Bittersweet Infamy - #130 - Bury Me On Rattlesnake Island

Episode Date: August 10, 2025

Big Skookum B.C. Road Trip! In this special episode, Taylor tells Josie about Lebanese-Canadian entrepreneur Eddy Haymour, and how his dream of building an Arabian theme park on Lake Okanagan led him to take 33 people hostage at the Canadian embassy in Beirut. Plus: join Josie, Taylor, and special guests Lucia Misch and Ruy Gonzalez as they kick off the first leg of a British Columbia road trip, with stops in Kamloops, Salmon Arm, and Glacier National Park!

Everyone ready? Ready? Ready. Ready. Ready. Let's get Skookum. Bucum. Buckle up for the Bittersweet Infamy, Big Skookum BC Road Trip. I'm Josie Mitchell. Taylor Basso. We'll be joined by our friends, Lucia Mish and Rui Gonzalez, as we explore Canada's beautiful westernmost province, from mountains to valleys, glaciers to hot springs, rainforests to deserts.

Along the way, we'll tell you some of British Columbia's most infamous stories. The truth may be bitter, but the stories are always skugam. Welcome to the big Skookum, BC road trip. Road trip. That's how you said it. In my head, that's how you said it. That more or less resembles how I said it. Yeah.

We are here in person. I'm looking at your beautiful face right now. Oh, look at yours. Yeah. And we are at the 604 Records. studio officially, but it's the 604 podcast network studio today. We're live and in person with our editor, Alex McCarthy. Alex, say how to the folks. Hello, how are you? That's what he talks like. He talks like, charming, charming voice. And I like an accent. I do. I do. And because I think that

might be like wishful, though, because it's like, I want people to like my accent as well. And so maybe I'm like be the change you want to see in the world, right? Love all the accents we encounter, but yours especially like. You have an accent as well, though. So do you. Well, who does it? So does all people. Who doesn't, yeah. But we're, if there's any time to celebrate my beautiful BC accent, it's certainly on the occasion of the bittersweet infamy, big Scookum BC road trip. We're going around, Eastern Interior, BC at least. Literally around. We're making a big.

A big, I think I said it was Austria shaped or something. Yes. Which sort of accounts for it. We're going to be going to more or less and please don't hold it against us if we... end up routing around wildfires, very nice, balmy hot day in Vancouver today, always concerning in these summer months. But we're going to be going up kind of camloops, Revelstoke, Glacier National Park, loose your hot springs. That's going to be fun. Leaning into these studio mics, giving you those bubble noises.

Do hot springs have bubbles like that? Is that? If you fart. Okay. And we're going to be then dropping Rui, my partner. He's going to be coming on the trip too. We got company. We'll tell you all about it. Well, we're using his van. That's true. Drop in Rui off in Salmo for a big music fest, Chambla, and then headed back to Vancouver. Yeah. Maybe doing some things along the way. You excited? Oh, I'm so stoked. Lucia is joining us, Lucia Mish. Tell us about Lucia Mish for those of us who don't. Lucia's a long time friend of the podcast, probably second only to Mitchell in overall screen time for a supporting character.

Yeah. Yeah, I'd say so. Yeah. I know Lucia from way back days of early Vancouver. Way back days. Way back days. She's a California transplant to BC, which is a beautiful thing. Where's Lucia from again in California? Outside of San Jose. Cool.

Yeah. She grew up on an observatory. Like in the mountains outside San Jose. I did know that. Yeah. So she's rad, obviously. Ends up being a poet, you know, who could imagine that. And has done an episode with us before.

Episode number 68, the Cult of the Clitoris. An excellent episode. Excellent episode about an international conspiracy around a lady who dance with too few clothes on. Yeah. Nothing changes. Yeah. Tales old as time. Song as old as rhyme.

I'm really stoked that Lucia is able to join us. Yeah. Because she, I think, of maybe the four of us, I can't speak for Ruri, but I know nothing about cars. And Lucia does. Yeah. We were chatting yesterday because I'm staying with her right now. Nice. We both realized we both have AAA membership.

that work in North America? Yes, yeah. So it's that we'll bring our cards. BCAA. BCAA we've bought, yes. BCAA is our local. And we should say for those of us who don't listen religiously and or are not familiar with the map of North America,

no judgment. I've seen some of the things that are being stripped out of school curricula. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. BC, the westernmost province in Canada, home to many a first nation, home to many an island, home to many a beautiful forest and beautiful mountain, and home to the big Skookum-BC road trip.

Home to Taylor Basso. Home to Taylor Basso, yours truly. Yeah. How has your past couple weeks been? You had just been spending time in Cali with the family we talked about. You did your 4th of July tie-dying and stuff down there. What has your past week or so, I guess, been like as you've spent time with family in California, but also prepared not only to like come do this vacation, this road trip, but also generate a bunch

of content around it, which is like its own kind of brain. It's own kind of busyness. Yeah. I negotiated work remote too with my job. So I'm like doing a lot. The eye has a little twitch to it. Oh, damn. That's good. That's a good sign. That means you're alive. Yeah. That means a neuron is firing. Maybe not the way that it's supposed to. Just repeatedly on loop. Maybe it's banging out Morse code SOS on the back of my eyeball, but it's working. No, it's been really, really fun to spend time with family and I got to spend a lot of nice time with my mom. Yeah. And how was your flight up here?

Well, I didn't come straight from San Diego. I stopped in San Francisco to see my brother and my sister-in-law. My brother and I visited Alcatraz. Fuck, yeah. So we've talked about this a little bit before in the podcast. There's been various famous faces, Al Capone, et cetera, who have popped up at Alcatraz. We've talked a little bit about. about the, the American Indian occupation of Alcatraz.

And of course, Josie, you've swam the distance between Alcatraz and the mainland before. Yes, but I had never, and my brothers swam it as well, but neither of us had ever been out to the island. Well, no, you haven't committed any crimes that I know of. Well, yeah. No gas chamber for you, Josie Mitchell. But we were thoughts, feelings, and musings on Alcatraz. It's, the cellhouse is smaller than I thought for the place. that it takes in, like, incarceral history.

It's a big name, small cell. Yeah. The architecture of the buildings and what's there now is really cool to see. It's really fascinating. And I get why people are so enthused by it. And there's a boat trip. You get to take a boat out there. And there's...

Who doesn't like a boat? All these birds. And it's cool. It's very cool. And there's an audio little tour that you can take, which was good. It needed a little update. But, you know, among us. did an update?

Were they saying Italian? Like, what's the update? No, I just like, I did comment to my brother. I was like, that was a tight 40. That was a, that was tight. Listen, if any, I guess, national historic site is likely to get a bump under Trump's America. It is Alcatraz. Yeah.

Right? Yeah. Yeah. He might bring that one back into use. Yes. Yes. That was in the back of my head, definitely. Yeah.

especially with the reference to alligator alcatraz. Right. The shiny new concentration camp in Florida, huh? Well, I'm happy you're here in Canada, Josie. You're happy to see. No alligators here as far as I'm aware. Yes. Was there anything about Alcatraz that really jumps out to you as like an interesting detail that you learned?

Something that was really interesting was the main leader of the Red Power movement, the occupation of the island in the 1960s. he was a very interesting character, very interesting guy who, after the occupation, about three years after, was killed by a YMCA camp counselor. Oh. You might hear more about this later because this is too weird. Isn't that always the way, huh? You turn over a rock.

Yeah. And all these worms come up from underneath. I mean, I heard it was fun to stay at the YMCA. What happened? I don't know. I don't know yet. We'll find out. Yeah, yeah.

And what about the rest of the San Fran trip? We had a really wonderful dinner at the restaurant where my sister-in-law works. It's called State Bird. It has a mission star. And what's the state bird? The California quail. Doey. Okay.

And what's the provincial bird of BC? I don't know it. Alex, you want to assist on this one? I don't know it either. I don't know it either. Everyone's Googling it. The Stellars J. I did know this.

It's a fucking blue J. Oh. Which is not. I remember this because I was annoyed. They're pricks. I don't agree. No. No, no, camera three, no.

But anyway, the meal was really good. Great, great, great. Did you eat some quail? Strangely enough, no, we didn't have, we didn't have that dish. It's a dim sum style. Cool. And so we just got a lot of little plates and Nicole just kept pouring the bottle. She's a small, yeah, there.

Somalia, not an alcoholic, to be clear. Just because she's pouring the bottle in a professional capacity. Yes, yes, exactly. It was really amazing food, but it was also just really amazing. to see Nicole like do her thing. Yeah. Nice to see people in their element always. Yeah. Yeah. Totally in her element. It was really fun. Really good. I like watching my performer friends perform. That's a fun, fun one. And that's it. That's what Nicole does when she's on the floor, huck and wine. Yeah. On the floor is a Somali again, to be clear. Not like passed out from drinking

too much. When did you get into town? Get into town on Tuesday evening. Sick. So about a day ago, a little over a day. Two days. Love it. Yeah. How's it been? Hot. Hot. Hot.

Hot enough to take a road trip around the fucking province, eh? I. If the fires cooperate. Right. Yes. Yes. I'm excited because I was realizing to, you know, coming back to Vancouver and having lived here for a short amount of time, I know best Vancouver in the city and like the close by environs. But when it comes to BC, especially eastern BC, I know very little.

Yeah. I think the farthest I've been at. I went out on some rando trip to see the salmon, like the salmon running. Yeah. And I can't remember where I went. It was. The salmon know from birth where they're going to go. And you have no clue.

You had like GPS. Yeah. No, I was just, I was like random person at UBC. It was maybe my first year here. And I didn't, you know, your first year of university, you don't know anybody. You're just like, are you a friend? Are you a friend? And so I just got in this friend's van.

and headed out east to see the salmon run. Good. What was your impressions of the salmon? Stinky. It was a little stinky. Yeah. I didn't expect that. Went to a field trip to a salmon farm once when I was in the sixth grade.

Got out of the car. I don't know what happened. I have no idea. Look down. My track pants were covered in poo. I remember the story. Some sort of animal poo I stepped in. And thank God my mom drove us on the trip.

And she had like a backup pair of pajama pants. Oh my God. Ada Maria. What a pro. Life is how. Yeah. Dude, you get these curveballs that humble you, and you just never know when they're going to come, that bring you to your knees. Yes, yes.

And in the midst of it all, still the salmon run. You know, it's beautiful. Yeah, and still the salmon they run. Yes. What's your knowledge, interaction experience with Eastern BC? Little, little. I've been up as far as Lake Okanagan before, which is the area that we're going to be getting to sort of at the beginning of our trip. like day one will be there.

Yeah. And then from there on, I have no knowledge at all other than what I've pulled together from doing the planning for this. Okay. Yeah. Can't wait. Really, really excited. It should be noted, too, that in the planning for this, Taylor made a PowerPoint of the road trip.

I did. It's a gorgeous PowerPoint. I think we should put it on coffee. Sure. I need a few PowerPoints. That's true. Originally, this trip was going to go much further up into the Yukon. Didn't end up being feasible.

So I put together like version one, version two. I think version four is what you guys ended up seeing. Whoa. Yeah. But I showed it to Lucia and Rui. They were super down. Yeah. I'm really grateful to have them on the trip.

Really grateful to be going to all these brand new places. And grateful to be telling you some infamous BC stories along the way. So here's how this will work at the beginning of each episode of the big Skukum BC road trip. You'll get a little intro from Josie and I, not unlike the one that we just gave chatting. Chatting the bollocks, as they say, about the trip we're going to be on. That was a little local work for you, Alex. And then we're going to throw to some clips that we recorded along the way. In this case, it'll be the first couple days of the road trip.

And then we'll throw back to the studio. You'll get your main story at the end. So you get a little intro. Taste of the road. A little taste of the road. And then a little taste to infamy, just like we always give you here on bittersweet infamy. And I should say that we will have our film club episode.

of Waterworld Ready after the trip. Thank you for your patience with us with all things Bittersweet Film Club over at coffee.com, k-o-hyphen-Fi.com slash bittersweet infamy. Become a member of the film club by subscribing monthly over at our coffee account. You can see the PowerPoint. You can see the PowerPoint.

