Lore - Legends 76: Unfamiliar Waters

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

Moving from the familiar to the unknown comes with a lot of risk. And if the stories about one family are true, that risk can involve a terrifying new reality. Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Jamie Vargas and Alex Robinson. ————————— PRE-ORDER EXHUMED TODAY: aaronmahnke.com/exhumed ————————— Lore Resources:  Get Ad-Free Lore: lorepodcast.com/support Episode Music: lorepodcast.com/music  Episode Sources: lorepodcast.com/sources  Official Lore Merchandise: lorepodcast.com/shop ————————— Sponsors: Quince: Premium European clothing and accessories for 50% to 80% less than similar brands. Visit Quince.com/LORE for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Mint Mobile: For a limited time, wireless plans from Mint Mobile are $15 a month when you purchase a 3-month plan with UNLIMITED talk, text and data at MintMobile.com/lore. Chime: Chime is banking done right. Open an account in 2 minutes at chime.com/lore. Gusto: Online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. Try Gusto today at Gusto.com/LORE, and get 3 months free when you run your first payroll. ————————— To report a concern regarding a radio-style, non-Aaron ad in this episode, reach out to ads @ lorepodcast.com with the name of the company or organization so we can look into it. To advertise on this podcast please email: [e-mail]. Or go to: https://advertising.libsyn.com/lore ————————— ©2026 Aaron Mahnke. All rights reserved.

Shark migration patterns are changing. Now, in case you didn't know, sharks don't just pick one corner of the ocean and then stay there. We might better describe sharks as nomadic, as they love to stay in one area for a while before moving on to someplace else. That move can be driven by any number of biological impulses, too. For some, they travel farther in order to mate, while others do so to give birth. Even when it's chasing a meal, sharks might follow that food to the ends of the earth. But the most common reason behind these annual trips is really quite simple. They are cold-blooded, which means that once the weather gets chilly, they become heat-seeking road-trippers.

But now the oceans are getting warmer. That means that sharks are leaving their favorite summer homes much deeper into the season, and arriving in their winter hunting grounds later as well. It also means that they end up swimming in unfamiliar waters, where things can go very, very wrong. And just like sharks, we humans are also nomadic creatures. Sure, some of us might build houses and put down roots, but not always. In fact, for most of human history, people constantly traveled to what they hoped were greener pastures, more resources, better weather, safer or more tolerant, you name it.

But as we've learned, moving to a new place also comes with risk. It brings a new set of challenges that need to be overcome. come, it might replace one set of fears with another or force us to rethink everything we once believed. And, if you believe the legends, it has left some people feeling completely out of their depth. I'm Aaron Mankey, and this is lore legends. In 1804, Alexander Selkirk sent his fellow countrymen to their deaths. Unfortunately, for all parties involved, this was a complete and total accident.

The Scottish Laird actually had good intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell. Lord Selkirk was one of the few noblemen in Scotland who actually cared about the plight of the poor. When he attended the University of Edinburgh, he learned just how impoverished the people of the Scottish Highlands were, and it broke his heart. He decided then and there that he would do everything in his power to give them a better life. And the best way for him to do that was to sponsor their emigration to North America. The first colony that he organized on Prince Edward Island was a success, but he wanted his next settlement to be more inland, and so he chose a tract of land near Lake St. Clair in the modern-day county of Kent, Ontario,

and he dubbed his new utopia, Baldoon, after his father's Baldoon Castle. Selkirk then found 15 Highland families who wanted a fresh start. They all loaded onto a boat in May of 1804, sailing across the Atlantic towards what they thought to be, a better life. But trouble began almost as soon as the settlers arrived in their new home. Selkirk had sent a group of carpenters over to the Baldun settlement in advance so that they could build housing for the new arrivals. Unfortunately, the land that the Laird had purchased was just south of First Nations territory. Afraid to sleep that close to what they perceived as a threat, the carpenters all fled without finishing a single building. When the settlers arrived that September,

