Canada is Boring

On October 6, 1894, 18-year-old Frank Westwood answered the door of his family's Toronto mansion, Lakeside Hall in Parkdale. Someone standing outside shot him through the gap left by the door chain. In part one of this two-part Victorian true crime story on Canada Is Boring, Rhys Waters takes Jesse Harley through the Parkdale Mystery, the Toronto murder that caused a newspaper frenzy in 1890s Canada. Before Frank died of his stomach wound, he described the gunman as a man in dark clothes with a thin mustache. The only name he gave police was Gus Clark, a "stone hooker" his family had chased off their shoreline for digging out shale. We cover the crowded funeral and the chaotic inquest. We meet amateur sleuth W. H. Hornberry, whom the papers mocked as "Parkdale's Sherlock Holmes." We also look at how newspapers begged Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, to solve the case. Then there's the Listowel Horror, the murder of 13-year-old Jessie Keith, which set off rumours that Jack the Ripper had moved to Canada. Part one ends on a cliffhanger: police arrest a surprising new suspect, a 32-year-old woman.

After the story, the Small Talk Dimension Zone covers Jesse's Tuscany wine festival trip, inspired by The Witcher 3: Blood and Wine. Jesse also shares a trick for quitting smoking with ice-cold ginger ale. Rhys helps elderly nuns at Rome's Ciampino airport, and the two trade TIFF celebrity sightings, including Jay Baruchel at the Ken Carter film Stuntman. It closes with Danny Elfman's story of writing the Batman theme in an airplane bathroom. If you like Canadian history, historical true crime, unsolved mysteries and a comedy podcast, subscribe so you don't miss part two.
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Canadian stuntman Dusty Friesen didn't just drive his jet boat off a 40-foot waterfall, he spent over a year researching whether it was legal first. Which is possibly the most Canadian thing that has ever happened.

On May 25, 2026, Dusty (aka Dusty Dozer) of Dawson Creek, BC took his battered jet boat Dent down the Crowsnest River in southern Alberta and straight over Lundbreck Falls, landing upright in front of a hollering crowd and simply carrying on downstream. He's calling it the highest naturally flowing waterfall ever descended in a jet boat, an unofficial world record, since Guinness doesn't have a category for it. The RCMP and conservation officers investigated. The maximum penalty? A $350 fine for careless operation of a small vessel. There was no warrant, and Dusty says he's just getting started: he wants to jump bigger than Niagara.

Rhys and Jesse break down the jump, the legal loophole, the ocean-cleanup fundraising angle, and why Canadian history deserves better movies. Plus a Small Talk Dimension segment featuring a terrified golden retriever, a noisy roof flap, and the worst rental bike in Montreal.
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Rhys and Jesse dive into the surreal and surprisingly inspiring story of Count Binface, the intergalactic space warrior with a bin for a head who keeps showing up on UK ballot papers. Starting from the obscure 1984 sci‑fi film Hyperspace and the original character Lord Buckethead, they trace how a low‑budget movie villain evolved into a viral political figure who has stood against multiple UK prime ministers and, most recently, Nigel Farage.

Along the way, they unpack the darker side of UK politics—anti‑immigrant sentiment, media manipulation, and shady political donations—contrasted with the joyful absurdity of a “joke candidate” who ends up uniting voters, humiliating extremists, and actually outperforming some serious far‑right parties at the polls.
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In this episode of Canada Is Boring, Rhys Waters and Jesse “Two Cups” Harley dive into the wild true story of Grand Manan Island, a tiny community in New Brunswick, Canada, that lost faith in the RCMP and carried out its own brand of mob justice.
Discover how a small coastal island (population < 3,000) went to war with local crack dealer Ronnie Ross—from escalating harassment and arson to gunfire, a burned-down “drug house” on Cedar Street, and the infamous “Grand Manan Five” who became local heroes.
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Eccentric Millionaire’s Bizarre Baby Contest in Depression-Era Canada

In this episode of Canada Is Boring, Rhys Waters and Jesse Harley dive into the unbelievable true story of Charles Vance Miller, a wealthy and eccentric Toronto lawyer whose bizarre will triggered one of the strangest competitions in Canadian history: The Great Stork Derby.
Miller, a successful Toronto lawyer, O’Keefe Brewery investor, and racehorse owner, used his fortune to play elaborate pranks that tested people’s greed, morality, and hypocrisy. But his greatest “joke” came after his death in 1926, when his will offered a massive cash prize to the married couple in Ontario who had the most children over a ten-year period—during the Great Depression, when families were already struggling to survive.

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