And coming up later in August, you can see Waterworld. But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. We're dealing with what's right in front of us right now. We got a lot to do. Thank you for your patience, and we hope you enjoy. Back in the 80s, Quentin Tarantino, and Roger Avery were budding filmmakers working together at a hip Los Angeles

video store called Video Archives. We didn't have a cash register for four years. Yeah. Now, they're reuniting to watch the original tapes from the Video Archives collection, films like Dark Star, Moonraker, and many more. The Video Archives podcast

is out now. Find us on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts. I came up with the idea for the big Skugum B.C. road trip based on a few different impulses. I wanted to play tourism ambassador for my American friends, Josie and Mitchell, in a way that plugged money into the local economy during a time of economic uncertainty. I, friends, I'm going to save the BC economy with this road trip. I also wanted to gas up our provincial and national parks on the podcast, and I wanted

a last hurrah with my partner, Rui Gonzalez. I'm not going to pupe, bitch. Who would be moving to New Zealand indefinitely in the summer. Plans changed pretty quick because Mitchell wasn't able to join us. Instead, he had to hold down the fort in Houston, taking Batman on some very hot and very muggy dog walks. Thank you for making it possible for me to go on this trip, Mitchell. So with a seat in the car open and in need of another driver, we drafted my college sweetheart, my dear former roommate, friend of the podcast, and guest of episode number 68, the Colt of

clitoris, Lucia Nish. I would buy the fuck out of the thighs of the NHL calendar. The fuck out of that. In the end, we decided to make an eastern loop of the province, scooching right up to the Alberta border before heading back west. Last but not least, Skookum is a word originating from Chinook Jargon, a pigeon trade language that emerged between the indigenous people of the general area and the European settlers. Though the language itself is sadly considered extinct,

Some words, like Skookum, are still in use. Skookum means strong, good, sturdy, tough, and a bunch of other positive things. Let's hit the road. By which I mean, let's be three hours late picking up Josie and Horseshoe Bay because we all brought too much stuff and need to choose what we're leaving behind. For me, waiting at Horseshoe Bay was just great. My good buddy from my Vancouver days, Haley Gooch, had invited a bunch of us friends on a weekend getaway to help her celebrate her big 4-0 birthday.

Happy birthday! I was so thrilled to get to party with Gooch and our good buds and hang out in one of my favorite places in the world, the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. If you want to eat well and chill hard, I highly suggest you go hang with a few new moms. Happy birthday, Haley. My friends loaded me up with bags of leftover groceries from our weekend hang,

and they hugged me goodbye in the ferry terminal parking lot. It was going to be a little less than an hour before Taylor, Lucia, and Rui would pick me up, so I posted up in a coffee shop. When the hour stretched a little here and then I'm a little there, it gave me the chance for some quiet time to myself. Um, maybe she's in the water? In the water? Those stranger things have happened. Josie. Josie, Marco. Some Canada geese. They took her. They fucking did. Taylor, Rui, and Luke, grabbed me from the local park, woke me up and grabbed me from the local park, and I sandwiched into the car with a few bags on my lap.

I couldn't have been more excited to get the road trip underway, even if it was 5 p.m. Luckily, the sun goes down really late in BC this time of year, and with plenty of daylight left, we were off. We blasted through Squamish Whistler and Pemberton, so if you're from any of these exceptionally beautiful places, we love you, but your city played no significant role in our journey. Instead, let's pick up at the BC Hydro, Seton Lake Recreation Area near Lillooet, free camping here, by the way, so you can meet our guests more properly.

Josie's doing some high kicks for the recording at our first rest stop here. Getting real close to the phone, too. Good, and that's so they can hear it. So they can hear the kicks. Yeah. The left is higher. Yeah. Adjust to the audio media, you know.

Those voices you're hearing are Rui Gonzalez. uh-huh and lucia mish hello and josie the kick machine mishel josie josey kixiel they're talking about renaming her donkey so far has anything uh notable happened so far fuck no i guess i guess that's not true we were like three hours late to pick up josie at where she baked baggage the baggage we all we all as in in true uh in in true queer kid style we all brought all our baggage along on the trip it doesn't fit yep Oh, it fits.

It fits. Yeah, we just... But we did some unpacking, and now it all fits. But it wasn't, it was a nice day at a horseshoe, wouldn't it? I had a great time. The geese were out, hissing at dogs. Yeah, as they do. Did you see them hiss at a dog?

Yeah. They always fucking hissed at dogs. Yeah, they don't like them. They don't like them. From there, it was a straight shot to our planned destination of Paul Lake Provincial Park, which is near Cologne. No. cam loops no okay let me just google that real quick um okay yes cam loops a city of about a hundred

thousand in south central bc we didn't get to see much of cam loops getting in late and leaving early but seems like a great spot it's about three point five hours from vancouver to cam loops I'm not going to cam loops. So here are some of the highlights from that drive. And please don't mind the quality of these early clips. It gets better after we figure out the rental cars Bluetooth system. Rui, will you tell the story of what has happened to the three other cars? I refuse to do this for your podcast.

Please. Okay. So I went to Mexico for winter. and then I left my friend the, like, borrow my car to move, so he crashed it, completely totaled it. Then my

last car, that one, I go on a camping trip, and on the way back, it turns out I ran out of oil, and the motor kind of exploded on me. But as soon as I managed to, like, fix it a little bit enough to, like, drive it back home, I park it and it gets immediately stolen.

Yeah. Out of the parking lot at fucking Sawasen Mills. Yes, and then it's found at the other side of slas and mills. Yeah, literally. And they took all the things that were in it. So like your paddleboard, your jumpstart? No. No, no, not the jump start.

The jump start I took with me, it was in my backpack. Nice. Because I was using it as a battery. But my paddle board, my mattress, my cash register for work. Oh. Yeah, all that sort of stuff. So that one, and then I tried to drive it after it. It was like, no, it could not.

So then I get a new car, a town and country, a Chrysler town and country, and that one had found out Friday, so like three days ago, that it had, um, how'd you call it? I'm exhaust leak into the cabin, and I found that out because I nearly passed out in traffic going 100 kilometers an hour. Now we're here with a four. A.O. Escape, 2013, 23, that drives magically, and it's great. It's a rental, and I don't own in. Yeah, like magic will not work on it. I do, too. That made me think, yeah, but you ate them all I know

because I checked the bag when I started driving. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. I didn't want them before, but then I got in the driver's seat and I saw the bag in the door, and I was like, oh, my God. Oh, there's crumbs. Yeah, there's nerds. There's nerd crumbs, yeah.

Oh, Josie, can I have a berry, a strawberry? Yeah. Thank you. Can I have a strawberry? Ooh. Thanks for you. Thank you. Yeah, they smell fluffy.

Wow, they're really... Wow, they're really bristly. Mmm. You're nice. Oh my god. That was a... Turn off your bright! Bitch.

I found it. Sorry. Who was the last one? Me. You're Lucia. Lucia, for driving. Oh, thank you. Not the blueberries, too.

Or, like, raspberries. Not raspberry, blackberries. I've suddenly started seeing Hasca. Yeah, Hascaps. Hascaps. Like, have they been around and they're just having a moment? They like, they like drier, so they haven't made it down to Vancouver yet. Oh, okay.

That's why I'm, like, looking for signs here. They're delicious. They're honeyberries. Okay. They're really good in pie, too. I've seen, like, three places with it in, like, an ice cream, and then I saw them in the grocery store. Yeah. They just like it's, like, arid climate, so we can.

We can't grow them in McCrower. Gotcha. But in getting there, now we can grow cherries and it's dry enough. Mmm. Narrator Taylor here have stepped in to save you from a lot more footage of us eating, enjoying, and discussing berries. As a province, British Columbia is home to dozens of types of edible berries. And we, the big Skookum-BC roadtrippers, are a berry-focused group. Do you know about the Manitoba snake pit?

What's the Manitoba snake pet? In Manitoba, they have like the biggest snake pit in the world and all the snakes in the world. Don't talk about Winnipeg like that. I love it. All the snakes go there to fuck every year. Yeah, right. This is what I'm saying. This is why I'm a Jets fan.

So what is like, is it? Is it just the mating pit or what is it? Yeah, it's like the mating pit. And they're runner snakes, so they're not poisonous. Yeah, no, but they just, but they conglomerate and they coil. They make like a rat king but snakes? Yeah. Oh.

snake knot in a pig. A snot? Yeah. Yeah, big sexy snot in a pig. Yeah, it's really hot. And some males will like rub up against a female to get the pherom so they can get like all the heat from the other males so they can be faster to get the female. Yeah, they wake up first.

I don't know that, that's cool. But you gotta like send a alarm. I would not pass on my genetic... Yeah, I'd be like, no, we'll try again next year. Yeah, I was like... It's cool. I'm not really a... guy anyways.

Right. If I meet a nice snake that already has a kid. Yeah, I'll worry about it. Yeah, there you go. Um, should I get off the highway somewhere? Yes. Yeah, we should eat. Uh, it's the next one, you should, the next exit ever.

This conversation is the concept to eat. We've hit them all. Yeah. In 300 meters, turn right. Where the fuck have you been, sweetheart? I haven't heard a word from you this entire goddamn time. Oh, we turned her off. off because in Vancouver

it was really annoying. Got you. Because you actually had to make turns occasionally. Yep. Yeah. In 300 meters, start thinking about how in 200 meters you're going to have to change lanes because in four more meters.

Yeah, that's like, you know, I don't want this. Okay. Have you ever been to Stanley Park? It's nice. It's nice. We found Salvation at the local public eatery, open late, where I enjoyed three pretty acceptable fish tacos.

By then, it was creeping on midnight and pitch dark. We were hours behind schedule, and while I'd made reservations everywhere I could before the trip, none of us was relishing putting up a tent in complete darkness during campground quiet hours. After weighing our options, we considered alternate accommodations. All right, we had every intention of ending up at Paul Lake Provincial Park. We did. And then we got tired, and we went late, and now we're out of Ramada. but just for one night

we're going to be doing the parks like we're not going to spend the whole road trip at the Ramada in Camloops I refuse What if we spend in the Ramada's a different A Ramada tour That could work That could work

But you already booked so many campsites Well they're only $20 bookings aren't they It's not the end of them They aren't They aren't The next morning we had breakfast at the Kakuli Cafe, an indigenous-owned coffee place featuring breakfast takes on indigenous foods. Their slogan is Don't Panic, We Have Banic.

For breakfast, I enjoyed the hyper-Canadian meal of an apple-cinamine bannock, which is a frybread popular in the local indigenous communities, as well as a Canadiano, not an Americano, not since the tariffs. I also had a Saskatoonberry smoothie. It was my first time trying Saskatoon berries, having first heard about them on CBC's Dragon's Den. I liked the back note of tartness. The berries were back on our minds.

Enough that we ended up at Honeyberry Farm, a U-Pick-Hasket Berry Farm, for our next stop. Berry picking is a quintessentially British Columbian activity, so much so that my poor father, Dan Basso, was forced to pick blueberries all day as a child and can't stand the sight of them as an adult. If he knew I was spending my vacation picking berries of my own volition, he would die of shame. Currently in beautiful Heffley Creek, British Columbia, a place where they don't have dresses on the road when we are doing some you pick hascat berries is that what they're called yes berry pickin berry pickin and what's special about hascat berries describe them if you have to

describe a hascat berry to the people it's like a sweeter more complexly flavored blueberry that is related into the honeysuckle family not the uh well the blueberry family and they're pointy they're kind of conical yeah they're longer and bigger how's the berry picking coming over from your side Josie and Lucia. It's going great. I think that we're standing between two rows, one of each variety. Oh, cool. This farm, and so I'm doing a sampling each side. A medley. Yeah. Cool. A berry medley. A berry medley. A berry blast, some have said. A Baja blast, they say. We're basically having a Baja Blast. Exactly. And we've got a beautiful view of the mountains behind us. Holy shit. And it stopped raining too.

And it stopped, yeah, it was pouring rain when we got here. We thought we were going to have to pick berries in the downpour. It was just thunder? No. Was that it? Was that thunder? I thought it was just a truck. No, that big, giant boom?

Was there a boom? Was there? Yeah. I didn't even fucking hear it. I was hyper-focused. Yeah, I was berry picking. I was very picking. We stayed out from under the impending storm as we drove.

as we drove to Salmon Arm, a city of about 20,000 in the Columbia Shishwap region. Lucia found us a lunch spot on the patio of a pub called Canoeigans in the small community of Canoe, a population of about 1,000 people. It's within walking distance of the shore of Shishwap Lake, and it's immediately next to a Canadian Pacific Railway track, and that's the sound you can hear in the background. So we're just enjoying a nice business lunch. in canoeigans. And is this seminar?

