Canadian murders, ghosts and cryptids, with the swearing left in.
Mary and Shelley swap dark and strange stories from Canada, from murders and ghost sightings to cryptids, UFOs and urban legends. The stories come with heckling, open admissions of sleepiness and detours that reach as far as dragon lore and microbes.
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Canada Obscura is Mary and Shelley's standing excuse to trade the country's darker and stranger stories, and the conversation rarely stays put for long. Their own opening rundowns mark out the range: true crime and murder, hauntings, cryptids, UFOs, urban legends, odd pieces of history and the occasional creepy abandoned place. The brief is Canadian. The format is simple. Stories pass from one host to the other, and the listener hears each story along with the reaction to it. That reaction is often the draw. In one excerpt, a ghost story set in a nightclub under renovation describes a tall, beautiful woman at the bar with her face turned away, and the hosts immediately want to know how anyone could tell she was beautiful. They grumble, too, that these accounts get padded out and take too long to reach the point. Some of the material leans toward historical mystery instead of ghost lore: a treasure dig where a slab carved with strange symbols turns up, the shaft floods overnight, and later searchers keep hitting water, with little more than an old key and a bit of gold chain to show for it. The tangents come constantly and range widely. The excerpts wander into Chinese dragons versus Western ones and whether magic would beat lasers, a microbe-minded case for well-done meat on vacation, a wellness check that ended happily and a complaint about follow-ups that strain to live up to an original. Both hosts admit on air to being tired or half asleep. One episode, whose title promises bad reviews of horror movies, sets the usual subject matter aside because they are simply too worn out. The swearing is heavy, and they list it as a warning of its own. The heavier warnings come first: episodes usually open with a spoken rundown covering murder, sexual assault, torture, abuse, drug use and mental health. For specifics, the hosts point to the episode descriptions, conceding they forget to flag things once they get talking. Titles lean playful, from 'The Bieber of Yesteryear' to 'Lobster League vs The Crustacean Caper' and 'The Man, The Myth, The Creepy Fraudster'. The fiftieth episode, '50 BIG ONES, BABY!', came with its own celebration and a host drinking straight tequila. Even the sign-offs are loose, and the chatter keeps going after the goodbyes. The result sounds like two friends trading grim Canadian stories with the recorder left running.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants Canadian true crime, ghost stories and cryptid lore told casually by two hosts, and who is comfortable with heavy swearing, dark subject matter and frequent off-topic detours.
What sets it apart: It pairs grim Canadian cases and legends with open irreverence. The hosts heckle overdressed ghost stories, swear freely and follow tangents wherever they lead, so the back-and-forth between them matters as much as the story being told.
Canada Obscura is a weekly podcast hosted by Canadian weirdos Mary and Shelley. This Canada-centric podcasts brings you the horrific, creepy, and mysterious aspects of the Great White North.
A faceless woman at the bar; Mary and Shelley question "beautiful" before you can get scared.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A waterlogged treasure hunt gives this loose Canadian oddities episode its strongest stretch.
Canada Obscura follows a shaggy trail of Canadian oddities, moving from a lab intruder story into a treasure hunt centered on a shaft that keeps filling with water.
A worried clinic call becomes a small, reassuring wellness check.
Canada Obscura takes a surprisingly human turn inside its usual dark-and-strange territory, following a worried clinic call about a woman who has stopped answering her phone.
A boozy episode-50 celebration turns monster debates into proudly unpolished folklore comedy.
Canada Obscura marks episode 50 and its roughly one-year milestone with tequila, silver party cups, and a run of supernatural matchup games. The hosts turn monster fights into casual folklore arguments, moving from Chinese dragons as water-linked royal deities and Western…
A nightclub renovation opens onto a faceless woman, a strange light, and a table with a bad reputation.
Canada Obscura makes a tight haunting out of a nightclub under renovation, centered on a tall woman with no face, a ball of light the hosts nickname Elliot, and a table rumored to throw itself across the room.
A sleepy, detail-rich Canada Obscura chat where microbes, resort meals, and a dog cameo all get room.
Canada Obscura opens in a sleepy, loose register, with Mary and Shelley correcting each other, insisting things are fine, and setting out a broad content warning for murder, torture, sexual assault, abuse, child abuse, drug use, and mental health.
Paranormal claims, pressure-tested over drinks.
Every town has a strange file.
ABC Audio's Theranos fraud series that also introduces its other true-crime podcasts.
Canada Obscura opens with Shelly describing a woman who got into her hospital lab, grabbed a lab coat, and left with a needle and a box cutter.
Canada Obscura frames Episode 51 around two Canadian oddities: a Toronto Craigslist ad for a supposedly haunted Ikea couch and the case of Albert Johnson Walker.
Canada Obscura marks episode 50 and a one-year anniversary with tequila, profanity, and a retrospective on how the show started in December 2017 and turned into a weekly habit.
Canada Obscura's Episode 49 centers on Club Le Cinq in Montreal, a nightclub built inside the former Joseph C.
Canada Obscura Episode 48 centers on lobster thefts in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, including an RCMP investigation into two tons of live lobster from Cape Sable Island.
Mary and Shelly of Canada Obscura balance a remote recording with stories about work deadlines and Hinge dating.
Mary and Shelly assess a 2018 video of a moose in Gaspésie, Quebec, that viewers said showed the creepypasta creature called the rake.
Mary and Shelly cover haunting reports tied to two Saskatchewan mental hospitals, including Saskatchewan Hospital in North Battleford and Weyburn Mental Hospital.
The hosts introduce a 'fuck it' episode where they abandon their usual spooky topics to rant about being tired and swear a lot.
Hosts Mary and Shelley introduce their podcast about spooky, scary, and weird Canadian topics including true crime, hauntings, UFOs, and urban legends.
Hosts Mary and Shelley introduce their podcast covering spooky Canadian topics like true crime, ghosts, and cryptids, with a casual banter style.