# The Toronto Time Traveller Fascinating stories from the city's past, including murder, rebellion, scandal and plague — from the author of The Toronto Book of the Dead & The Toronto Book of Love. Plus all the latest heritage news and events. Page: Feed: --- ## [How The Simcoes Fell In Love — And The Magical Hills Where It Happened](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/how-the-simcoes-fell-in-love-and) _2026-08-03 · Adam Bunch_ These are the Blackdown Hills of Devon. They’re one of England’s official “Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty,” filled with rolling green hillsides and bright fields and ancient trees that line roads so old deep grooves have been worn into the earth. It’s a land of magic and of myth: of pixies and fairies, of warrior ghosts and witchcraft, of Druids and Romans, of poachers and smugglers, of Iron… ## [The Island Airport Plane That Crashed Into A Ferry](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/the-island-airport-plane-that-crashed) _2026-07-16 · Adam Bunch_ The ferry captain could see the plane coming. Captain Ernest Straher was alone at the wheel as the aircraft approached, the only person on the top deck of the Sam McBride at the time. The ferry had just dropped a load of passengers off at the Centre Island dock and was now making the return trip into the city. The boat was about halfway across the bay when a seaplane began to race across the… ## [The Full Line-Up for The Festival of Bizarre Toronto History 2026!](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/the-full-line-up-for-the-festival-fe3) _2026-05-30 · Adam Bunch_ Wild kidnappings, hidden tunnels, weird buildings and more... ## [The Bog Man of Leslie Street](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/the-bog-man-of-leslie-street) _2026-05-02 · Adam Bunch_ It was a vast expanse. An endless field of treacherous mud. It stretched off in every direction, hungry and dark and dangerous. And somewhere in the middle of it all was one fragile little human slowly being swallowed alive. For two hours he called for help, his desperate cries floating through the chilly air of an October night. And for two hours, no one answered. ## [The Festival of Bizarre Toronto History Returns for 2026!](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/the-festival-of-bizarre-toronto-history-4b5) _2026-04-08 · Adam Bunch_ I’m very excited to announce The Festival Of Bizarre Toronto History is coming back for another year! We’ll spend a wonderfully weird week digging into the strangest tales our city has to offer — seven days at the beginning of June filled with lectures, panels, interviews and walking tours. This year is going to be bigger than ever before, with even more in-person events added alongside all the… ## [A Brief Tour of the Blue Jays' New History Exhibits](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/a-brief-tour-of-the-blue-jays-new) _2026-03-31 · Adam Bunch_ The shortest off-season in Blue Jays history is over and baseball is back! If you’re a fan, I’m sure you already know the team is celebrating its 50th season this year. And in honour of the anniversary, they’re rolling out a whole slate of new ways to connect with the history of the franchise. There’s going to be a statue of Joe Carter outside the Dome, a Hall of Excellence inside it, a… ## [Watch "Toronto's Most Notorious"](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/watch-torontos-most-notorious) _2026-03-22 · Adam Bunch_ TORONTO’S MOST NOTORIOUS explored the shadowy underbelly of our city’s past with stories about the scoundrels, rogues, killers and crooks whose crimes have shocked and fascinated our city for generations. All four of those lectures are now available to watch online. Each of them is about an hour long and you can watch them all for free right here! ## [When St. Patrick's Day Was Too Dangerous for Toronto](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/when-st-patricks-day-was-too-dangerous) _2026-03-15 · Adam Bunch_ With St. Patrick’s Day coming up this week, I thought I would dig into my archives and share an updated version of an old post about one of the strangest facts in our city’s history. For more than a century, the St. Patrick’s Day Parade wasn’t held in Toronto because it was simply too dangerous. The annual celebration was cancelled in the late 1800s and didn’t resume until the 1980s, when people… ## [The Mysterious Teenage Spy of Navy Island](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/the-mysterious-teenage-spy-of-navy) _2026-02-05 · Adam Bunch_ It was a big day at the Kingston Penitentiary. The prison was playing host to an exceedingly special guest. Charles Dickens was in town. Kingston was the latest stop on his North American tour and a visit to the city’s new jail was the highlight of his stay. As the celebrated author was shown around the facility, he was deeply impressed. He admired its approach, how it aimed to rehabilitate… ## [Finnish Seedboxes — Up to 20Gbps (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/VoDHo9rWbIsI) _2026-02-05 · **Sponsored**_ Private Finnish seedboxes with 1–20Gbps speeds, RAID storage and 14‑day refund ## [The Legend of Frank Gehry's Fish](https://torontohistory.substack.com/p/the-legend-of-frank-gehrys-fish) _2026-01-24 · Adam Bunch_ The story begins in Kensington Market nearly a century ago. This was during the hard days of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Kensington was still known as the “Jewish Market” back then, filled with synagogues and delis and market shops. It was a hub for Toronto’s growing Jewish population — the biggest ethnic minority in what was still a very British city.