Are we still in seminar? Close. I think we might be in like a district, an outer district with a canoe-based name. Ah, hence canoeigans. Yeah. Hence canuligans. It's a beautiful sunny day.

We're right on the water and we just come back from, what was the name of the thrift story? We were just in downtown Saminarm. It was, uh... Churches, I think, yeah. Well, church-related one. It was, yeah. It was cute.

But it's hard to say. Very cheap. Nothing in my valley village. Either way, when one is in small town, BC, one must visit the relevant thrift stores. Ruud, did you get anything from the story? I got spoons. You got spoons, right. So for whom did you get spoons?

Hello. Thank you. I have some bad news. Uh-oh. Okay, that's okay. The cream ale. Oh, is that? We don't have any.

They just told me. Okay. Do you have a second choice? I'm so sorry. No, don't apologize. Is there something... You should feel she's a monster. She gets psychotic rages when things like this happen.

I'll do the squirrel chaser then. Okay, perfect. And it was a sleeve, right? Yes. Okay, perfect. I'll bring out your drinks very shortly. Thank you very much. Cute.

You've seen kids in their swimsuits riding down on their bikes. Oh, nice. She's that. Nice little beach day. Why did you get spoons at the store? My middle school teacher, collect them, and she lives in Mexico, so I just, whenever I go down, she's like, get me a spoon from wherever you go. So there was like a big bowl of spoon from like all over Canada.

So I was like, Alberta, Saskatchewan, you come Alaska and North this territory? Probably a very nice spoon collector, just like your friend passed away, and this is where the spoons end up. Now they get to go to a good home. I was kind of like, oh, they're 50 cents. Let me take the bucket. Yeah, that'll happen. Josie, would you get at the store? Oh, I went for a bit of a soft.

West Art Takedure vibe and I got a red cowboy hat with a Yeah it looks good I did I'm describing what I'm currently yeah just just just just got here in Tempe yeah yeah real happy to meet the local students let's let's let's talk about jade work Jay we're gonna be tourists and very cool local sites mm-hmm a beaut yeah yeah I got one of these cool belts, too. It's like these little medallion, metal medallions that make a belt. And I've always kind of wanted one. Nice.

Give it a jangle through the taste. It's like New Mexico, like, it's supposed to have percoids, but it doesn't. Yeah, yeah. It looks a little bit like the, yeah, like the hammock can. Yeah, yeah. It's just one more and it would fit perfectly. We're going to let that stuff. You can tie a little string.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or like a chain? Yeah. And not, not feature. Here is some Canadian and BC magazines for Mitchell for his scrapbooking.

Nice. He loves scrapbooking. Mitchell's into scrapbooking. It's collaging. He's actually collaging, but he calls it scrapbooking. I let him call it what he wants. It's his medium. Collaging is just the scrapbook of the trip you take into your own imagination. Yeah. It's a document of the journey up here. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like a chill art teacher. I was going to say spoken like a D.C.R. T. Yeah. What did you get, Taylor?

Colage in life, man. Yeah. I got a sweet, like, hockey jersey for the salmon arms silver tips with a wolf on it. Pretty jealous of that. Lucille, what did you get? Well, I got a number of exciting things. Yes. I got two little gold stick pins, one that has a J on it and one that has an L on it.

Sadly, there was not a T and an R. That's okay. We're our own thing. It's fine. Josie and I, now Josie on her new red art teacher, kangaroo catcher hat, and me on my Winnipeg Jets. Oh, very cute, very cute. Lid have our little pin. Very classy. Friends forever.

And I got a Bolero tie in black and gold with a large, very beautiful, like, sort of cameo, like, photorealistic cameo. cow yeah and a word i can't remember moo i'm confused how you got yours first i'm enjoying it yeah it's because i told the kitchen not to put the chicken on it and then i guess they they should do it first it's because they know that she flies into rages yeah she's she's an infamous food reviewer man i'll double check on your guys sorry no no no no you're doing killer i didn't even ask y'all i just started eating fuck yeah it's good for you After the meal, we asked our server what it was like to live in canoe. She said that she'd found small town life stifling when she was younger, but once she got

in the mind to raise in a family, she looked back more fondly on the things she'd had access to as a child. For example, she told us that if we wanted a quick dip in the water, we should go to Shuswap Lake, which we'd been staring at for the whole meal. That's where we went next. My Aunt Martita, an intrepid traveler, always taught me to never pass up an opportunity to swim. Lucchia was quick to change into their bathing suit too and even with the wind getting strong and the rain out over the other end of the lake we jumped in with the local kids

and had a quick swim and afloat Road trip jumping pose One, two, three A good idea Yeah, nice idea. All right, I'll probably jump in. The lake water was clear and warm. Taylor also had to get in, and we watched all but the teenage locals

climb out onto the dock to leave before the rain hit. We weren't far behind them. By the time we got dry, that storm we'd been running away from since the Berry Farm was fast approaching. Here's my weather report from the lake. Coldfront's setting in on shoe swabbed lake immediately after we dove in, beautiful and steady, but we brought the wing to the rainwater. Either not. And here's some audio from the car when the storm finally hit.

We thought we'd be able to drive right up to the park with enough daylight still, but construction on the the road had other plans for us. It was pitch dark by the time we finally got to Glacier National Park. Our second stop on the road trip. It's just past Revelstoke, a small ski in mill town that I raid, is probably the most beautiful of the towns that we pass through. Don't tell the others. Glacier National Park, not to be confused with the American Park of the same name, which came after ours, is a vast expanse of mountains, glaciers, forests, and trails, embedded within the Columbia Mountains. It's a popular spot for hiking, skiing, and camping. is a mix of first-come, first-serve, and reservable spots, and with all the reservations

taken by the time of the big scook and planning phase, we didn't want to take any chances at missing out. Thankfully, I found an even cooler solution. The Arthur O. Wheeler hut, also known as the Illesaluit Hut, is administered by the Alpine Club of Canada. You can book one of 30 spots in the hut for 60 bucks Canadian non-member rate. It's technically backcountry camping, which means less accessible and fewer amenities, but it's very easy to reach during the summer via the parking lot and while it doesn't have electric lighting or indoor plumbing it's extremely comfortable with a kitchen living room fireplace and spacious upstairs sleeping area if you don't mind boiling your own drinking water and pitching in on the

shared responsibilities i can't recommend the wheeler hud enough in general my experience dealing with the alpine club of canada was excellent as well check them out at alpine club of canada.ca we pulled up to the available parking and when we opened the back hatch of our overstuffed car all of our shit fell out on the asphalt all of but Rui's pillow and inflatable mattress, which we may have left at the U-Pick Berry Farm or somewhere along the B.C. Highway system. It is still a mystery. And Rui, I do remember you carrying it out of the Ramada Inn, though. So we know it's not there, at least. Take special note, dear listener. This will not be the last time you run into this issue of our belongings mysteriously

disappearing, perhaps a symptom of our overpacking, or maybe we were just distracted by having too much fun. Either way, we found our way through it. At Glacier National Park, we hauled our too much stuff up the hill to where, somewhere in that jet black night, there was the hut. We waddled around with all their gear to find it was just behind some trees. Great. And there was a group of Albertan boys there chatting quietly in the warm kerosy. light of the cabin. In whispers, they let us know the drill. Sleeping is upstairs, shared kitchen on the main floor, outhouse by the woodshed, and quiet hours are in effect. It's a shared space, the Wheeler Hut, and in the morning we realized two others were staying with us, two sweet

Alpine Club of Canada workers who explained even more about how to boil the water and such, and they even shared their hash browns with Taylor. The hut is really such a great way to meet lovely people, like Kosti and Elena, two other travelers who stayed in the hut with us, who came all the way from England to enjoy beautiful British Columbia. While the saga of The Missing Mattress had effectively ended the night for Rui and Fairfax, the rest of us were up for a nightcap. However, quiet hours are quiet hours, and manners are everything at the hut, so we had to go somewhere a little unconventional to end the night. Live update from the A.O. Wheeler Hut. It's 1130 in Glacier Park.

we arrived after quiet hours so me Lucia and Josie have been quietly drinking in the woodshed and being vulnerable with one another while it rains well said nice river noise in the background we'll see you tomorrow yeah we don't know what any of this looks like

I bet it's beautiful we'll see it can't wait over and out everyone successfully completed Glacier National Park is beautiful in the daylight. There's deep green trees, bubbling rivers, and snow cap mountains everywhere. We asked a helpful Parks Canada employee to recommend an easy to moderate difficulty trail, and she put us on to the Great Glacier Trail, an eight-kilometer trail that takes about three to four hours.

It winds of Glacier House, a luxury hotel that fell into disuse when the Canadian Pacific Railway changed its roots in the 1910s. While we didn't encounter any creatures except other hikers, there are barren moose in the area so travel safe how about this view justine pretty wow pretty gorgeous pretty glacial we're kind of reaching near the top and we got this gorgeous view of this cascading several waterfalls just peaks and snow and trees and a river and green and valley and everything it's really pretty really nice. Now that we're travel influencers, our word carries weight, would you recommend the Great Glacier Trail at Glacier National Park, the one in Canada, not in Montana, we think?

I would. Highly recommend 10 out of 10. I think it's a fun and fine, you know, fine holiday fun for the whole family. Do you find any cool mushrooms? Yay, lots of perchinis, lots of chicken of the woods, lots of... Chicken of the woods? Yeah, chicken out of wood. You're going to eat a bunch of Just be careful with a hemlock. Yeah, be careful with the hemlock. Yeah, if it smells like celery, don't eat it. That's just good life advice. Yeah, that's fair.

The hike started in lush, temperate rainforest, dotted with ferns and moss and mushrooms. There was a lovely chill in the air that kept things cool, and as we wound along the trail, we heard a rushing river to come up to an opening in the trees that revealed a view of snow-capped mountains. on one end and the lush rolling hills of the valley on the other. In the end, we all made it to the final point of the Great Glacier Trail, a beautiful outcropping of this red iron rock patterned with brilliant green moss and the views! The clouds rolled over the ice-blue glacier nestled in the crook of two mountain peaks

and a towering waterfall cascaded down the sharp granite face of the mountain. In every direction was another gorgeous view. And it made all that huffing and puffing more than worth it. And it also reminds you how big and beautiful the world can be. How small you are in it and how amazing it is that small little you is in this big and beautiful world at all. Yeah, give me some askat berries. They're good. They're good.

They're almost better, a little mushed up and juicy. They're really good for jam and jelly. I bet. I bet. There tastes nice and sweet now. The weather for today... Oh, fuck off. It's not updating, but it's had lightning showers.

Oh. So if any of the clouds around us look a little spicy, we... Pardon? Oh, no, no, no. Oh, okay, sorry. Sorry, what are you scenery? If any of the clouds start looking a little spicy, we should like start heading back. Okay.

It wouldn't be too much of a, like, a issue, like, the super inclining part. Yeah. be like good day to everyone good day to YouTube my friend oh Jesus Christ what a wonderful holy cow aren't we lucky oh thank you thank you where you from originally Spain uh... de don't in spain in spain in espia in the spina of bilbao my mother nasio madrid so you support real madrid is it uh for your sake i'll say Claro, but really I don't watch football.

Okay. It's a wonderful. Yes. Yes, yes it is. Likewise, likewise. I hope you have many more wonderful hikes here. We are having some. Yes.

Awesome. Awesome. Yeah, take cuidado there. Afterwards, we chatted with the Spanish hiker again. He taught Rui and I the basquords for hello and goodbye. Hello, is Caicho. and goodbye is Agour. I thought it was very cool that even at the top of the world,

I could learn something new. Our interactions with strangers were among my favorite parts of the big Skukum-Bisi road trip. On the way back down the mountain, I stopped a photographer to compliment his pink hair. He introduced himself as Jose and told me that he'd taken a beautiful photo of Rui and I overlooking the valley. I gave him my contact, and a few days later, he sent me the photo. It was as moving as he said, and it made me think of the idea of Agur, goodbyes. Check out Jose's photographic work at L-J-J-O-J-O-L-J-O-L-J-O-L-L-J-O-L-L. The hike down was swift and a little hard on the knees, but it was nonetheless beautiful.

When we got back to the cozy ACCC cabin, we all rested me in particular because I spread out on the floorboards of the front porch, and I took one of those snoozes where you're not sure how long you were out, but to wake up back under the branches of pine, and in view of the glacier and to the laughter of my buds, it all felt like one continuous dream. We'll leave the Big Skookum-BeeC road trip there for now. When we return next episode, we'll be back at the Arthur O. Wheeler Hut in Glacier National Park, where, unbeknownst to her, Josie, will be walking into an ambush. Back to Taylor and Josie at the 604 Podcast Network Studios.