there was no shelter to shield them from the oncoming cold weather. They were forced to spend the majority of that winter living in tents. Not only could they not stay warm for months on end, but food would be a struggle as well. Selkirk had arranged for a herd of sheep and a harvest-ready crop to be waiting for them at the settlement. But in the transportation process, 300 of the sheep were killed by snakes and bears. The Highlanders were forced to share the remaining animals for milk, food, and wool with barely enough to go around. On top of that, the crops that had been planted that summer didn't make it past October. By autumn, the settlement was drowning under constantly heavy

rainfall, the lakes and rivers flooded, leaving behind next to no edible plant life, which brought on a new set of problems. You see, once the floodwaters calmed, the marshy ground became the perfect breeding ground for mosquitoes. So let's step back in recap here. The new residents of Baldun had no shelter to protect them. They were sleeping through flash floods inside tents. They had limited food, and now they had to deal with malaria and dysentery. So it won't come as a surprise that many of the original settlers died. Within two months of reaching their new home, 16 people had passed away. By the end of the first year, that number had increased to 42. All told, the colony was an utter disaster. Historians estimate that the failed settlement

cost Lord Selkirk at least 5,000 pounds, the equivalent of about 25,000 pounds today. Even so, a few people did stick it out. One of those original settlers was a man by the name of Daniel MacDonald. He had built his house a mile or two west of everyone else, so he had managed to avoid most of the pitfalls. And over the years that followed, he made a good home for himself, his wife, and his nine children, children who all grew up and built their own homes in Baldun. One of his sons, John McDonald, built a farm on the property adjoining his fathers.

The houses were so close that the family could visit each other quite easily, almost like it was a McDonald family commune. The men hunted together, and the women did housework together. It turned what could have been a very lonely life into a peaceful haven. That was, until it wasn't. You see, one day in 1829, the young McDonald women had gathered in John's barn to work with large pieces of cloth. To do so, they had set a few poles across the rafters. But that afternoon, as they worked, one of the poles mysteriously toppled down,

then another and then another. As it happened, the ladies looked for the cause but found nothing. Feeling uneasy, they gathered together and they bolted for the house looking for shelter. What they didn't know, however, is that the house wouldn't save them. The ladies had barely made it through the door when a bullet pierced the window, and then it stopped completely frozen in mid-air before dropping to the floor. They had no time to react. Within milliseconds, a volley of lead musket balls ricocheted through the windows, speeding straight for them.

But just as before, immediately upon entering the home, the bullets stopped, hovered for a moment in the air, and then clattered to the floor. Now, it goes without saying, bullets are most certainly not supposed to act like that. And so, operating with the good sense that had saved the family many times over out on the Canadian frontier, they fled the house. Later that same day, one of their neighbors, who was unhelpfully named McDougald, found the McDonald women hiding at his house. It took some work, but he eventually convinced them to return home. Whatever had happened, he and John McDonald would make sure that it never happened again.

But that was a promise that the men just couldn't keep. Over the next three whole years, an invisible army would pelt the McDonald's home with projectile lead balls over and over again. And through it all, they never figured out who was shooting into their house, or why none of the bullets hit their targets. Now, this wasn't some kind of a collective bout of psychosis within the family, either. A total of 12 witnesses, both Baldun settlers and First Nations people, testified to having seen the phenomenon with their own eyes. In one sworn statement, a man named James Johnson said that he would frequently go watch the lead balls careen through the McDonald's windows, then gather them up afterward, only for them to disappear

from his bag. And the man who had convinced the women to go back home, Mr. McDougald, wrote that he would mark the bullets and throw them into the river, and the next day, those same bullets would show back up inside the house. Eventually, the lead balls were replaced with stones, still wet and muddy from the nearby river. Usually they fell harmlessly, to the floorboards, just like the bullets had. But one day, a skeptical visitor taunted the mysterious entity saying, send us another ball, old fellow, and I will catch it. And at that very moment, a rock slammed into his chest. Other strange phenomena started happening around the house just days after the first bullets arrived. Around midnight, every single night, the McDonald's would hear a troop of

invisible men marching through their kitchen. Objects around the house would sometimes suddenly animate themselves. Shoes and tools would move across the floor. Witnesses claimed to see knives embed themselves into the wall and furniture pile itself into giant heaps. One visitor was particularly annoyed when the Dutch oven conveniently tossed out their dinner before they were done eating. Some of the supernatural antics were more dangerous than others. Still smoldering logs and pokers from the fire sometimes threw themselves across the room. Saws and hammers did their own construction projects. Pots of boiling water sailed over people's heads. And most concerning of all, when a traveler approached the McDonald's house to ask if he could stay

