:18

if you do anything about mer mer merfocalore,

40:22

one

40:22

of the things that is said to happen

40:24

if you provoke one of these beings is

40:26

storms. So, you

40:28

know, obviously, this First Nations person

40:30

knew what she was talking Now,

40:33

the thing that really interested me about the Bar

40:35

folk stories though was John

40:38

Warms again, wonderful wonderful

40:40

book. I can't recommend this book enough.

40:43

If you're interested at all in Canadian mysteries,

40:46

monsters, you know, whether it's SaaS

40:48

watch or any of the other weirder things, and

40:50

hopefully, we'll get a chance to talk about. Has

40:53

a whole section on

40:55

First Nations people who encounter mermaids

40:58

or mermaids. Mhmm.

41:00

And

41:00

the interesting thing about this

41:02

is that the native people

41:05

in Manitoba who encounter these

41:07

things almost invariably describe

41:10

them as b, white people. with

41:14

not just white, but with red hair red

41:16

or blonde hair. Mhmm.

41:18

There's there's a story of a

41:20

young lady who like to

41:23

she and her her companions would

41:26

dive in the water, and they would see who could swim

41:28

underwater for the longest. And she was

41:30

like to champ at this. She

41:32

dove under the water in in one of the local

41:35

lakes that that she was close to

41:37

at that time,

41:38

encountered this this

41:40

blonde mermaid under the water, and

41:42

she she would she would never

41:45

ever after that going

41:47

to the deep water in any of the lakes.

41:49

you know, I mean, this thing affected

41:51

her so strongly because, you know, again,

41:54

we have that that First Nations attitude

41:56

about encountering a mystery. you know,

41:58

and it's it's something sacred.

41:59

It's something you don't wanna talk about

42:02

so on and so forth. Right? So you've

42:04

encountered this being that was,

42:06

you know, basically a blonde Caucasian

42:10

person from the waist up and a fish

42:12

from the waist down. Go

42:14

figure. Yeah. And she's

42:16

and she's not and she's not the

42:18

only one. There were, you know, group

42:20

of native girls who were walking along

42:22

path, they spotted, you

42:25

know, this

42:26

person off in

42:28

the off the distance. apparently,

42:30

they only saw, like, the upper part of her, and

42:33

they saw this person sitting on a rock out next

42:35

to the lake. Right? It's like, what the heck

42:37

is she doing out here? You know, what's this what's

42:39

this? What basically, what is this lone

42:41

white girl doing? What made

42:43

it reserve. Right? So

42:45

they take the path, and the path apparently diverges

42:47

from the shore of the lake for little bit and then comes

42:50

back down to the shore of the lake right around the

42:53

the

42:53

the stone where this person was sitting and they

42:55

come out and they find this red

42:58

headed Caucasian being

43:02

sitting on a stone, you know,

43:04

apparently very content contemplatively, but

43:08

the bottom half of this person was a fish.

43:10

Uh-huh. And when she spies

43:12

them, she jumps in a wire, disappears.

43:15

Now, why would

43:18

First Nations people see

43:21

Caucasian mermaid. Yeah.

43:23

That that was the thing that puzzled me.

43:26

You know, I I mean, I suppose it's

43:28

possible that that they you

43:31

know, that they pick these stories up culturally

43:34

from from the European sellers. And,

43:37

you know, it it was a thing. It was an

43:39

error of wire, you know, it's formed

43:41

a, you know, a sort of a topa

43:43

or thought form. I

43:45

suppose that's possible or

43:49

maybe, you know, maybe the

43:51

European mermaids followed their people

43:53

over, you know, because you

43:55

can access a lot of the lakes in

43:57

Canada from the sea -- Yeah. -- in

43:59

one way

43:59

or the other. You know, and then you can get

44:02

into the river systems, and you can go anywhere

44:04

you want. Right. I mean, there's

44:06

a reason why, you know, Birch Park

44:08

News and so forth were so popular as transportation

44:11

beds in Canada. They're like

44:13

ATVs. Yeah. Pretty much. You

44:15

can go just about anywhere you want it. You know

44:17

what it reminds me of is

44:20

the scene in Peter Pan, which

44:22

I believe he talks about mermaids

44:26

with the different color hair, blonde, red,

44:28

maybe a purple one or something. And

44:30

guess where J. M. Berry was from.

44:33

Scotland. Scotland. Yeah. Yeah.

44:36

I mean, Just a little Could be could

44:38

be a a peg on the the the corkboard.

44:40

You don't know. Yes. You know, I'm in the wild.

