Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History
True crime, legends, folklore, dark history and other creepy topics from the perspective of real live Canadians.
The Legend of the Thunderbird
Episode 415: For generations, people across North America have reported seeing enormous birds, describing wingspans that seem impossible and encounters they struggle to explain. Long before those reports were written, the Thunderbird was already known in many Indigenous cultures, where it is understood as a powerful and sacred being associated with thunder, lightning, and the forces that shape the natural world. For some, it is symbolic. For others, it is real. These are living traditions that deserve care and respect.
Sources:
The Thunderbird Indigenous SymbolThunderbird (mythology) | WikipediaJun 13, 1927, page 24 - The Boston Globe at Newspapers.com™Aug 06, 1933, page 45 - The Sunday Oregonian at Newspapers.com™Aug 20, 1933, page 3 - The Ogden Standard-Examiner at Newspapers.com™Tombstone epitaph (Tombstone, Ariz.), April 26, 1890 | Library of CongressLegend or Lie? The Tombstone Thunderbird | kgun9.comr/Cryptozoology | What about Thunderbird?r/Cryptozoology | Thunderbird sighting?Thunderbird — A Canadian Legend | Mysteries of CanadaThunderbird Stories from the Canadian Shield | Mysteries of CanadaLarge-bodied birds are over-represented in unstructured citizen science data - Scientific ReportsThunderbird | CryptidWikiWhy Giant Bird Sightings Still Appear TodayPROOF of the Tombstone Thunderbird - Forgotten History
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Podcast Episodes
Pictou Sadist: The Murder of Trina Campbell
Episode 381: In December 1987, 12-year-old Trina Campbell, a Métis girl from Brampton, Ontario, was abducted and murdered by Douglas Robert Worth, a violent ex-convict known as the “Pictou Sadist.” Despite psychiatric wa…
Twice and Again: The Walpole Island Murders
Episode 380: The tragic saga of an indigenous man named Stephen Kiyoshk is one of Canada’s most haunting tales of crime, retribution, and the complexities of the justice system. Spanning nearly three decades, the case in…
The Mystery of Jerome, the Legless Man of Sandy Cove
Episode 379: In the annals of Canadian folklore and unsolved mysteries, few stories have endured as hauntingly and stubbornly as that of Jerome, the silent, legless man who appeared from out of nowhere on the remote beac…
Fredericton’s Last Execution: The Murder of Norman Burgoyne
Episode 378: Fredericton, New Brunswick, in the sultry summer of 1949, was a community caught between the relief of peacetime and the tensions of post-war hardship. Along the margins of this tidy city lived George Hamilt…
The Canadian Thelma and Louise: Rose Turford and Carolyn Stevens
Episode 377: Joyce Carolyn Stevens, the daughter of a preacher from Houston, Texas, and Rose Marie Turford, a Canadian nurse and suburban mother, became infamous as the real-life “Thelma and Louise.” Their cross-border c…
The 2021 London Truck Killings: The Afzaal Family
Episode 376: On June 6, 2021, Nathaniel Veltman, 20, deliberately drove his truck into the Afzaal family, Pakistani immigrants, as they walked along the road in London, Ontario. The attack killed four members of the Afza…
Blood Ties: The Murder of Johnathon Madden
Episode 375: On a bleak November afternoon in 2003, Toronto’s east end became the unlikely stage for a crime so brutal and bizarre that, even years later, it defies belief. The victim was 12-year-old Johnathon Robert Mad…
Foreseeable: The Killing of Melissa Rae Blommaert
Episode 374: On a frigid February night in 2020, the quiet streets of Calgary’s Bowness neighbourhood became the scene of a tragedy that would send shockwaves through the city and beyond. Melissa Rae Blommaert, a loving…
The Canadian Crimes of H.H. Holmes: The Pitezel Murders
Episode 373: In the shadowy annals of North American crime, few names evoke as much dread as H.H. Holmes, a master manipulator, a conman, and a predator who thrived in the chaos of a rapidly changing world and the man of…
Two Flavours of Justice — Part 2: The Murder of Darcy Manor and The Trials of Glen Race
Episode 372: In the spring of 2007, Glen Douglas Race’s violent odyssey escalated from a regional nightmare in Nova Scotia to an international manhunt that spanned two countries and left a trail of devastation in its wak…
