Richmond Haunts long-form
Canadian Witch Tales: New France, Maggie Pollock and Northern Communities
Episode notes
About this episode
| Canadian witchcraft history does not follow a single pattern. This episode moves from seventeenth-century New France into two twentieth-century stories, examining how accusations of witchcraft could be shaped by religious authority, law, social pressure, colonial disruption and the search for a scapegoat.
The first segment revisits a New France case involving alleged supernatural disturbances and competing explanations for an execution. The second follows Maggie Pollock, a fortune teller and medium caught in a modern-era Canadian prosecution. The final segment considers reports of witch-hunting in northern Indigenous communities and the historical circumstances in which those accounts were recorded. The episode treats these stories as history and folklore rather than proof of supernatural power. It also recognizes that colonial observers and contemporary newspapers could impose their own language and assumptions on Indigenous experience. That context is essential to understanding how each case was documented and why the stories still require careful interpretation. |
Continue watching
Related episodes
Short · 00:55
The Grey Man of the Outer Banks: A Storm-Warning Legend
Coastal communities often preserve stories in which an apparition warns residents before a storm. This short video presents an Outer Banks version of...
Short · 02:12
Medieval Merchant’s House: A Haunted Southampton Landmark
The Medieval Merchant’s House in Southampton offers a rare view into urban domestic life in the Middle Ages. Its surviving structure and restored...
Short · 02:07
Haunted Comfort Station No. 1 in St. Petersburg
Comfort Station No. 1 near the St. Petersburg Pier sounds like an unlikely setting for a ghost story. Built in 1927, the small...