44:42

Yeah. Yeah. But Skyland is like

44:45

the the capital of of Merfolk Siding.

44:47

They they they still have them.

44:49

You know? Yeah. So it's

44:51

not beyond the realm of possibility

44:54

that, you know, if the

44:56

the ferry from Europe, you

44:58

know, followed their people over

45:00

here, then maybe the MIRFOC

45:03

did too.

45:04

mean, we don't know really what

45:06

the the idea for, you know,

45:08

if the native people. I didn't run across

45:10

anything that said native people had any

45:12

sort of an indigenous water

45:14

spirit. So I

45:17

just thought that was really interesting. And and both

45:19

of these sightings were of

45:22

beings

45:22

that appeared to be completely

45:24

solid, you know. So it's like -- Yeah. --

45:26

I thought I had encountered something physical.

45:29

And I'm sure disturbed the water and things

45:31

like, you know, when they jump jumps in the water,

45:33

splashes, and all that kind of fun stuff. Well,

45:37

you mentioned it. There's such

45:39

a great variety in this book.

45:42

And, you know, we we barely scratched the surface,

45:44

but I I was wondering if there were anything

45:47

topic wise that you researched

45:49

that you found particular, like fascinating or

45:52

fun to research? Oh, yeah. You

45:56

know, there's

45:58

a lot of of jokes about,

46:00

you know, Canadians and and beavers

46:02

and stuff. You know,

46:04

and moose and and that kind of thing.

46:07

John Warms gives us

46:09

some great stories but

46:11

we're gonna I'm gonna back up for just a second.

46:14

So worms got interested in

46:16

this phenomena of tunnels being

46:19

found particularly on First Nations

46:21

land. And there are these mysterious

46:23

tunnels or about, you know, three feet or

46:25

so wide. And very

46:28

smooth sided, It looked like like

46:30

lava tubes basically, but there's there's

46:33

no volcanic activity in that area

46:35

in those areas at all. Right? So

46:38

he got interested in where these things

46:40

come from. He's, you know, he talks to the geologists

46:42

and he's doing all this stuff and finally, he

46:45

says to the native some of his native

46:47

contacts. He says, what do you know about these

46:49

tunnels? They're a very matter

46:51

of fact, like, telling, oh, Well, that's

46:53

where the giant snakes live. And

46:56

he's like, what? Yeah.

46:58

Yeah. Yeah. We have giant snakes up here.

47:01

you know, they they tend to live close to the lakes.

47:03

It's like so

47:06

he started collecting giant snake stories.

47:09

And there are you

47:11

know, just to back up again,

47:13

he talked to herpetologists, the people who

47:15

do reptiles. Right? And they told

47:18

him there is No way

47:20

that a snake over four or five feet bonked

47:22

and survived in Canada. It just it's all happened.

47:24

It can't can't happen. Right? But

47:26

he had these native people telling me,

47:28

for instance, he talked to two firefighters who

47:31

were out. You know, they

47:33

they do preventive fire maintenance stuff,

47:35

make fire breaks and stuff like that. They were out doing

47:37

a fire break. They or or

47:39

maintaining a fire break. And

47:41

they encountered a snake

47:43

that stretched from one end to one side

47:46

of the fire break to the other.

47:48

So this thing was well over twenty feet

47:50

long.

47:53

Now they were considering

47:55

what to do and one of them was like, hey, we could

47:57

take an ax and cut this thing in half and, you know,

47:59

we'd probably be famous. You know? The

48:02

other one is like, no. No. No. No. This is one of

48:04

those mysteries the elders were telling us about.

48:06

We're not gonna mess with this thing. Right? So

48:09

the snake slithers on its way, goes

48:11

off there are stories of snakes

48:13

in the water that actually bump people's

48:15

boats out of the way and it were longer

48:17

than the boat. there's

48:19

even a story of a snake that that

48:21

popped its head out of the water, you know,

48:23

near another boat that

48:25

had antlers. So

48:28

it's like there's all of these stories

48:31

from all through the First Nations

48:34

areas in Canada of these

48:36

giant snake. We're talking about,

48:38

you know, we're not talking a plus

48:41

cup plus size garter snake. We're talking

48:43

about a snake that's twenty feet or more

48:45

long. Some of them estimated

48:47

at fifty feet. It's like the

48:49

Titanic bullish stories that you get out

48:51

of South America. Right? So

48:53

worms is like giant snakes. Okay.

48:57

So he's he's collecting giant snake

48:59

stories. But he's still concerned about

49:01

these tunnels. And how big were

49:03

the tunnels? Did did he mention the They were quite

49:06

long.