Welcome back to the 604 Studios, everyone. Wasn't that a nice little slice of action from the road, Josie? I loved it. We haven't even taped it yet. That's the gag. That's why we're laughing. But I loved it. But I loved it.

I know I'm going to love it. I know I'm going to love it. I know I'm going to a lot. I hope that you also love the main story that I've prepared for episode 130. I also loved it. Right. Just let the tenses wash over you. It's fine.

The time loops are fucking with me here. I forgot. We become unseeded in. in temporal reality when we come to Cordova Street to tape these episodes in person. It's hard. We're going to cam loops through a time loop. Yeah. Oh, wow.

Time loops. See how I looped. You are really on top of your shit. I was saying being in person and like, I don't know. I'm feeling flow state. Yeah, you've entered the zone, as they call it. Now, Josie, you may be in the zone, but have you ever been to Colona? Some call it the zone of BC's Okanagan Valley.

No, I don't know. You're wondering if it was Camloops or Colonna? Classic. Even I, Taylor Basso, make this mistake commonly. Commonly. Commonly. Yeah. We'll be in Camloops in some of that footage that they just listened to.

It's true. It's true. But at this moment in the time loop, I'm going to say no. When you look back to what is the CA City that you went to your heart tells you Camloops. That's probably more likely. I think it's like a little bit of a closer drive. Yeah. Colonna, however, is BC's third largest city after Vancouver and Victoria.

Okay. Population of about 166,000. I was supposed to make you guess that, but I just got excited because it's Colonna, baby. It's where our story takes place today. Partially, it's located in the interior of BC and more specifically on the shores of Lake Okanagan, in BC's Okanagan Valley, ancestral home of the Seah, Okanagan people. Half an hour away from Colonna along the shores of that very same lake, we find the smaller community of Peachtland. Cute.

Population, 5,800 or so. But how many peaches? Overflowing, one imagines. Certainly the name evokes the delicious stone fruit the region is known for. And just off the coast of Peachtland, in the waters of the imposing Lake Okanagan, we find a tiny, rocky desert island. Love me an island. Set against the backdrop of Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park And about 135 kilometers a lake

Damn, that's a big little lake Big ass lake, Lake Okanagan, big, large and in charge, a Skookum Lake Welcome to Rattlesnake Island Ooh, baby, I love it Delighted when that's where your story takes place, huh? This sells itself Yeah, this is nice eating a peach on the shores of Rattlesnake Island Watch out for Rattlesnakes

That's what the sign said. They'll eat your peaches Storn and all. Are there really rattlesnakes on there? Yes-ish. Okay. No more than anywhere else in the dry Okinawagin, I assume. Okay. The island name more likely comes from the invasive rattlesnake grass that covers it.

Oh, okay. I've heard. As is said. It is spoken into lore. One of only two islands in Lake Okinawagon and the main one by far. The other one is supposed to be not particularly significant. Okay. Fuck that other island.

Fuck it. We're not talking about that island. Rattlesnake Island is covered in the kind of desert scrub that's typical of the area's arid environment. It's small, 1.8 hectares, and there's not much in the way of trees. Paradoxically, Rattlesnake Island is an uninhabited island that's known for its inhabitants. Oh. There are, of course, the rattlesnakes. Snakes have been spotted on Rattlesnake Island.

More famously, the island is said to be home to Ogo Pogo. Wow. Okay. The mythical serpentine lake monster we chatted about back in another BC road trip episode number 77, the right side of the tracks. The rumored creature in Lake Okanagan is known as the water spirit and ha haiku to the local Okanagan First Nation. When settlers came around, they established the Ogopogo moniker and Ogo underwent a touristification. Josie, what are your recollections, feelings, and thoughts about Ogo Pogo? Ogo Pogo, in my brain wears a rainbow squid hat.

I was wearing the rainbow squid hat when I introduced you to Ogopogo in that episode. Yeah, yeah. Well, maybe this will help. Yes, and the postcard. This is a new postcard. Josie, tell me more about what is Ogopogo. What does it look like? What is its lore?

So from what I remember, it has a similarity or some similarities to the Loch Ness Monster. Yep. In that very large, a few dozen meters long, serpentine, somewhat snake-like, dragon-like, lizard-like, you know, that's that. Undulating humps. Yes, yes, that's how it's moving through the water and it's reported as like, you know, the up and down. According to the postcard, the documentary photography. Yes. According to stills of the creature.

It's green and it's got little flippers and a long tongue. and just generally seems like a good, a good guy. Yeah. We've made him cute as a tourist thing, I think. Ogopogo used to strike fears into the hearts, but now he's just like a nice guy for your postcards. Come to like Ogopogo ice cream by Lake Okanogun or whatever and get a little ogle popsicle or whatever they're selling, you know, that kind of thing.

Yeah. He's, we like Ogopo, he's a tourist draw. Yeah, and the postcard is definitely speaking that language. Well, Old Pogues is said to live on Rattlesnake Island in an underwater cavern beneath the lake's surface, and as a result, many locals refer to the place, not as Rattlesnake Island, but as Ogo Pogo Island. Oh, okay. But the most famous and infamous inhabitant of the island is neither a rattlesnake nor a sea serpent. It's a dude. Josie, it's a dude.

Although many have accused him of being another kind of snake. a snake oil salesman, a charlatan, attempting to bend a local community to his will and destroy a fragile ecosystem for his personal gain. Others have called him a misguided visionary, a civil rights martyr, a master storyteller, violent, unbalanced, a loudmouth, a terrorist, an unworthy father and husband. Wow, the pendulum just keeps swinging all different directions. Like Ogopogo's humps, it undulates. Yes. How can one man embody so many conflicting impulses?

Hero, clone, villain, an anti-hero all at once. No clones, Josie. Clone-free this time. I guess our very first episode was clones. Yeah, dog-clothes. I thought I was joking, but, you know, there's precedent. How does this man heralded as a Canadian immigrant success story

serve as both a harrowing example of the dangers of self-destruction, as well as a scathing indictment of. a provincial government and its failures. How does one man's humble dream of building an Arabian theme park on a small private island in B.C.'s Okanagan lead to 33 people being taken hostage with AK-47s at Canada's embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. What the fuck? The pendulum just like, it just like launched off of the mechanism and it's like an outer space,

that pendulum. What the fuck? Josie, I'm about to tell you the story of one of the Okanagan's, most mysterious, notorious, and little understood figures. Let me introduce you to the Ogo Pogo of People, Eddie Hamor, the king of Rattlesnake Island. Eddie, Eddie, Eddie, let's go! So this story bears a little bit of a resemblance to the one that you covered last episode

about a man who starts to conceive of a micronation on a sunken island, basically, off California's. Western Coast, which is its main and only coast. So we'll do the California road trip next once they stop putting people in jail for comparing J.T. Vance to Humpty Dumpty. Sort of this idea of someone in search of legacy and legacy comes in the form of like otherwise seemingly non-notable island. Yes. Yeah. Do you know this story?

I know. And I, to be honest, because you told me. Colonna. Told you stay out of Colonna, that's my turf for this. This is how we avoid doing the same thing. Yeah, when we have location-based themes. But then I thought it was Camloops. And then I thought I knew the story you had selected based off of incorrect location. Right.

And then I thought, well, oh, no, I do know. Oh, it's Colona. I do know what he's going to tell the story of. But it was neither. It was neither. And here we are with Eddie. If you had a better memory and thank God you don't. Oh, God.

Right. What a relief. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, baby. It's a real thing. Imagine the things I would remember. Don't even think about it. Forget about it. You already have. Back in episode 77, the right side of the tracks, when we talked about Ogopogo. Yes. I mentioned at the very end of that, that in my turning over rocks, I had found some worms, sort of like what we were talking about before with your Alcatraz story, where you found something a little bat shit that you were interested in unpacking further. I mentioned in that episode. that I had found this story of Eddie Haymore and the island that Ogopogo lives on and that when the time was right, I would return. And here we are. The time is right. As unseated as we are in time in the 604 studios with these time loops. We are.

Thankfully, this isn't Camloops. This is Colonna. So one of my favorite things about doing research for this podcast is all of these little oddball individual streaming services that you find that give you things for free. educational and interesting things for free, that you look at them and you're like, how is this possibly profitable? Well, I found another one. We love the how is this possibly profitable situation.

We live there. That's our own. That's true. This podcast is not profitable. Although, honestly, we come pretty close now with coffee donations. Thank you so much. I found a website called knowledge.ca as in Canada. I do.

I used that last BC round. Did you? For your typewriter? Yeah. I found that to be a great resource for, like, Canadian content, documentaries by, for, and about Canada. Yeah. And very, very relevant to what I was looking for today, which was that it was host to a really great documentary from 2019 by a guy called Greg Crompton. That's the director.

And the documentary is called Eddie's Kingdom. and it's the story of this island and everything that, well, I should say it's the story of Eddie Hamor's entanglement with this island and everything that spills out from it. Also used a really good source by a journalist named Omar Mualem, an article he originally wrote for 18 Bridges magazine. It's now an Edify Edmonton. I'll shout that out in the credits as I do. And yeah, a lot of fun to research and this story is really something.

It excited me as a storyteller learning the particulars. Nice. Oh, I love when stories surprise you. Yeah. Last thing, some of the numbers are weird in this as insofar as like specific years, specific amounts of time. Okay. Was it six or seven years? Was it, you know, 11 or 12 months? Was it, was it 1930 or 1930? You know, these are the questions. And I can't promise you that the answers that I'm giving you are exactly right because numbers varied in a lot of my sources. Numbers just kind of wash over me anyway. I'm not taking those particulars, don't you? I try to not spread misinformation. There's too much. Elon.

In my listening. Let me say. In my listening. I see. In my storytelling, I do try it. Thank you. Okay. I count for that.

In the year 1930, Eddie Hamor was born Muhammad Yamor to a Muslim father and a Christian mother in the Baccah Valley of Lebanon, an agricultural region dotted with hills, lakes, and Roman ruins. Fun. Yeah. What's a road trip there next? Sweet. It's going to, I don't know if they've built that bridge across the Atlantic yet, but once they do, once they do, we're going to be the first ones on it. When Eddie was a young man, the family moved to Beirut, the country's capital, and Eddie became a barber.

He immigrated to Canada in 1955 when he was 24, according to Eddie, and by all means, take anything according to Eddie with an island's worth of salt. He made $17 cutting hair on the ship over to Halifax showing his drive and entrepreneurial spirit. Wow, that's a lot for 1950s. Josie, guess how much $17 in 1955 Canadian dollars is now after inflation? Five. $198 in 21 cents. Oh my God. Makes you really take pause when you order from Uber Eats and it costs you fucking $17 in fees, huh?

Yeah, truly. Eventually, Eddie finds himself in Edmonton, capital of Alberta, where he claims he gained employment by going from barbershop to barbershop with a note that read, me, barber. He opens his own barbershop, which becomes a huge success, and he pays that success forward by training and employing his relatives. Is this why you got a haircut for this story? No, I just wanted, one must have like a nice kind of flow mullet when one is embarking on a Canadian trip, no? This is true. Am I crazy? No, no, you're not.

You're not. I'll make sure to wash my jean jacket, too. Yeah. Eddie's business called Four Haymores becomes a local landmark in 1960s, Edmonton. Soon, Eddie opens hairdressing schools, including schools for women to cut men's hair, very forward-thinking and even sensual in a time where decency laws don't let men and women go to the same bars. Oh, okay. So you can have, like, a woman come in and, like, play with your hair a bit.

You know, that's very... In the 1950s? 60s? Oh, my gosh. The schools are as successful as the original business. and Eddie becomes a celebrated mogul, whining and dining the big shots of the era. He's especially well known as a raconteur and engaging an evocative storyteller. His 1960 citizenship party, which he calls the best day of his life,

is a lavish affair, Middle Eastern themed with belly dancers and 250 guests, including two city mayors and the lieutenant governor and health minister of Alberta. You know, we got to celebrate. You got to celebrate the things that matter to you. Yeah. Yeah. At the event, the provincial secretary raises a toast. a promise. I can assure Eddie that he will never be disappointed with Canada. Okay. That feels

like it might be out of your control here pretty soon. In terms of his styling, Eddie is a debonair cat who cuts a suave profile. And he favors the rap pack influenced styles at the time, pomade dinner jackets, the works. Spats. Ooh, yeah, got to have a good set of spats before. I think of Uncle Scrooge. He wore spats. You know what I mean? Oh, yeah. And that was a well-dressed duck. He never went out. He was, Uncle Scrooge wasn't chucking on gray sweats to go, you know, pick up some donuts. Formerly educated at Fred Astaire Dance Studios. Eddie loves a night out at dance hall, and it is at a dance hall that he meets the woman who will become his wife.