the night, his gun flew out of his hands and danced the French four around the room. It even gave off a few celebratory shots as it spun. Now, while everyone in the McDonald's house despised these years of torment, two residents probably suffered the most, the McDonald's youngest baby and their dog. Sometimes an unseen hand would rock the infant's crib so violently that she would fall out of it. Another time a family friend found a boiling hot stone burning her skin. And as for the poor dog, witnesses frequently reported seeing it being smacked upside the head with sticks and chased by its own food dish. One day the dog ran so far from his tormentor that they never saw him or the pot of dog food ever again.

And then there were the fires. Small blazes began popping up in the oddest of places. Once they found a campfire inside a closet. Another time there was one inside the walls, forcing the men to tear at the wood until they could extinguish the flames. They were usually multiple fires each day, too. One visitor claimed that he saw no less than 50. But there were only so many eyes that could keep a lookout for these unexpected blazes.

And eventually the worst happened. John McDonald's house burned to the ground. From there, the fire moved to his barn, and within a matter of minutes, the entire property was little more than a pile of ashes. At first, the family took shelter in a tent on the charred remains of their land. But after the mysterious force continued to badger them, even while they shivered under a makeshift canvas roof, they gave in and moved in with John's father. No sooner had they brought the last of their things into the McDonald's Patriarch's house,

a volley of bullets pierced his window. And it was in that moment that they read. realized it had never really been about the house at all. It had always been about the family themselves, which led to a terrifying realization. No matter how far they ran, they would never escape it. The McDonald's knew that they couldn't keep living like this, and so they decided to fight fire with fire.

After three years of hauntings, the Baldun community had come together and agreed that they were dealing with some kind of supernatural phenomenon. They didn't know if it was ghosts, witches, or demons, but it had to be something. So the McDonald's started throwing everything at the proverbial wall to see what would stick. First, they consulted with a Catholic priest, who spent an entire week studying the paranormal entity that was plaguing them.

At the end of his visit, this priest sprinkled holy water around the house and read aloud from a book that he said would drive the devil away. Unfortunately, nothing happened. The priest must have felt that there was no change in the room's energy, because he then claimed that this particular devil was too strong for him, and he took his leave. Next, they hired a Native American medicine man, who told them that he would perform a ritual to expel their curse. He then said that he would need to channel so much power that he would probably be killed in an instant, but that he would go to his death peacefully knowing that

he had helped them in their plight. After this strange pronouncement, the McDonald's hesitantly agreed to his plan. It's unknown whether they were okay with him potentially dying for their sakes, but in the end it wouldn't matter because the medicine man never actually showed up. Next, the family consulted with a school headmaster named Robert Barker, who dabbled in witchcraft in his free time. He must not have been very good at his chosen hobby, though, because after he performed a few spells and nailed a few things to the walls, nothing happened. The entity continued on with its torment. And as an interesting side note here, after his impressive display of mediocrity, Barker was actually arrested

and convicted for, and I quote, pretending to practice witchcraft. He was sentenced to one year in prison for this dastardly crime. So far, nothing the McDonald's did had worked. For all they knew, they were going to be trapped with these antics for the rest of their lives, which, considering the entity's habit of playing with fire indoors, might not actually be that long. It seemed completely hopeless, until a traveling Methodist minister threw them a lifeline.

This man, Reverend McDormwood, told them that they should meet with the renowned witch doctor John Troyer. But it wasn't the witch doctor himself who could help them. It was Troyer's daughter. Apparently she was so gifted with the second sight that she could see anything and solve any problem in the entire world. John McDonald had nothing left to lose, so he and this minister set off together to visit her.

The daughter, whose name is never given in any records, was barely 15 years old. You can imagine the look on John's face when she greeted him at the door. but he was all out of options, and so he begged her to help, and eventually she agreed. After this, the witch doctor's daughter withdrew to her bedroom, where she peered into an object known as a moonstone, and for three long hours she consulted with the stone, while John and Reverend McDormann waited outside. The wait, though, would be worth it. When the girl returned, she asked John a series of questions about his land and his house, and then she described a family in great detail to him. In return, John exclaimed that the people she was describing were his neighbors.