49:06

You didn't give an exact dimension,

49:09

but they they

49:10

would go along for considerable

49:12

distance. So big enough to house a giant

49:14

snake in. Right? So

49:16

he comes back to his native contacts.

49:18

He says, okay. Snakes don't

49:21

really burrow. They

49:23

can sort of shovel with their nose and

49:25

stuff. Certain snakes can, but they can they don't really

49:27

burrow. says, who dug the holes?

49:30

Yeah. Who dug the tunnels? Oh, well, that was

49:32

a giant beavers. And

49:36

he can't. They're very matter

49:38

of fact about this. It's like -- Mhmm. --

49:40

native people are very matter of fact about SaaS

49:42

watch. Right? It's like, oh, yeah. They exist. The

49:44

hairy man's out there in the forest. he does this thing.

49:47

We do our thing. We don't bother him. You know?

49:50

Same thing. There there are

49:52

so warms us like giant beavers.

49:55

like, oh, yeah. We have these beavers that they're the

49:57

size of bears and they're you know, people

49:59

see them ever once in

49:59

a while. And sometimes, you know, somebody's out

50:02

hunting will come across a beaver watch that's

50:04

the size of house. And

50:06

and, you know, they live in there and, you know,

50:09

they're giant beavers. So he starts

50:11

collecting stories of giant beavers as

50:13

well. And you know, he

50:16

not only do these things apparently

50:18

exist on on, you know, these

50:20

native lands, but you know,

50:23

sometimes people will encounter them, they could be a little

50:25

aggressive. You know, there's at least one story

50:27

where a guy got out of the got

50:29

out of the car. He thought he was gonna go and he

50:31

saw this beaver off in the distance. Right? He thought he was

50:33

gonna go and get some lunch. And,

50:35

yeah, it comes out with the baseball bat. He's gonna

50:37

go get this beaver, and he realizes he

50:39

could closer to this thing that's

50:42

bigger

50:42

than he is. And it chases

50:44

it back to the car, you know,

50:46

shuffling along behind making weird beaver

50:49

noises. Right? Scares

50:51

them with Jesus out of him. Right?

50:54

There's this picture in in strange

50:56

creatures sold him seen. Somebody apparently

50:58

did a carving of one. It's a statue of one

51:00

of these things, and and warms us standing next

51:03

to it with his arm director, which shoulders,

51:05

this giant beaver that's like know,

51:07

the size of Yeah. Yeah. There's stories

51:10

of, you know, native women out, you

51:12

know, picking berries, which apparently,

51:14

it's a really dangerous occupation because,

51:16

you know, either you run into giant beavers

51:18

or you run into sasquatch. Right? All

51:20

in a snake hole. They're they're we're falling sick

51:22

hole. they're

51:25

out picking berries and they

51:29

they hear something in the bush. And

51:31

they expect a bear to come out. Right?

51:33

because it's black bear country. Oh,

51:35

it wasn't a bear. It was a beaver. The size

51:37

of a bear it made its

51:40

way off toward the lake and

51:42

splashed into the water and swum

51:44

away. There lies. Okay.

51:47

We just saw a giant bieber. Now the

51:49

interesting thing about this story is

51:52

that there

51:54

actually was a

51:57

species of giant beaver called

51:59

out, castoretees

51:59

at Ohioiensis that

52:03

lived in that area and a little

52:05

south, about ten thousand

52:07

years ago. So, geologically speaking,

52:10

dropping the bucket. Now, Canada

52:13

is a place where you could hide deer

52:15

or anything. They actually Canada

52:18

has its own lazarus species, the wood

52:20

bison. which was declared

52:22

extinct. This is

52:24

literally the largest land animal

52:26

in North America. Right? by weight,

52:29

not height by weight. Declared

52:31

extinct in the early nineteen hundreds and

52:34

rediscovered, you

52:35

know, very much alive

52:37

heard of two hundred in nineteen fifty

52:39

seven by an Alberta wildlife

52:41

officer who was doing overflight of the air

52:43

of an area. and

52:46

saw this herd of buffalo running

52:48

beneath Wow. You know, extinct

52:50

animals. So they managed to hide,

52:52

you know, two thousand pound Bison

52:55

-- Yeah. -- in the forest for decades.

52:58

There's no telling what's wander around.

53:00

Can you well, there's views. Right.

53:02

It's not above the realm of possibility

53:05

that there could actually be a reluctant population

53:10

of these Casterid's giant

53:12

beavers. Right? Yeah. And what makes it

53:14

even more interesting is that worms

53:16

actually saw one of these things. He

53:19

had gone to investigate

53:22

a giant beaver story. And

53:25

decided that he was gonna camp out along

53:27

the river where this thing was seen. Right?