An Alberta farm girl turned waitress named Lorraine Jansen. Together they have four children, Lee, Pamela, Michelle, and Troy. Unfortunately, as can be the case with these self-made millionaire types, Eddie ignores family for work, and as such, he loses his family. Eddie and Lorraine separate with Lorraine taking primary custody of the kids and Eddie becoming weekend dad. One weekend while dadding, Eddie takes the kids to the zoo. Afterwards takes them to get their haircut. Their passport photos taken. They get their plane tickets.

And they are off to Lebanon where our boy fast Eddie intends to keep them permanently. Wait, yeah. No, that you can't, huh? What? Don't you have to have like both parents permission? Now some fuddy dutties might call this kidnapping. Oh. But Eddie resents that label, comparing it to more of a family holiday.

Okay. Yes, they're my kids who kidnap your own kids. You can't kidnap your own kid. I feel like most kidnappings are apparent. The children who are placed in a strange boarding school certainly don't see it as a holiday. With kids Lee and Michelle both speaking out about the trauma of the event and how the older siblings confused and frightened were forced to take care of the younger. Oh, no. Yeah.

Finally, Lorraine decides that she wants. wants your kids back and she'll do whatever it takes to get them, even if it means flying to Lebanon and reconciling with Eddie. Old school marriages, man, anything but divorce. Oh, no, no. They stayed together, damn it, for better or worse. It was part of the vows, right? As part of their reunion in 1970, the Hamores decide to sell everything, leave Edmonton and make a fresh start in a brand new city. I'm going to guess that it's somewhere NBC. Starts with a K. Knock camloops. It's Kelowna. No, Josie Kamloops.

Oh, it's Kamloops? No, it's Kelowna. I got you. I got you. It's true. Beautiful Kelona, British Columbia, whose climate and ecology remind Eddie of his native Lebanon. Oh, yeah, that makes sense.

That would be nice. Wait, so they did, the kids are no longer in Lebanon. The mom has come back and agreed to patch it up with Eddie in order to keep the family together. That poor woman. Oh, yeah. God help you. Good on you. In Kelona, they build a brand new home.

and Eddie looks toward a new project to harness his considerable creative and entrepreneurial energy. He finds that passion project when he takes the family to Rattlesnake Island off the coast of Beechland. The kids enjoy splashing around and Eddie is enraptured by the island's simple desolate beauty. It's love at first sight. Eddie purchases the privately owned island for $10,000, which is around $81,000 in 2025 Canadian money. I mean, that's a lot. For an island, an island of one's own. Yes, for an island of one's own.

Does it appeal to you the purchasing of the small island if you had the funds? Yes and no. I love an island. Who doesn't love an island? But it doesn't have any running water. Like, that's, you know, there's no, all the work. It feels like a lot of work. You can install it for and a heartache.

But if you got private island money. That's true. Bittersweet private island. Is that what you're proposing? Down on one knee? Oh my God. Taylor. Let's buy an island.

How about this? In these Epstein-influenced times, I'm going to be very cautious of what I put on recording about the acquisition of private islands. Oh, okay. Okay. So we won't start the coffee campaign. Not yet. Okay. Not officially.

Not on, not in print anywhere. Right. But if you do want to head over to coffee. Coffee.com. K-O-hy.com slash beer. BeersuMe. Suggest a movie or an island for us to purchase. Now, the average man might be content to have his little piece of land out in Lake Okanagan

to enjoy with the wife and the kids and their kids when they get older. Maybe you build a little dock or some minor amenities. Get that plumbing installed you were talking about. Outdoor kitchen. There you go. A chimenea. Hell, maybe you even build a vacation home. But Eddie Haymore is no average man.

Nope. For Eddie Rattlesnake Island represents something bigger. A chance to marry his Middle Eastern roots with his chosen Canadian culture. to entertain local families while also educating them, to build a legacy for himself and his family that will endure in the area long after he's gone. Why are you breathing so deeply? I just know it's going to hit something ridiculous.

No. What better way to accomplish these goals than by building a bespoke original theme park on a small uninhabited island in Lake Okanagan? That's the way you do it. Josie, let me introduce you to Eddie Hamer's brainchild. child, Moroccan Shadu, which is in spite of that very specific geographical name, kind of a Pan-Arabian theme part.

Anywhere the Arabs kind of were at one point or the Muslims or anything, like that, just general feeling it out. Yeah, some good tile work. Yes, yes, yes. Beautiful patterns, geometric design type of patterns. Planned amenities include a complete 18-hole mini golf course where the front nine holes are themed after nine different countries, so pyramid hole for Egypt, mini Taj Mahal for India, so on. And then the back nine holes are to be constructed upon small floating man-made

islands that surround Rattlesnake Island. So what I said before about there are two islands in Lake Okanagan, not for long, folks. Uh-uh. Not after Eddie gets the handle on things. Replica mosques and minarets, fountains, restaurants, Middle Eastern movie tent. Oh. as well as Arabian night style storytellers every 20 feet. Oh. Which feels a bit cluttered when you're also trying to play 18 minigoth holes, but I'm sure they imagine ears will work it out. I'm already feeling like claustrophobic.

The many things that Eddie intends to put on this island, the more the walls are going to feel like they're closing. Yeah. That 1.8 hectares go as fast in the planning stages. Let me tell you. This one's my favorite. A 30 foot tall concrete camel whose stomach is full of ice cream. What's not registering for you?

What can I help you with? Is ice cream just like permanently there? 39 flavors. You buy it and like comes out a little teats? Like what's happening? Great questions. Okay. Eddie is a man of vision rather than a man of logistics for much of this.

Right, right. A man of dreams and perhaps not of logic. Nice dreams and ice creams is what this guy's got. And from what I can tell from like the diagrams, like the sketches. Yeah. I think it's like ladder up into the hollow tummy of the camel where I've got to think there's got to be, it's got to be like an ice cream shop. There's got to be a distribution system. It should be loose up there for the kids to finger pain into a brown like that won't work.

There's a lot of questions. I see that now. Well, let me answer some of them for you. There will also be music coming from his mouth. camel's mouth, you know, entice people in, a reverse telescope in his eyes and a garbage disposal in his rear end. Oh. And I assume that means like get rid of the garbage as opposed to like a garberator. Yeah. Because that feels dangerous. Yeah. I don't know if the tech was there in the 70s. And so consider that as a neighbor too, the idea of like a 30 foot tall camel that's

screaming music all the time. And farting trash. Yeah. Farting trash. Maybe not, you know, the HOA might have something to say about that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course, since the island is infamously said to be home to your boy right there on the microphone stand, Ogo Pogo. Pogo. The park will feature a submarine to bring visitors to the bottom of the lake where an animatronic Ogo Pogo will speak to them, you know, speak to the children in the sub. Okay. Oh, hi. What's you doing down here? I almost didn't see you there. I was seen another submarine. You weren't been in that submarine. before, were you? Okay, different folks, different folks. Well, welcome. I guess I'll just

go through my whole spiel then again. Welcome to Lake Ogunnoggin. Can I get you something? The camel's got ice cream upstairs. Yeah, that's kind of, like, they don't really say what Ogapoga is going to tell him. So that's just, that's my best effort. That's it. Exactly. You know that. Thrill with his big plans, Eddie invites the Chamber of Commerce and the local Peachtland community to a meeting where he presents his plans for Moroccan Shadu. Is Shadu part of a place name? I tried and I tried. We don't.

It's just a sound, good sounding. Shaboo. It's not a word in Arabic from what I can tell. So I don't know. Shubi. Shaboo. Shadu. Yeah.

I get it. I get it. Make up the words. Let him fly. According to one person in attendance at this public meeting, a guy named Des Lone, Eddie tells the audience that they can remember his name. Eddie Haymore by remembering more hay, more hay for me,

more hay for you, as in we'll all be eaten good after I set up this theme. We're a rising tide, Josie lifts all boats. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yeah. And some submarines too. What do you think of this plan? It sounds ambitious. Okay.

It sounds like maybe there's some more nuts and bolts to consider, some of the practical. Nuts for sure. elements. Yeah. Let's divest ourselves from the logistics of a 30-foot tall ice cream camel for a moment. Ice cream bellied shit, trash, and a camel. Let's just say that this is an Arabian-themed park with some mini-golf amenities and maybe some other fun things for the kids. What do you think? So we're about to become tourists in BC's interior. Absolutely. I came across this. I would probably make us go.

Yeah, Moroccan what Shadu, you would say, what? Don't mind if I should do. There you go. There you go. But I also, you know, co-host a podcast about infamy, so I think I'm a select audience here. So I would wonder who is coming to this thing. People who want to learn more about Middle Eastern culture. Well, are they going to find that in the Okanagan?

What? I mean, that is the thing, too, is that, like, this is at the time probably, like, majority European settler, immigrant Christian community. That's right. Yeah. But perhaps that makes it all the more urgent to expose these people to something else. Okay. Yes.

Anything else, really. But you wouldn't be alone in that sort of reaction when it comes to, like, other Peachland residents. A lot of people were like, you know, do we want this ode to? I guess a culture that we don't perceive as ours or don't perceive as being like local to the region. And to be clear, like, I think that that is cool and that would be fun. But I'm just thinking from like a communications and marketing standpoint. Right, right, right. How do you sell that?

Riyadh on Okinaw and Lake. Yeah. Or Casablanca, I guess, is probably more accurate. Yeah, yeah. Shaboo, the Moroccan Shibu, the whole Moroccan Shibu of it all. So Eddie finds a few supporters in Peachtland, including the mayor, but he also finds a lot of skeptics. and detractors.

Most cite concerns over the area's delicate ecosystem. Eddie is talking not only about developing the island, but running a regular ferry over to bring hundreds of guests per day, with all the environmental damage that entails. There's also the sense that many Peachlanders simply find the idea tacky and don't want to look at this eyesore 30-foot tall ice cream camel against the backdrop of a beautiful provincial park. I mean, to each their own, you know?

Finally, there is a sense of xenophobia. if not outright racism, in some of the reactions to Hamer's idea. This is the time of the Arab-Israeli war, Palestinian hijackings of airplanes. Western media depictions of the Arab world tend to be pretty unforgiving. And as you mentioned, this is perhaps an area that predominantly white settlers, especially at this time. Overwhelmingly, was and still is. Was and still is. Okay, yeah.

And some of its more conservative residents may not have had the same enthusiastic approach to cultural exchanges at Heymour or seen the appropriateness of an ode to Arabia on Lake Okinaw. Well, now I'm all for camel ice cream. I want it. Undeterred because haters will hate and because he already bought the island. Eddie sets about the construction of his master project. And by construction, I mean, he hires an odd job guy from the mainland called Peter Rabbit to level the island and start building some mini golf holes.

Everyone has nicknames. Everyone has a nickname. It's true. Yeah. Yeah, Peter Rabbit, you got to get to do the Shaboo. The Great Pyramid is barely erected. when Eddie begins to encounter red tape and obstacles to construction. His permits are denied and the island which he'd previously bought unzoned

is rezoned so that nothing can be built there. Oh, that's a bit tricky. Unpack. Well, I just, if that's the way he bought it, then isn't that zoning kind of grandfathered in at a certain point? Or, you know, couldn't you say like in 10 years time? You give somebody some runway on that? Yeah, put a pin in that.

That's going to end up being a, not surprisingly, a really important thought. as this case plays out. Yeah. The zoning of this island. And I'll know I'm coming from Houston where we infamously have no zoning. That's why I live right across the street from a car repair shop. Colonna is sort of the zone of Okinawagon Valley. Eddie is not allowed to install a septic system or a dock for boats.

And he suspects that these obstructions originate from Peachtland resident Desloan, an opponent to Moroccan chadu. And as it happens, the brother-in-lawful. law of BC's Minister of Health Services, Ray Lothmark. Oh, small communities. So he thinks that Desloan is like pulling some strings, calling in some favors. And the way Eddie sees it, this is a government conspiracy. The whole government is in on this.

