| THE FESTIVAL OF BIZARRE TORONTO HISTORY | ABOUT TICKETS SCHEDULE 2023 2024 2025 CONTACT |
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This year's festival will take place the week of June 1–7, 2026. TORONTO'S STRANGEST
ARCHIVAL PHOTOGRAPHS FREE WITH REGISTRATION! We'll kick off this year's festival with a wonderfully weird evening at the City of Toronto Archives, where we'll get a chance to explore some of the strangest images held in their collection. The archives' Jessica Algie will share the staff's own picks for the weirdest photographs in our city's history — from mascots to spite fences to Champion Lady Wonder Gal the cat. Plus, we'll get a behind-the-scenes tour of the stacks and the chance to check out their new photography exhibit (featuring more than six hundred beautiful photos of the city being torn apart).
SECRETS OF TORONTO'S
HIDDEN TUNNELS There's a lot of strange history hidden away beneath our city. In this online event, we'll head down into the depths of Toronto to uncover the secrets lurking beneath our feet. From mythical monsters to spectacular archaeological discoveries to the tunnels that helped win the war, there are plenty of bizarre tales to be found below the surface of our city. The panelists will include Barbara Dickson. She is an author, historian, and researcher best known for preserving and sharing the remarkable stories of Canada’s World War II “Bomb Girls.” Her award-winning work brings to life the experiences of the women who laboured in munitions factories on the home front, helping to fuel the Allied victory overseas. Eric Sehr is a project manager and urban planner with an interest in Toronto’s history, suburbs, and 19th century city building. He's the creator of the Brockton: A Lost Toronto Village project and has written for Spacing Magazine, as well as at Toronto Shaped and Amalgamated – About cities, suburbs, and the places in between. He delivered the 2023 Toronto History Lecture for the Toronto Branch of the Ontario Geneological Society: "The Tragic Fate of Huron Elliott: A Forgotten Indigenous Worker on Toronto’s Water Tunnel Project." Bob Georgiou is the author of the Toronto History Curiosities newsletter and the Scenes From Toronto blog. He's a writer and content creator with more than a decade worth of experience sharing stories from the city's past, from writing for his own sites, to contributing to Spacing Magazine, to leading tours for Doors Open and Jane's Walk, and more. — 8pm on Zoom — WEDNESDAY JUNE 3  THE WILDEST KIDNAPPINGS
IN TORONTO HISTORY Toronto's history is filled with dramatic tales of kidnappings, ransoms and rescues. In this online event, we'll be exploring some of the most harrowing stories from the city's past. We'll meet the secret Victorian kidnapping society that targeted some of the city's most famous politicians, the gangsters who kidnapped one of the Labatt brewing brothers, and we'll try to solve one of the city's weirdest unsolved mysteries. Our panelists: Susan Goldenberg is the author of eleven books of narrative non-fiction — about everything from history to business sagas to true crime — including Snatched! The Peculiar Kidnapping of Beer Tycoon John Labatt. She's the winner of a Canadian Authors Award. Jamie Bradburn is a writer and historian who has written for TVO, The Toronto Star, Spacing and many more. Jamie is a former contributor to Torontoist's beloved Historicist column, and the creator of the Jamie Bradburn's Tales of Toronto blog and the newletters JB's Curio Emporium and Jamie Bradburn's Greastest Hits. — 8pm on Zoom — THURSDAY JUNE 4  THE GREAT TORONTO
STORK DERBY During last year's festival, we explored the history of the city's weirdest contests and this year we'll follow up by taking a deep dive into one of the strangest of them all. When a wealthy lawyer died in 1926, he left behind an utterly bizarre last will and testament that promised a fortune to whichever woman in Toronto gave birth to the greatest number of babies over the course of the next ten years. And so, the Great Toronto Stork Derby began — a desperate race to have as many kids as possible. In this online lecture, we'll meet the contestants, explore the controversies that swirled around the race, and see what it has to teach us about Toronto as it was a century ago. The lecture will be presented by Adam Bunch. He is the founder of the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History, the author of The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, the host of the Canadiana documentary series, and the creator of the Toronto Time Traveller newsletter and the Toronto Dreams Project. His work popularizing Canadian history was recognized with the Governor General's History Award for Popular Media — the Pierre Berton Award. — 8pm on Zoom — FRIDAY JUNE 5  THE WEIRDEST BUILDINGS
IN TORONTO HISTORY Toronto's skyline is an unusual jumble, a peculiar mix of styles from a variety of eras — and over the years, it's been home to many strange buildings. So in this online panel, we'll ask some experts to share their picks for the absolute weirdest buildings ever built in our city. Our panelists will include: Joël Léon Danis is the Executive Director of the Toronto Society of Architects. He is an architect and researcher whose career has been shaped by a strong interest in public policy, community building, and the critical dialogue between the architectural profession and the public. Jocelyn Lambert Squires is Marketing Manager at Gensler and a Toronto-centric voice for architecture and urbanism. She has explored the stories of architecture and architects through publications and photography, as well as through her professional role in marketing and communications. She has also contributed as a researcher, writer, and editor to several Toronto and Canada-specific publications, including Canadian Architect, Architecture Observer, and as a researcher for Toronto