53:30

He didn't think that he was gonna

53:32

see anything really. Right? He just

53:34

thought, you know, heck it would be

53:36

fun. You know? I'm gonna camp out along

53:39

the river and see if anything happens. Right?

53:41

Sure enough, he sat there,

53:43

you know, doing his camping thing, and

53:45

this football sized head

53:48

off of the water next to him.

53:50

And he says this thing was six or seven

53:52

feet long without the tail. I

53:54

mean, it was huge. So

53:58

Giant

53:58

Beavers. That that was probably

54:00

my favorite story in the book because it's just

54:03

so it's so Canadian. Right?

54:07

That was short. You

54:09

know, and get more Canadian if these things were

54:11

swimming around in Maple syrup, I guess. Absolutely.

54:14

It was just it was just so very

54:17

Canadian that I just I had to laugh,

54:20

you know, as I was reading some of these accounts

54:22

But obviously, people are

54:25

seeing these things, you know. And I

54:27

again, what people don't realize

54:30

is that not only is Canada the second largest

54:32

country in the world, but

54:35

ninety ninety some percent of the population

54:37

of Canada lives within hundred miles to the U.

54:39

S. border. So you have vast

54:42

swaths of wilderness that are

54:44

almost completely untouched. You

54:47

know, if you wanna go there, you have to

54:49

to to rent AAAA

54:51

plane with pontoon's and and fly in and

54:53

land on a lake. Right. Because

54:56

there's no there's no other

54:58

way to get there. And that

55:00

kind of wilderness starts

55:03

two hours from where I'm sitting.

55:05

Yeah. Wild. So

55:08

it's it's very very you

55:10

know, and and the brush here is dense.

55:13

I mean, it's it's not like not

55:15

like walking in the force of Arizona,

55:17

for instance, where you have, you know, this

55:19

pine needle bed, you know,

55:22

the ponderosa pines and pine needle bed.

55:24

There's these big spaces between

55:26

the trees. Right? There's undergrowth

55:28

everywhere in the growing season. It's

55:31

very, very dense, very thick

55:33

and, you know, difficult

55:37

to get through. So,

55:39

you know, it's kind of discourages people

55:41

from going trade around there unless there's

55:43

a good trail to follow-up. Right. Perfect,

55:46

though, to hide Oh, yeah. These

55:48

these cryptids may be relics all

55:51

kinds of stuff. And again, to

55:53

to the listeners, it's it's there's such

55:55

a dearth of topics

55:57

that Travis covers in the book cryptids,

56:00

as we mentioned, just some of

56:02

the the mysteries, my favorite part, the Fortiana

56:05

stuff that you talk about. some

56:07

of the phantom trains of ships.

56:11

UFO's hold big sections

56:13

on UFO's ferry lore,

56:15

just I mean, we we've talked

56:17

for an hour now and barely scratched the

56:19

surface. So

56:22

I do encourage people to check this out

56:24

It is something that as you point

56:26

out in the book, Travis, a lot of Americans

56:29

don't aren't aren't very privy to -- Mhmm. -- because

56:31

it's only Canadian writers that are writing about

56:33

it. A lot of that stuff doesn't get down

56:35

here to us. So this is there's

56:38

stuff that people are familiar with from

56:40

the Shag Harbor incident You

56:43

mentioned Falcon Lake -- Mhmm. -- which I've covered

56:45

before and the origins

56:47

of the old Mary Celeste even.

56:50

But there's so many more

56:52

things that people have I

56:54

I would bet never heard of. So,

56:57

yeah, it's it's a great work that you've put

56:59

together here And I I bet

57:01

you could do several volumes if you really wanted

57:03

to. If I really wanted to? Oh, yeah.

57:06

You know, like I said, I've got

57:09

I I have one project in the works right now.

57:12

The lore of Sasquatch is

57:16

rife with stories you

57:18

know, that are told by American authors.

57:21

And so the only only

57:24

place in Canada that exists for these

57:26

folks, for the most part, is British

57:28

Columbia. And

57:29

what I discovered very quickly when

57:31

I started doing research on on

57:33

Canadian strangeness was

57:36

that

57:37

I couldn't find I can't think right

57:40

off the top of my head of a province that hasn't

57:42

had a SaaS watch sighting. Yeah. Maybe

57:44

none of it. Maybe none of it. a

57:46

little up in the Arctic area. Unless

57:48

you wanna blame the Angie Cooney Lake

57:50

to disappear in some of that sense, but

57:53

you never know. But

57:56

so my next project is is a

57:58

book on on SaaS watch in in

58:00

the SaaS watch in Canada beyond BC.