Yeah, all the way to... Goes all the way to the top. With individual branches collaborating to ensure the demise of an immigrant's dream. By Eddie's logic, the conspiracy must go all the way to the very top of the provincial government. To the top. To the top with longtime BC Premier WACB. Bennett, who's riding of Okinaw and Similkameen includes Rattlesnake Island leading the charge.

But again, haters will hate and what's a little government obstruction in the name of achieving intercultural unity? Eddie continues with his plans while slowly being bled dry financially by the various court cases that spring up as a result of the zoning changes in denied permits. Puts on a little preview for the locals in which 6 to 700 people are barged across on a quote-unquote unsinkable ferry. Oh, oh, no, we know how that goes. know how that goes, to meet the island and play a couple rounds on whatever mini-golf

holes have been completed. Mother Nature is apparently on Desloan's side. A huge storm puts a damper on the event and results in the RCMP, needing to shuttle stranded passengers back and forth across the choppy lake. Barfing over the edge, I bet. While Eddie develops Ryl Snake Island, he falls victim to the same obsessions and bad habits that led him to neglect his family in Edmonton, so it should be no surprise that his relationship with Lorraine and the kids once again falls apart as he fully engrosses

himself in his new cause. As money dwindles, the haemores take on borders at their home to make ends meet. And one day, Eddie accuses Lorraine of having an affair with one of the borders, which Lorraine adamantly denies. The incident becomes... I mean, you probably should have, though, Lorraine. Yeah. The incident becomes physical when Eddie attacks Lorraine, and the children are left to unscrew the hinges on the lock door and rush to their mother's defense. The police are called. Lorraine and the kids leave for Edmonton and Eddie is left by his lonesome in Colonna to stew in not only the consequences of his actions

but his general rage especially after his house burns down which he takes to be another act of persecution in the conspiracy against him. Now we know our man Eddie can be single-minded in his focus explosive in his anger and Machiavellian in his methods. This combination of quality sees him spending more and more time plotting increasingly elaborate and violent revenge schemes.

Directed to where people like his estranged wife, Lorraine, that snitch Desloan, and the government bigwigs standing between him, his island, and their shared destiny. As Eddie says in a press conference, if he isn't able to develop Rattlesnake Island, he will drink human blood and eat human flesh to mark a black day for Canada. So that was on record? He called a press conference. He called a press conference. He blew out some candles on a cake symbolically to represent his kids who weren't talking to him.

I think it was one of their birthdays. And then he'd the flesh and drink the blood. Oh, wow. There's just a lot going on there. I don't know to love it or to hate it or to, I just keep listening. That's what I'm going to do. Around this time, Eddie meets a guy named Ralph Shoughton in a local diner and the two of them become friends. Being Eddie's friend means spending a lot of emotional equity, listening to him real on and on about the government conspiracy, his wife stealing the kids from him and so on.

He's that kind of friend. He's that kind of friend. You're going to be spending some time talking him off the left. It means doing drive-bys of Premier WAC Bennett's house while Eddie expresses that he wishes someone would blow it up. It means hearing Eddie explain how he'll bomb Okanagan Lake Bridge with grenades purchased illegally from Russia or disfigure his ex-wife Lorene by throwing acid in her face.

Oh, no, that's no, uh-uh. Blow up the brakes, don't do that. Josie has lines in the sand and they're very firm. Acid to the face is one of them, yes. That's fair enough, that's fair enough. And it means catching up with Eddie after a trip back to Lebanon to hear that he has brought back six letter bombs, which he intends to mail to key players in the case.

And unfortunately, Freddie Hamer, Ralph Shouten, is an RCMP informant. He's buddy. No new friends, folks. Stick to the ones you love. So the RCMP was like, this guy's getting a little mouthy, and like we're going to get somebody on the inside with that?

Is that pretty much shit? That's a way that you could interpret it, yeah? They clearly thought that they needed like a man on him. You could also say entrapment. You could make that case. Seems like if Eddie's column press conferences and... To talk about the flesh eating and the blood drinking? Yeah, that's fair.

Used to be ice cream. We took the camel for granted, man. Yeah, yeah. We really escalated quickly. That's interesting. And I mean, it is acknowledging or it is confirming the conspiracy theory all the way to the top. The RCMP is befriending you like that. Yeah, that would seem to play into that.

too? Yeah. Eddie is arrested. The crown brings 37 charges against him, including manufacturing letter bombs, plotting to bomb a bridge in several cars, and conspiring to hijack an airplane. Oh, man. You didn't know we were getting into airplane hijacking in this one. Didn't see that coming. You thought we were just going for a nice round of mini golf in Colonna. I thought he was going to get some ice cream out. I mean, you thought it was Camloops, honestly. Yeah, true. Surprises all the way around. Eddie protests his innocence, claiming that his alleged terroristic threats were nothing but venting and bluster, blowing off steam.

Right, yeah. And that his so-called letter bomb confession was actually a slip of the tongue. Quote, I used the words, I brought with me six letter bombs. That's the biggest mistake I made. I should have said six letters as strong as a bomb. In reality, I had six letters from heads of government in support of me. So he has indeed gotten big name letters of support for the park, including the endorsement of a former prime minister of Lebanon.

While the Crown claims the letters were realistically assembled thuds, Eddie insists he merely packaged the letters with weighty cloth in order to deliberately give them the impression of mailed explosives as a sort of intimidation tactic. It's called a simile. Come on. Nothing illegal about mail and cloth, by the way, sweethearts mummies do it all the time.

The Crown pursues its charges but is ultimately only able to make one of 37 accounts stick possession of brass knuckles, which Eddie says are child-sized versions that he brought back from Lebanon as souvenirs for his sons, which sounds ridiculous, but like, people kind of vouch for that. Like, I think that might actually be the truth in this case. But it's still brass knuckles, though. Yeah.

Like, if it's an offense to have brass knuckles, he still has, no matter the size. Eddie and his lawyer don't expect this to come to much. Probation, time served, something like that. He's been in jail for like seven months over this already while the trial plays out. Oh, okay. So imagine their shock when the crown, rather than arguing Hamor's guilt, argues that Haymore is not guilty by reason of insanity. You dead-eyed me on that. That was good.

There you go. Working on the eye contact folks, especially since you're in person. This is an extremely unconventional approach as the prosecution in Canada as in the U.S. It's typically shooting for a guilty verdict. Yeah. And wouldn't that be your defense? It's like, I'm, I'm a little bit of shit. I don't know what I'm talking about. Is this Camloops? What's going on? Weird. What does that mean?

Rather than probation and time served, Eddie Haymore now faces indefinite captivity at Riverview Hospital in Coquitland, British Columbia. Oh my gosh, the Poco insane asylum. Tell me about your reaction to Riverview because infamous, right? Yes, indeedly. To say the least. Yeah. Sanatorium, maybe is what it would have been called.

But like for folks who were struggling with mental illness, they were dumped in a very ill-equipped situation of Riverview Hospital and it was in commission until this like relatively recently yeah 2010s oh wow yeah okay in the local lore it's known to be haunted of course and that unstable folks without the proper help are known to you know break out and cause havoc I mean, you have that camping story where Anne-Marie told you this terrifying... I do have a camping story. I have a note to mention. I didn't know that I'd mention this to you before.

Yeah. As Josie says, this is a place that lives on in infamy when you think about the sort of like stereotypical trope of like a frightening mental hospital. Let's call it an insane asylum because it sort of evokes a pre-woke time where we knew about words like mental illness and diagnostic criteria. And it's more just about like, are you criminally insane? If so, we'll lock you up and we can do whatever we want to you. Creepy dolls and, like, breathing in the night. Has fallen into disrepair and become haunted lobotomies and shock treatments. And that's true.

That there were lobotomies. There were shock treatments. And certainly this will be at the top of mind for, you know, Eddie Hamor when he's. Yeah. The lobotomy top of mind. I know. I caught it as, yeah. And so because of that, it's acquired this huge infamous reputation such that when

my brother and I were little, my mom took us camping. I don't think my dad was there. I think we might have been going with like maybe one of her friends and their kids. I think we drove past Riverview on the way to wherever we were going and she decided that she was going to be Billy Big Boots and she was going to creep out her kids with a great classic campfire story. Get them. Get their asses, Anna Maria. I don't know if you're going to want to say that when you hear about how it ends up booming ranging on her. But she definitely made the attempt to get our asses. With the sort of textbook, there's a creepy escape lunatic from the madhouse and he's going to, he hitchhikes and he comes and, yeah, attacks little boys who camp with their mothers,

you know, that kind of vibe. I appreciated the effort. It didn't frighten me per se because I could tell my mom was just making it up. Yeah. Later on, though, my brother and I were sleeping in the back of the explorer and Anna Maria had her own tent and as she just freaked the fuck out of herself with that one, I think. She got in her head, yeah. Came knocked on the window, said, hey, can I get in there with you and Corey?

And y'all said Fuck no Down the little lock The little manual lock You know her, Corey I don't fucking know her She might be that escaped Insane Asylum patient

We heard about Can never be too careful It's due up the windows And lock the doors on her And she went back to her little tent And she survived the nade Although not without much consternation I'm sure

You kind of did it to yourself Anna Maria But you know what How is that not her exact chickens Coming home to Roos I'm sorry On team Anna Maria You can be there

Thank you I will Tell her I said hi. Quoting, Penny Dafflose for CTV News with Mal paraphrasing, Riverview was originally called the Hospital for the Mind on Mount Coquitlam and was named Essendale when it fully opened in 1913. It initially housed only men, women were later included in all patients were compelled to undertake manual labor, described as occupational therapy, which purportedly helped manage their symptoms, but also supported the facilities, operations, and financial position,

according to a history compiled by the city of Coquitlam. Many of these patients lived their entire life there. So presumably I had to do this very long time. This is a time before medication for a lot of diagnoses that we take for granted in the modern era. So it was very much the thing that like if you were having like serious mental issues, this is where you go to live and get taken care of forever. Like the chance of rehabilitation and reintegration into society was relatively low. And this is where Eddie was being sent. Yeah, it was going to be sent.

At least if the crown got its way. More on Riverview. Some patients were subject to treatments and therapy. is considered unconscionable by today's medical standards, shock therapy, insulin-induced comas and hydrotherapy that included hours exposed to or blasted with hot or cold water. Hundreds of patients were sterilized against their will and awarded compensation decades later, says Laura Johnston, legal director of health justice. Many people who were detained at Riverview in the past identify as survivors.

They were there against their will and they were not allowed to leave. Riverview used mechanical and chemical restraints and many other practices that were considered controversial and criticized even at the time that they were being used. Riverview, which got its name changed in 1965, peaked in population around 4,700 patients in the 50s after the trauma of the war. Patients began getting discharged in waves in the 1980s, which is kind of what you were thinking. Yeah. With many ending up in Vancouver's downtown east side where issues around mental illness and

addiction persist. Yeah. Riverview formally closed in 2012 and the site is now home to an addiction treatment facility. The name was also changed to Similaquilla in 2021 in reconciliation with. the local indigenous communities. Nonetheless, Riverview Hospital is the name that lives on an infamy, sure to send chills down the spine of any BC resident,

especially when you're camping alone, and then it gets pretty intense. I've used that one before, but it's good enough to use twice. Oh, we're going on a BC road trip. Let me re-wear this out there. That's not going to be the last time we hear. Oh, we're going to be in a lot of tense, I suspect. Past tense, present tense, future tense, all the tense.

So not fancying a one-way ticket to an infamously brutal mental hospital, Eddie Haymore finally relents and sells Rattlesnake Island back to the provincial government for the meager sum of $40,000, far less than he's already invested. So he's like basically the day after it becomes clear that he is going to be sent to Riverview. He's like, let's just settle this. Yeah. Riverview really did it. He wants to put an amicable end to the tension between him and the government to put a bit of money back in his pocket as his fortune's weighing in legal bills amount. and most importantly, to avoid what could be a lifetime stay at Riverview.

Quote, I would sell the island for a dollar if it could get me out. That's wise. That's contrary. Not crazy? Yeah, contrary to what the crown is electing. Very sane. The government buys Eddie's Island and Judge George Denroche consigns Eddie to Riverview to. No.