From there, she asked John if he had ever seen a goose with a black head wandering around his property. He said he had, and that he had just assumed it belonged to another settler. No, she told him, that goose was something else. It was actually a witch. She went on to explain that an old woman from his neighbor's family had transformed herself into a goose, and in that form she was able to remain close to his house and terrorized the entire family. The daughter told John that if he were to shoot the goose with a silver bullet, his long torment would finally be over. It sounded like a pretty good plan, so John rushed home,

melted down enough silver to craft a few bullets, and then got to work. From there, it was almost too easy. With speed and efficiency, John hunted down the black-headed goose, and he shot it. When he did, he couldn't help but notice that the... the goose's scream, sounded almost human. It ran away into the tall reeds, nursing an injured wing as it went. John followed, but by the time he emerged from the field, he was at his neighbor's house, and sitting there out in the open was an old woman, an old woman with a broken arm. Setting up a new life in a strange place is more than common. Whether you are a shark seeking

warmer waters or a family looking for a fresh start. Migrating is a gamble, and not everyone will be rewarded for stepping out into the unknown. For as long as humans have been moving from place to place, we've encountered danger. It doesn't always look the same. Sometimes the danger is starvation or wild animals or witches that can transform into geese. You never know what you'll get, and the very fact that you don't know what's coming is the most terrifying part of all. It seems that the farther into the wilderness we push, the more questions we encounter, and questions have a way of giving birth to fear. Which is why I feel like we can relate to the Baldwin mystery. It speaks to something primal within us, to that deep-seated fear of what could be out there,

and that just might be why it's one of the most famous haunting stories in Canadian history. Its popularity is also, in large part, due to the sheer volume of historical records backing it up. Now, to be fair, scholars have naturally called many of the sources and witness statements into question, but there's no doubt that something strange took place. It's just impossible to know for sure if it was real, or just an elaborate hoax. One thing we can be sure of, though, is why it happened, and it's a tale as old as time, a property dispute. You see, after John McDonald purchased his land, the old woman had approached him. She had wanted that property for herself, and offered to buy it off him. But John dismissed her. He had bought this land to build a comfortable

home for his growing family, and that was exactly what he was going to do. Furious at his rejection, the old woman, they say, had transformed into a goose and began attacking his family. It had all just been a ploy to get them off the property, and maybe to punish John a little bit as well. But the real kicker, neither of them actually had a rightful claim to the land. You see, before the Baldun settlers had moved into the area, that tract of land was the site of an indigenous graveyard. For generations, the Anishinaabe peoples had buried their loved ones there, only for that sacred land to be dug up by the McDonald's, who cleared it for construction. You see, technically, the McDonald family hadn't stayed inside the boundaries of Baldun.

They had pushed farther out, away from where they should have been, straight into First Nations territory. And while it might not have happened in the most conventional way, it was mistake that all of them eventually paid for. All of us know that old horror movie trope. A nice family moves into a new home ready to begin the next chapter of their lives, and then everything goes horribly wrong. It might seem like a tired plot line, but it's popular for a reason. The new house is a microcosm of the universe, the same thing that anyone could encounter when they leave what's familiar. And the trope doesn't just exist in fiction. We have one more haunted Canadian house to tell you about. Stick around through this brief

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going from London to Prince Edward Island and Canada. They weren't looking to make another. Instead, they wanted to finally put down roots and focus on building their family. And that's what Binstead Manor was supposed to be for them. A forever home. But just nine days after the family moved in, they started to hear strange noises.

Georgina described them as being, and I quote, heard simultaneously in every part of the house and always appeared to be in close proximity to each person. The noise was more like a rumbling which made the house vibrate than like that produced by dragging a heavy body. That would be enough to give anyone nightmares for sure, but it only got worse from there. As spring approached, a chorus of shrieks and sobs joined the cacophony.