58:03

Nice. Because, again, you

58:05

know, there's plenty of data.

58:08

You

58:08

know, there's plenty of siding information

58:11

and so forth. but there's not

58:13

there's not much cognizance of itself

58:16

in the border. It's like it's almost like

58:18

a lot of people in in the United States

58:20

believe that you know, once you cross the Canadian

58:22

border, there's just this giant ice flow

58:24

that stretches up to the arctic. And,

58:27

you know, and nobody lives up here. Right?

58:32

apocalypse story, but I've I've

58:34

been told that the, you know, Canadian

58:36

border security has actually had people

58:39

driving into Canada in the summertime with

58:43

with cross country skis on the top

58:45

of their cars because they thought they would

58:47

need them here. Wow.

58:50

Yeah. Not not really. It's it's pretty warm

58:52

here right now. So He's

58:54

saying this while sitting there in a sleeveless

58:56

t shirt right away. Yeah. Yeah. It

58:59

is pretty warm today. It's the

59:01

twenty seven degrees Celsius. So --

59:03

Yeah. -- we think that comes out to about eighty

59:05

four Fahrenheit. which,

59:07

you know, not as hot as some places in the

59:09

US, but it's it's pretty warm. It's

59:12

warm to us. Yeah. It's enough for me too.

59:15

Yeah. I knew how to move to the mountains. Yeah.

59:19

So, you know, it's very much

59:21

the case that a lot of these of

59:24

stories, you know. And like I said, the

59:26

two, there's there's plenty of great hauntings

59:29

up here too. Yeah. That

59:31

I probably am gonna look at at some point

59:33

as well. But it's very much

59:36

the case that and

59:38

it's

59:38

understandable because there's a ton

59:40

of stuff in in the United States to

59:42

investigate, but there's also a ton of

59:44

stuff up here to investigate. Yeah. Right.

59:46

I'm looking forward to get my nose into some of

59:48

that. Excellent. Excellent. Well,

59:51

I I appreciate you taking the time to come and

59:53

talk with us again. And tell

59:55

everybody, remind them where to

59:57

go pick up this book, where to find more of your

59:59

works, including the other stuff

1:00:01

we've talked about, phantom dogs, mysteries in

1:00:03

the mist, things like that. So at this

1:00:05

point, I have three books in print. Non

1:00:08

fiction books in print, I should say.

1:00:11

Fan of black dogs, Walker's a liminal

1:00:14

way. Mystery is in the mist, mist

1:00:16

fogs and clouds and the paranormal, and then

1:00:18

this new one is Canadian monsters and mysteries.

1:00:21

All of them are available on Amazon. All

1:00:24

of them are available is either paper back

1:00:26

or Kindle. And if you were Kindle

1:00:28

unlimited subscriber, they are

1:00:30

available on Kindle Unlimited. Nice.

1:00:32

If you want to interact with me, you

1:00:35

know, on a port more personal level, I'm available

1:00:37

on Facebook, Twitter,

1:00:40

and Instagram, that

1:00:42

that that picture plan. I

1:00:47

have w t Watson author page

1:00:49

on on Facebook. I'm

1:00:51

at Twitter, w t Watson two.

1:00:54

And then the weird one is

1:00:56

Instagram. It's an old handle of mine. It's

1:00:58

coronair CURUNIR

1:01:01

sixty. so you can

1:01:03

find me in those places,

1:01:05

and I'm always happy to hear from people.

1:01:08

I've actually had

1:01:10

a couple of people contact me with witness

1:01:12

else. Oh, nice. So

1:01:14

so that's always fun to have

1:01:16

a chance to talk to somebody who's seen something

1:01:19

something interesting. So

1:01:21

that's that's how to get hold of me. That's

1:01:24

easiest way to get hold of me. I highly encourage

1:01:26

people to do so and check out all these

1:01:28

books. It's it's just a good time.

1:01:30

Always fun to talk to you, Travis.

1:01:32

Thanks again for coming on blurry photos. Oh,

1:01:34

thanks so much for having me. Thanks

1:01:38

once again to Travis for stopping by.

1:01:40

I'll have links to where to find the book in the show

1:01:42

notes. Thanks for listening to this episode

1:01:44

of blurry photos I have been David

1:01:46

the giant beaver, Flora. Don't

1:01:49

stubbler even.