Canadiana

Canadiana explores the grisly history of the Rideau Canal, a popular tourist attraction in Ottawa and marvel of human engineering from the early 1800s.

Basque whalers in the 1500s travelled to the very edge of their known universe in search of their gargantuan prey, and landed on the shores of a fog-shrouded bay in Labrador. In this unlikely setting, Canadiana revels in one of Canada's most absurd true crime stories: the tale of a Basque who stole from their rival, sparking a Spanish Supreme Court case that wouldn't be settled for nearly 20 years.

The Canadian story of the American Civil War, told in two parts. Through the eyes of the Canadians who helped start the war, to those who fought it, to the leaders influenced by it, we unravel one of the most pivotal events in the continent's history. From the pubs of Saint John to the docks of Halifax, from Southern Ontario battlefields to the battlements of Quebec City, find out which Canadians were on the right and wrong sides of history. This is the story of two nations facing each other down over a tenuous border for a century, and the war that changed everything.

The very first Canadians that Queen Elizabeth ever met on a trip to Canada as our queen was a rowdy crowd of Newfoundlanders who woke her up in the middle of the night.

The Montreal Canadiens have made it to the 2021 Stanley Cup Finals. And the story of how they got there involves an absolutely bizarre set of coincidences, including riots, revolution and Rocket Richard.

The story of how the Blue Jays became the Blue Jays is a much more epic tale than you might think — a story tied to booze, boxing and one of the most infamous kidnappings in Canadian history.

The Rockefellers were one of the most famously wealthy families in history. But they were in deep trouble. And to get them out of it, they turned to the man who would eventually become the longest-serving prime minister in Canadian history.

The St. Patrick’s Day Parade was banned in Toronto for more than a century. Why? Because of the sectarian violence that once rocked the city’s streets.

You can trace the roots of the Montreal Expos’ demise all the way back to a strange day in the early 1960s: the day Vincent Price agreed to start selling Picassos for Sears.

In the 1760s, strange reports began to appear in a French-Canadian newspaper. There was, according to the Gazette de Québec, a vicious beast preying on the population of the colony: a werewolf was on the loose in New France.

There were 34 Canadians on the Titanic when it stuck the iceberg. Most of them died. Here are their stories from that dreadful night.

The Roosevelt Hotel, New York City. It’s been sitting amid the chaos of midtown Manhattan since it opened in the early 1920s, a luxury hotel that still attracts visitors from all over the world. And it was right here at the Roosevelt in 1929 that a Canadian changed the way Americans celebrate New Year’s Eve.

Our story begins — as all the most exciting stories do — with the glitz and glamour of an international postage conference. And with a Canadian cabinet minister who accidentally made Christmas history.

It’s four in the morning. A spring night in 1915. In the muddy desolation just outside the crumbling Belgian town of Ypres, the guns are roaring. For ten minutes, the German artillery bellows. Then, it stops. And a new horror begins.

A famous cookie-baking family gave rise to one of Canada’s most disturbing ghost stories. Robert Christie, you see, had a mistress. And while he was living in the Christie Mansion with his family, he decided she should live there too. He kept her hidden in a secret chamber behind the wood paneling in the library. They call it Room 29.

It’s been called “The Horse of Steel” and “The Little Iron Horse.” It’s a distinctly Canadian breed, with roots stretching back more than 300 years to the early French-Canadian pioneers. It had to be a rugged breed to survive the rigours of the Canadian climate ­— but as strong as it is, the Canadian Horse has barely survived: more than once, the National Horse of Canada has nearly gone extinct.

Today, the church is known as Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, but its had several names over the years. Through them, you can trace the history of the city — and of the warring empires that have shaped the story of Canada.

It's Christmas Eve, 1781. And in the town of Sorel, Québec, the Riedesels are throwing a party. The family has a lot to celebrate: this is the first Christmas in four years they've been able to enjoy the holiday in freedom. They've been through a harrowing ordeal of horror and bloodshed. But now, it's finally over.

If you want to trace the show back to the very, very beginning, to the person who more than any other is credited with the creation of Doctor Who, well, then you have to travel back to Canada, back to downtown Toronto, back to a brand new baby boy born in the city during the First World War.

"O Canada" has a long and bizarre history. The song didn't become our national anthem until 1980, but it was written a hundred years earlier. And today, Anglophones and francophones are singing two very different national anthems.

The fellow in the middle of this drawing — the one with the cross and his hand on his heart — is Jacques Cartier. He was a French explorer one of the very first Europeans to ever come to Canada. At the end of his first trip here, he erected a cross on the Gaspé Peninsula, as a way of claiming the land for France. They say that's how he met Donnacona.