Architecture: A City Guide and 305 Lost Buildings of Canada. Adam Wynne is the elected Chair of the Toronto and East York Community Preservation Panel whose catchment includes over 13 000 heritage properties in the former City of Toronto and East York. He was a 2023 Nominee for the Stephen A. Otto Award for Research and Documentation at the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario where he has authored over 300 site specific articles on their TO Built Project. His research is used widely by all three levels of government, as well as both public and private practices and various planning tribunals. Since 2018, he has been a researcher at the Parkdale Village Historical Society / Sunnyside Historical Society and contributed significant research to the Parkdale Main Street Heritage Conservation District. He is also affiliated with Lost Rivers Toronto and has formerly been affiliated with the Church-Wellesley Neighbourhood Association, the Church-Wellesley Village BIA, and Friends of Alexandra Park. — 8pm on Zoom — SATURDAY JUNE 6  SECRETS & SCANDALS OF
MID-CENTURY MODERN TOWERS Toronto's mid-century apartment towers are such a familiar sight they almost seem to blend in with the scenery, but the history behind them is more dramatic than you might think. On this walk led by Toronto history creator Kiki Mairi, we'll explore the hidden histories of those mid-century modern towers. It's a story that includes everything from gangsters and slumlords to bombings and arson, plus the generations of residents who've called those towers home. — 1pm — Starting Location: Gwendolyn MacEwen Parkette End Location: Near City Hall SATURDAY JUNE 6  HIDDEN LAYERS OF TORONTO
or HOW TO READ THE EMOTIONS OF A CITY Toronto is full of layers that are hiding in plain sight, and you won't know of them until you look a little deeper. Graffiti, public art, ads and billboards, signage and stickers, small and big sculptures, QR codes, and more unexpected details that shape how we move through the city. This deeply influences the urban experience and how places feel and how we connect, whether we notice them or not. Our guide will be Alex Sein, also known as BeardedProf416, a professor, a professional tour guide, a profound speaker, and urban explorer who focuses on emotional infrastructure, public art, and the hidden connections between people and place. His walk peels back the physical and digital layers of Toronto, revealing beacons of memory, transitional spaces, third places, and the subtle interventions that quietly shape everyday urban life. — 5pm — Starting Location: Dundas & McCaul End Location: Near Queen & Spadina SATURDAY JUNE 6  A WEIRD WALK DOWN
YONGE STREET Did you know.... Back in the '70s a bar on Yonge Street hosted Canada's first drag parade? That a Toronto radio station accidentally caused the entire downtown core to grind to a halt? That one of the city's hottest record shops was actually hidden at the back of a sex shop? Yonge Street is known (rightfully or not) as the world's longest street. And whether that is true or not it is certainly not "short" on bizarre stories. Join Mark Vendramini (The Yonge Street Geek) as we explore some crazy tales of the people and places that have made The Yonge Street Strip one of the most unique stretches of the city. — 8pm — Starting Location: 484 Yonge Street End Location: Near Queen & Victoria Duration: Likely about 1.5 hours SUNDAY JUNE 7  A BIZARRE TOUR OF
PROSPECT CEMETERY Chantal Morris is back for another weird cemetery tour! The creator of the wildly popular Toronto Cemetery Tours, she's been part of the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History since the beginning, taking us inside the Necropolis and Mount Pleasant Cemetery. This year, we'll be venturing into yet another graveyard — Prospect Cemetery — as she takes us on a hunt for the strange stories hidden among the headstones. — 1pm — SUNDAY JUNE 7  A BIZARRE HISTORY OF TORONTO
WALKING TOUR For the weekend's final walk, we'll head out into downtown Toronto with festival organizer Adam Bunch for a brand new tour featuring a greatest hits of the weirdest stories our city has to offer. We'll journey through the history of Toronto through its most bizarre true tales, from blood-thirsty goats to drunken circus clowns to the city's most notorious accidental autodefenestration. Adam Bunch is the founder of the Festival of Bizarre Toronto History, the author of The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, the host of the Canadiana documentary series, and the creator of the Toronto Time Traveller newsletter and the Toronto Dreams Project. His work popularizing Canadian history was recognized with the Governor General's History Award for Popular Media — the Pierre Berton Award. — 5pm — Starting Location: Berczy Park End Location: Near King & Bay Duration: 2–2.5 hours SUNDAY JUNE 7  A NIGHT OF BIZARRE
TORONTO HISTORY TRIVIA This event is free — all you have to do is register! We'll celebrate the end of the festival with a free trivia night at C'est What! Put your knowledge of Toronto's weird history to the test, with questions about some of the strangest stuff that has ever happened in our city — including some of the stories we'll be talking about during the week. Come have a drink with some of the festival's speakers and walk leaders during a fun quiz put together by tour guide and Toronto expert Mike Carter. — Doors at 7:45pm, event begins at 8:30pm — C'est What is at 67 Front Street East, just east of Church Zoom links and all other details will be sent to ticket holders shortly before the festival begins. See you then! |
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The Festival of Bizarre Toronto History is held on and about the traditional territories of the Wendat nation, Haudenosaunee Confederacy, and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation.
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