The Festival of Bizarre Toronto History

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL

The Festival of Bizarre Toronto History is dedicated to exploring strange stories from our city’s past — a week filled with walking tours and online lectures, panels and interviews featuring some of Toronto’s greatest storytellers. The festival was founded in 2023 and is now returning for its second year: seven more days spent digging into the weirdest tales our city has to offer.

Whether it’s a riot sparked by a brawl between clowns and firefighters at a Victorian brothel or the mysterious disappearance of a scandalous Edwardian millionaire, Toronto’s history is filled with strange and unexpected tales that have a lot to teach us about the place we call home.

THIS YEAR’S EDITION

This year’s line-up features everything from authors discussing weird and shocking murders to renowned experts sharing the story of a man who mailed himself out of slavery. We’ll meet the body snatchers who once plagued Toronto’s graveyards and then head into one of those graveyards ourselves with a bizarre tour of the Necropolis Cemetery. We’ll learn about some of the most stomach-churning traditions from the city’s past and set out on a Mother’s Day walk filled with strange stories about extraordinary moms from Toronto history. And plenty more beyond that!

You can find the full schedule at www.bizarretoronto.com.

ABOUT THE ORGANIZER

The festival was founded by Adam Bunch, author of The Toronto Book of the Dead and The Toronto Book of Love, host of the Canadiana documentary series, and creator of The Toronto History Weekly newsletter. He teaches Toronto history at George Brown College and his Weird Toronto History radio segment airs every Tuesday afternoon on Newstalk 1010. His work popularizing Canadian history has been recognized with the Governor General’s History Award for Popular Media — the Pierre Berton Award.