It sounded like someone, or maybe multiple someone's, were being chased around the house by an axe-wielding murderer, and all the noise seemed to rest beneath the same tree in the garden each night, rising to a painful crescendo. And then in the spring of 1858, Georgina saw a ghost. One evening, she and her daughter were sleeping together in a bedroom near the kitchen. The little girl was sick, and Georgina had wanted easy access to medicine that night. At one point, Georgina stood up to go fetch something for her daughter. She was there in the bedroom fumbling around for some matches when she realized that there was

a light shining underneath the bedroom door, thinking that it was her husband, she opened the door, only to come face to face with a strange woman. According to her own account, she said, she had a baby on her left arm, a check shawl over her bosom, and all around her shone a bright, pleasant light, whence emanating I could not say. She did not enter the room, but moved across the staircase, vanishing into the wall opposite where the men's servants' room was situated. Looking back later in life, Georgina realized that she hadn't felt afraid when that happened. For that matter, her dogs hadn't barked either. Nobody seemed to be concerned about the glowing woman, until, of course, Georgina.

her the next day, and she realized that she had seen a ghost. The Penny family had originally meant to buy Binstead Manor after a few years of renting it, but by 1859, less than three years after arriving, they moved out. The sounds, the apparitions, it was all too much for them to handle. In fact, the entire incident seemed to have traumatized them so much that they soon moved off Prince Edward Island altogether, opting to instead live in Quebec. Georgina didn't return to the island for nearly 20 years, but finally in 1877, she went back to stay with an old friend for a few months. That friend happened to be a priest, and while she was

visiting him, the current tenants of Binstead Manor begged this priest to come exercise a ghost from their house, claiming that they had been plagued by a woman carrying a baby. Georgina accompanied the priest, and once she was there again, she just couldn't help it. Curiosity got the better of her. She was inspired to dig into the house's history, wondering what on earth could have made Binstead Manor so incredibly haunted. And through her research, she heard a local rumor. Several decades prior, a farmer by the name of Braddock had owned the property. And during his tenure there, he had employed two sisters as household laborers, both of whom gave birth the sons around the same time. And then, mysteriously, one sister and one baby went missing.

A couple of years after that, the farmer sold the house and the remaining sister took her boy to live with his grandmother. All she would tell her mother was that this was not her son. It was her nephew, and then she left, never to be seen again. To this day, no one knows why one of the sisters and one of the babies disappeared together, or why it had been aunt and nephew rather than mother and son. It seemed that the more Georgina learned about the matter, the more questioned she had, and she suspected that she would never find the answers. Eleven years later, in 1888, Georgina visited Binstead Manor one last time.

Almost immediately she noticed that the tree where the screams had been the loudest was gone. Someone had cut it down. When she asked the new owner about the tree and the ghost, the man shushed her, begging her not to speak of it again. Ever since the priest had blessed the house, they hadn't seen the ghost woman and her baby nearly as much as they used to, But the blessing must have only had a tenuous hold on the spirit, because they still sometimes saw her walking by the entrance to the front of the house.

It is likely that nobody would ever have heard Georgina's story had she not returned to her home country of England. While she was there, she became friendly with one of her brother's acquaintances. During one of her meetings with this new friend, she told him all about her time living in Binstead manner. She'd thought that she might get a laugh out of him, but instead he was so fascinated, that he insisted she published a paper about her experiences. And so she did.

Which is why, when it comes to the publication of the Binstead Manor legend, readers today have two people to think, Georgina Peney and Alfred, Lord Tennyson. This episode of Lord Legends was produced by me, Aaron Manke, with writing by Alex Robinson and research by Jamie Vargas and Alex Robinson. Just a reminder, I have a brand-new history book that's coming out on August 4th of this year called Exhumed. It explores the roots of the New England vampire panic through the lens of centuries of folklore,

medical advancements, and pseudoscience. It's available for pre-order right now. And if you pre-order the hardcover, my publisher has a cool web page set up for you to submit your receipts and get a free, gorgeous tote bag. Head over to Aaron Mankey.com slash Exhumed to lock in your copy today. The link is in the episode description. Don't like hearing ads on lore. There's a paid version of lore on Apple Podcasts and Patreon that is 100% ad for subscribers also get weekly mini bonus episodes called lore bites and patreon members also get discounts on lore merchandise and access to my inbox

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