Yeah. What? Yeah. That's unfair. Life's not fair. That's unfair. Life's not fair, baby. oh my gosh no one said the justice system was equally fair to everyone well that's certainly true

although there are documents that claim that but whatever important ones even wait i mean we even said like how sane to recognize that if that's going to be the prosecution then you change your tactic and you listen and okay and also lifetime in a psychiatric institution over possession of child size brass knuckles how do you feel about that one absolutely not no no no that's jewelry at that point, excuse me? That's horrible. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

Eddie Hamor spends the next year of his life at Riverview Hospital. When he enters, he's naturally frightened by the facility's reputation, but he's able to survive his incarceration. He cuts hair and runs an arts and crafts club, building a high-density miniature of his mock-up for Moroccan Shadu. Oh, okay. Okay. Time most spent.

He focuses on his plans to recover his family and his island, or at the very least, go down in a ball of fire spiting his enemies. Revenge remains on Eddie's mind, even more so now that he's imprisoned. Imagine Eddie's luck when a new patient at Riverview informs Eddie that he is merely faking mental illness on the advice of his lawyer to avoid imprisonment for weapons smuggling. Oh. For $50, Eddie obtains two grenades. And upon his release, he puts into motion his vengeance. Okay, so the sentencing did come with a release from Riverview. He was able to get released on a rid of habeas corpus with the help of his lawyer. Okay.

And implicitly, Eddie claims that part of it was that he said he would go to Beirut and leave Canada. He's like, I'll just leave. We had to kind of talk our way out of this, but after about a year of this, we're able to talk our way out. Yeah. That also makes this original sentencing so gross. It's like, if you really thought that this man needed mental health support. Then he shouldn't be able to talk his way out that easy by being like, yeah, in a year I got sane. Eddie travels to the city of Victoria

on Vancouver Island, province's capital in the seat of our legislature. Eddie's plan is to wait for Parliament to be in session before lobbing one grenade into each side. Okay.

You know, government, opposition. Opposition didn't do enough about this, you know? Right, yeah, yeah. And then waiting for the police to swarm so he can effectively commit suicide by cop. However, the night before he executes his plan, he shares a tender moment in the hotel room with his girlfriend Mirna,

and he realizes he can't put her through the fallout of his mission. what he does instead isn't much more chivalrous. He tells Mirna he needs to leave, flies back to Lebanon, and never sees her again. Mirna, that's probably for the best. Yeah. In the fall of 1976, Beirut Lebanon is in the opening salvos of a civil war that's been bubbling for a long time. And it will last the next 25 years.

That's too long. Too long. Keep your civil war shorter. You hear that Lebanon, Josie's got it figured out. You should have just taken less time. Just anybody, not pointing fingers at you, Lebanon. So this is Big Pit Joe Zies got globally applicable international affairs advice. You heard it here first.

In very brief, keeping it short as Josie is requested, Lebanon had existed in a sort of religious plurality with a population predominantly composed of Christians and Muslims. The demographic shifts following the arrival of displaced Palestinian Muslims following the Nakhba, along with polarization amid the Cold War, have created a crucible in which many different militias and militaries are jockeying for control of the country. Violence is frequent, alliances shift rapidly, and the threat of armed conflict is an everyday reality for the average Lebanese citizen. It's against the backdrop of an embattled Beirut that Eddie finally plays out his master plan. First, he rents an apartment directly across the street from the Canadian embassy. Reconnaissance. Always have eyes on the target. As part of his recon, Eddie begins meeting with a trade commissioner within the embassy under the pretext of negotiating a sale of construction materials. This is, of course, a lie that gives Eddie a clearer idea.

of the inner workings of this embassy, including the layout. Okay. Whoa, some real, like, Mission Impossible spy shit. This is the montage where the plan comes together. After canvassing about two dozen cousins, Eddie finds eight who are willing to, as he implores them, walk with me to die. Okay, my cousin came out of the woodwork and was like, hey, are you interested in walking with me to die?

No. They stock up on AK-47s and grenades, and they complete efficiency drills, like assembling the machine guns blindfolded. Cousins are pretty good at this, Barbara Eddie, not as much. Okay. Finally, on September 3rd, 1976, after half a decade of court cases, incarcerations, and false starts, Eddie Hamer finally springs his lavish scheme to enact his vengeance, clear his good name, get his kids back, and finally get started on that fucking 30-foot-tall

ice cream camel. And you know the bombing the Canadian embassies, that's, yeah, that's the first step, of course. No one said bombs, AK-47s, grenades. Excuse me, I'm sorry. Those are like, those are technically different. Yes. Eddie and his cousins enter the Canadian embassy. All the cousins are wearing pantyhos over their heads to disguise their identities.

Eddie is not because he wants people to know who's responsible for this. They split up and swarm the embassy, disabling the elevators. Eddie summons the highest ranking person at the embassy, Alan Sullivan, the Charger de Fair, which is Canadian for ambassador. Thank you. Sullivan has, at this point, been in the rule for six or seven weeks. So hopefully he's been cramming for the test. Sullivan and Eddie have a key difference in their accounts of this event Eddie claims he never shot his gun

Sullivan claims Eddie shot through the door and that he still has the bullet at home to prove it Either way with his AK-47 at the ready Eddie says Mr. Sullivan come here Sullivan approaches Eddie And Eddie leans in And softly, gently kisses him on the lips What the fuck?

According to Eddie I wanted to show I wanted to show them I'm not a bad guy. So I'm going to, without your consent, kiss you? No, he said, come here. Which is a command. It's the imperative. No question.

No, if you would like to. Well, much of Sullivan's staff do admit to losing their nervousness at this time, welcoming the distraction of their boss's confusion and horror at the smooch. It does sort of like defuse the situation a bit. When in doubt, just kiss somebody. Gentle kiss. Bite the lower lip a little. They love it.

Now that Eddie has convinced the room he's a softie, he orders them to telegram the police demanding satisfaction or someone will buy. He has four conditions. He wants his island back. He wants his money back. He wants his children brought to him. And he wants an in-person apology and declaration of his sanity

from the psychiatrist you pronounced him insane. And a kiss whenever he wants. A gentle peck on the lips to reestablish good relations. This is by definition an international incident takes place in an embassy. Yeah. But it escalates even further in that regard. Yasser Arafat of the Palestine Liberation Organization

allegedly tries to get Eddie killed. Before the intervention of Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, who talks Arafat down. The 8 million armies trying to lay claim to Beirut are swarming outside the embassy like heavily armed ants, each trying to big dick the situation and seize control in their various ways. As you do. Could this be the match that lights the tinder of the Beirut Civil War?

An unfinished mini-golf course on Ogopogo's roof. A Syrian general keeps orders outside while urging intermediary Sullivan to wrap it up. Sullivan, meanwhile, has received permission to negotiate in whatever way necessary, given that old Pierre Elliott is busy walking Yasser Arafat through some deep breathing exercises. It ain't worth it. It ain't worth it, Arafat. You got this. Hang in there. This is a distraction. Sullivan ultimately has the embassy's comms team fabricated telegram from Ottawa, offering in the vaguest, simplest words to do everything possible to assist.

Mr. Haymore in seeking justice. Eddie and his cousins accept these terms. Imprecise as they are. Yeah. And after nine hours, the hostage situation at the Canadian embassy in Beirut is brought to a close. All hostages are released unharmed. Eddie will soon find out that that vague, fake telegram isn't worth the paper it's printed on. Yeah, no.

But it's more or less a break-even. Because the crime wasn't committed in Canada, Canadian government can't prosecute. I guess that stuff about embassies counting as the country's soil isn't real. I thought you could like, yeah. No, probably not or at least not then. Yeah. And the Lebanese government simply doesn't care to pursue it further. They've got a lot going on right now.

Yeah, yeah. The mini-golf is the least of their concerns. For taking 33 people hostage with machine guns and grenades for nine hours at an international embassy, Eddie receives a misdemeanor charge. He is freed on $210 bail. He and his cousins now having a very colorful story to tell at family reunions. He returns to Canada. They'd lend them back in?

It wasn't a crime. God. I know, yeah, we must start hijacking some embassies, right? I'm rethinking the road trip a little bit here. This is what I'm saying. Let's stop in some places. Back in Canada, Eddie is granted a trial to prove his allegations of government conspiracy, but lawyers cost money, and Eddie now has none.

Yeah. Apparently during one of these court dates, Judge John Ferris makes some slight on Eddie to the effect of, oh, well, you're never going to make the money. Eddie gives him the middle finger and leaves the courtroom. Whoa. In keeping with his literal. approach to troubleshooting, Eddie purchases a machine gun. What a great sentence. You're a writer dog. Thank you. I try to make it nice for you, baby.

I really, really do. And all the listeners as well. And Eddie, if you're listening, he does his reconnaissance mapping out the judge's routine movements. He rents a delivery truck and an outfit and hat and a long box, roughly the dimensions of a machine gun. So you know how like in Terminator, I brought some flowers. Yeah. Kind of that. And thankfully, when Eddie invites a friend to what he ominously calls The Last Supper, the friend is able to divine his intentions and talk him out of his extreme plan. He promises Eddie that by pursuing his case legally, he will be successful. Commerheads prevail, and Eddie leaves the gun at his lawyer's office, a magical portal where things disappear.

Who are we as legal professionals to question when firearms are immaculately birthed onto our doorsteps? We merely quietly dispose. Eddie decides to earn his fortune back by returning to his roots, pun very much intended as a barber. His romantic fortunes also improve when at a meeting of a toastmaster's club, he encounters a beautiful young woman named Pat Hay. Oh. Pat gives her first ever toast about how, as a hunter, she shot 27 bears,

and Eddie is smitten. That's too many bears. Well, here's a woman who won't be prissy about heavy artillery. Yeah, that's true. Shooting a bear is basically the same as shooting an MLA when it comes down to it. He's got that green light, yeah. Eddie approaches Pat, who's initially apprehensive, but eventually won over by Eddie's rakeish charm as people seem to be. The two of them get married and have a daughter, Fadwa, Eddie's fifth child.

Oh, wow. How old is Eddie at this point? He's in... Getting into the 80s, that puts him kind of 50-something. Sorry, I thought you meant into his 80s. I was like, whoa. No, the 1980s. Okay, yeah.

With his wallet full and his love tank, Fuller, a renewed Eddie, hurls himself into his case against the BC government. Vicki Gumvilsson from Real House of Orange County. she says love tank. Yeah, that's nice. Just for you and her. At the behest of his wife, Pat, Eddie fires his meek, pleasant lawyer and brings on Jack Cram,

a barracuda who skillfully dissembles the government's case. For example, he points out that Eddie Hamor sold the island to the province when the crown was already arguing its insanity case against Hamor. Why is the BC government

doing business with someone it believes is incapable of acting rationally? Someone's a graduate at the best law school. Yeah, Jack. I remember, well, Jack, we graduated with honors. Yeah.

It also helps that in 1985, CBC's long-form news program, the fifth of state. Oh, we know it. We know and love it. Digs up some new evidence. 72 confidential documents, including internal memos, that prove that B.C. Premier W.A. Bennett, his provincial cabinet ministers, local officials, and at least six government departments had been undertaking a coordinated illegal effort to obstruct the construction of Moroccan Shadu on Rattlesnake Island through rezoning, denied permits, and any other means necessary.

It does go all the way to the top. In other words, that government conspiracy, that crazy Eddie Haymore has been railing on about for years to the chagrin and skepticism of everyone around him, it turns out that Eddie Haymore was both justified and correct. Oh shit. It was a conspiracy. It went all the way to the top. It went all the way to the top.

So at this time, like 1970, this guy W.A.C. Bennett's been holding the premiership for like about 20 years. Yeah. But he sort of slip into the NDP by now. People are tired of the social credit party. Okay. Been around for a while. We knew blood. Yeah. And so he thinks if I've got this great like kind of like red meat thing that I can push through in my own, at least I'll keep my own seat. And he does end up keeping his own seat. And he's the premier for another couple of years. But it was a conspiracy. All the rezoning, that was illegal.

Oh, my. the part where the government declares him insane and commits him indefinitely for possession of brass knuckles. Gosh. Oh my gosh. So the next time you hear someone who seems like they're fucking nuts and kind of is railing at you about some conspiracy that they perceive to be the truth, it could be.

Oh, well, let's not go as far as probable, but give them a chance. Hear them out. Hear them out because you never know. In the summer of 1986, the Supreme Court of British Columbia issues its verdict in favor of Eddie Haymore. Well, yeah. In his decision, Judge, well, you say, well, yeah, but the previous judges...

That's true. That's true. Yeah, there has been a proven... Eddie almost had to sort one of them out with a machine gun in a box of roses for a minute there. There's a proven track record of, oh, no. Tommy gun in a cello case, man. You got to look out for these things. In his decision, Justice Jordan McKinnon specifically remarks upon Haymore's time spent in jail and later at Riverview based on his supposed paranoid insanity. He says, on the evidence before me, Haymore was justified. in having the belief that he did. To subject the plaintiff to that charade was, in my view, highly improper, if not consciously

cruel. The court orders the British Columbia government to pay Hamor. I saw different numbers here, but like between $200,000 and $400,000. They don't return the island itself. And it's not enough to make back the money lost on the aborted development. The legal drama, various arms and munitions, you know, all these costs. Pain and suffering. Yeah, all these Russian arms dealers who are invoicing me.

Yeah. But it's a much needed. public vindication for Eddie Haymore after a decade and a half of his reputation and sanity being dragged through the mud. Yeah. Says a local businessman reacting to the verdict, we always thought it was Eddie who was crazy, but now we're wondering if it wasn't the government that was insane all along. Yeah.

After the verdict and celebration, Eddie and his family head out to Rattlesnake Island, now property of the BC government for a day of mini golf, beer, shish kebabs, and ice cream, consumed, presumably from sticks, cups or cones, and not a camel's belly. What could have been? What could have been? The interesting thing about this to me is that it sort of implicitly justifies Eddie's decision to take the Beirut embassy hostage. It does. It really does. Because that's kind of what got his case re-heard and it turned out that he was right, didn't kill anyone.

Yeah. So it's a baffling story in a lot of ways. There's not much to learn from it, I think. And yet I feel like I've learned a great deal. Yes. Yeah. Whoa. Now that Eddie's got his money back and his name cleared, there's only one thing left to do. Use the money to build the Castle Haymore Fantasy Inn, a custom-built castle-shaped hotel at 6-2-39 Renfrew Road in Peachtland directly across the lake from Rattlesnake Island.

You can look out to see it. The castle starts out with an Arabian room, a Roman room, an Egyptian room, and a Taj Mahal room. So again, the guy kind of only has the one idea, but he's good at it. He likes it. It's just a theme. It's just a theme. And he adds, like, three other more rooms as the years go on. Every night, Eddie takes the stage in the dining room and tells his story at length, the story of Eddie Haymore, to an enraptured audience.

Every night. And you mentioned that you can just stare right across at Rattle Snake Island. Yeah. Reverse Alcatraz. Eddie commissions a slightly larger than scale nine-foot statue of himself, Eddie Haymore, pointing his index finger across the lake to rattle snake island. Grimmis on his face. He's not, yo, that island, that was mine, you know. Says daughter Fadwa, the statue is right underneath my bedroom balcony. I mean, I got the point of it, but I hated it. It was so embarrassing.

That's the thing that she's embarrassed about. But she's got a little princess room in the castle and, you know. But Eddie's going to be Eddie and old habits die hard, no matter how many different court cases you try or embassies you take hostage. Eddie gets caught up in the whining and dining of it all, leaving the running of the hotel to poor Pat, who's working 18-hour days and burning herself out while Eddie ignores his family to chat with the guests and sell copies of his memoir,

from Nut House to Castle, the Eddie Haymore story. Oh, okay, he just leans into Nut House. His words, not mine. Finally, after five years of hard work and broken promises, Pat breaks up with Eddie and takes Fadua back to Colonna. Alone again, Eddie can't keep up with the work of the hotel. Yeah. The property falls into disrepair and the nine-foot statue of Eddie Haymore goes missing.

In 2003, Eddie sells his shares of the castle and moves back to Edmonton. If he's gotten up to any new Shenandigas in the 20 years since, they haven't made it across my desk. It's now 2025. And the time loop we are in. Eddie Haymore is 95 years old. He lives in a retirement complex in the Westmount neighborhood of Edmonton, Alberta. The walls of his suite are decorated with architectural renderings of the island. theme park, Moroccan Shadu.

His daughter, Fadwa, still helps him reach out to the new BC government in hopes of getting Rattlesnake Island back or at least undertaking some kind of joint venture. Despite this, journalist Omar Mualem, who interviewed Eddie extensively for a profile I sourced and who appears in Greg Crompton's 2019 documentary Eddie's kingdom, doesn't believe that Eddie's heart is truly 100% set on recovering Rattlesnake Island or rebuilding Moroccan Shadu. Oh. Moualm believes that now that Eddie is in his twilight years, he's most concerned with securing his legacy via telling his story.

He's apparently desperate to see a fictionalized film version of his saga completed within his lifetime, ideally with Ben Affleck in the leading role. Huh. Okay. Dark features. In 1988, screenwriter Paul Ladeau took a crack at the project on behalf of Vancouver-based Omni film productions, but found that a sympathetic AK-47 tooting Arab protagonist was a hard sell with Western audiences, an obstacle that would recur over the ensuing decades

of attempts to fictionalize the story. That's a shame. That's a shame. Because if we are willing to grasp nuance, who better than Eddie anymore? It's true, but are we willing to grasp nuance? And did we expect that this would be a story in which we would be asked to grasp nuance, the 30-foot ice cream candle story? Eddie may have to contend himself with the various versions of his story that have been released

in his lifetime. In addition to his first memoir from Nut House to Castle, he also released a follow-up book, helplessness, hostages, and heroics. There's also the far less flattering account of his first wife, married to a terrorist, by Lorraine Jansen. And of course, there's the 2019 documentary Eddie's Kingdom and Mowalum's article, etc. In 1994, Western Canada Theatre, out of Camloops, not Colonna. Oh. Staged a dramatization of Eddie's story penned by playwright John Lazarus.

In Lazarus's version, a group of fictional actors are workshopping a play about Eddie Haymore, when Haymore himself, played by another actor, arrives to offer feedback and bring the story closer to his own version. How do we do this in a black box with six actors? This is an elegant way, right? That's quite good. Way to go. John Lazarus, is that it?

John Lazarus, yeah. Yeah, that's brilliant. According to Omar Mualem for Edify Edmonton, the play took a new dimension when a third Eddie Hamor, the real one, arrived from Peachtland to attend rehearsals and at least a few shows. He'd sit in the front row, turn around, and laugh with the audience, recalled Lazarus, he went up on stage at the curtain call and took a bow with the actors. Yeah, you do.

I had the impression that he was taking a bow for his life, which I thought was peculiar. I sometimes had the feeling that he was obsessed with his story being told. And while it may not be in the form of a Hollywood biopic starring Ben Affleck, for now, Eddie's story is still being told in venues as diverse as this podcast right now. Although as with any good legend, the details have become distorted and vary from teller to teller. Omer Mualem tells of encounters with people who incorrectly think that peephole cameras were found at the Castle Hymour, or that Eddie went to jail for taking an embassy hostage in Iran. No, he didn't go to jail for that. Or Iran.

Yeah. Or that Eddie merely thought he owned Rattlesnake Island, but never really did. Says museum interpreter Don Wilson, it's like the story around the campfire. You know how when you tell it and it comes back to you, it doesn't bear any resemblance to the original story? It gets added to as it goes. Perhaps it's only right that people's stories, like so much else we leave behind, warp and decay with age and are reclaimed by nature. Rattlesnake Island, now part of Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park, bears few scars of Eddie Hamor's aborted attempts at greatness. The most substantial piece of architecture, the miniature pyramid marking the Egyptian mini golf hole, has long since been destroyed.

But while the area around the hole is cracked and broken, the mini golf hole itself remains and is playable, if you bring your own golf balls along on whatever boat or kayak or paddleboard, do you use to make landfall? And if you choose to make the track out to Rattlesnake Island to enjoy around a mini-golf, take a moment to be thoughtful. First, make sure to treat the local environment with respect and don't leave any golf balls

where Ogopogo might choke on them. Leave it cleaner than you found it. There you go. Take only pictures. Leave only footprints. Second, consider Moroccan Shadu. Eddie Hamor's vision of cultural celebration and Middle Eastern unity, ideas which feel as relevant now as ever. Third, resolve to treat your spouse kindly and make more time for your children.

Fourth, remind yourself to never trust the government and to look suspiciously upon any sudden new friends who ask you to pour your criminal conspiracies out into the microphone taped onto their chest. And fifth, remember that BC has the most beautiful infamy in the world thanks to people like Eddie Haymore, who spent 95 years being messy as hell so we could have a great story to talk about for 95 minutes. Thanks for listening. If you want more infamy, we've got plenty more episodes at bittersweetinfamy.com or wherever you listen to podcasts. If you want to support the podcast, shoot us a few bucks via our coffee account. At k-o-fifi.com forward slash bittersweet infamy. But no pressure.

Bittersweet infamy is free, baby. You can always support us by liking, rating, subscribing. a review, following us on Instagram at Bittersweet Infamy, or just pass the podcast along to a friend who you think would dig it. Stay sweet. My sources for this episode included the 2019 documentary Eddie's Kingdom, directed by Greg Crompton. You can watch that on knowledge.ca, highly recommend. I watched The Fifth Estate, Eddie Haymore and Rattle Snake Island, 1985. That's a clip from 1985 from the CBC TV TV show, The Fifth Estate, hosted by Omar Mowalem on YouTube.

Speaking of Omar Mawalem, I read, Was Eddie Haymore a Terrorist or a Civil Rights Martyr by Omar Mawalum, November 9th, 2020 for Edify, originally appearing in 18 bridges in 2013. I read, The Strange Story of a Man who would stop at Nothing to turn a BC Island into a theme park, posted on CBC by CBC Radio, June 12th, 2020. I listened to the Canon Land podcast episode, Commons Real Estate Number 7, The Ballad of Eddie Haymore posted July 21st, 2021, hosted by Archie Mann, and produced by Jordan Cornish, Dummy Lolo, Onime, and Kevin Sexton.

I read, Government Conspires to Break Man by Graham Rockingham on September 28th, 1986, accessed via the UPI archives. I read number 12, BC crime stories, rattlesnake Isle, ISL, period, is how that's spelled, in the British Columbia Review, September 12th, 2018, and that's excerpted from the book Dead Ends, BC Crime Stories, by Paul Wilcox. From my information on Riverview Hospital, I read Sanctuary and Torment, the complex history of Riverview Hospital by Penny Daphlos published March 28, 2023, and CTV News. British Columbia exists on the unseeded land of 203 First Nations.

In this episode, we stopped in, Horseshoe Bay, home of the Squamish Nation, Liluette, home of the Stetliam Nation, Kamloops, Heffley Creek, and Salmon Arm, home of the Suhepum Nation, and the Kootney Range of the Canadian Rockies, home of the Dunachah, Sequepum, Sinaitst, and Seilch Okanagan nations. Our studio footage was taped in Vancouver, home of the Musquiam Squamish and Slaywetooth people. Thank you to each of these nations for their stewardship of this land, which has given us so many wonderful places and sites to enjoy. We are very grateful to our supporters for keeping us road tripping.

If you want to become a monthly subscriber like Terry, Jonathan, Lizzie D, Erica Joe, Sof, Dylan, and Satchel, you can join us over at coffee.com. That's k0-fi.com slash bittersweet Infini. You'll get access to the Bittersweet Film Club. 15 episodes so far of me, Josie, and special guest, Mitchell Collins, shooting the shit on movies of your choice, infamous movies even. Movies that are infamous movies are about infamous things. We've got Waterworld coming up.

You'll really like it. Go listen to our recent episode about the Battle of the Sexes. You can also give us a one-time donation over at coffee. Either way, we really, really appreciate your support. Bitter sweet infamy is a proud member of the 604 podcast network. The road trip footage in this episode was edited by yours, Truly Taylor Basso. The studio footage, including the main story, was edited by Alex McCarthy. Our cover photo is by Luke Bentley.

Our interstitial music as well as the song you heard at the beginning of the road trip footage is by the spiritual fifth road tripper Mitchell Collins. He wrote that song for me in the context of my still-up-coming, still-up-coming, yes, somehow it's still-up-coming. Murder mystery, visual novel video game, Myrtle Porter, Murder Reporter. It's the song that plays when you find a dead body, and in that context it's fucking sick. And the song that you're currently listening to is T-Street by Brian's. steal. We'll see you in episode 131 for a big skukum, bittersweet

ambush. Josie's going to hate it. Can't wait. Back in the 80s, Quentin Tarantino and Roger Avery were budding filmmakers working together at a hip Los Angeles video store called Video Archives. We didn't have a cash register for four years. Yeah.

Now, they're reuniting to watch the original tapes from the Video Archives Collection, films like Darkstar, Moonraker, and many more. The Video Archives podcast is out now. Find us on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you listen to podcasts.