The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent

Shortlisted for the 2021 Manuela Dias Book Design Award

A 2021 Manitoba Day Award Honorable Mention

Manitoba's history is one of being carved. Ice sculpted the land before nomadic first people pressed trails across it. Southern First Nations dug into the earth to grow corn and potatoes while those in the north mined it for quartz used in arrowheads. Fur traders arrived, expanding on Indigenous trading networks and shaping new ones. Then came settlers who chiselled the terrain with villages, towns and cities.

But there is failure and suffering etched into the history.

In Winnipeg, slums emerged as the city's population boomed. There were more workers than jobs and the pay was paltry. Immigrants and First Nations were treated as second-class, shunted to the fringes. Rebellions and strikes, political scandals and natural disasters occurred as the people molded Manitoba.

In The Lesser Known, Darren Bernhardt shares odd tales lost in time paired with archival images, such as The Tin Can Cathedral, the first independent Ukrainian church in North America; the jail cell hidden beneath a Winnipeg theatre; the bear pit of Confusion Corner; gardening competitions between fur trading forts and more.

Once deemed important enough to be documented, these stories are now buried. It’s time to carve away at them once again.

Born-and-raised in Winnipeg, Darren Bernhardt was seven when he began scribbling stories in Hilroy  notebooks, recounting family outings and adventures with friends.

As a journalist, he still scribbles stories, now specializing in local history and the offbeat. He spent the first dozen years of his career in newspapers in Saskatchewan before moving back to Winnipeg where he now lives with his wife, two kids and a dog in a 112-year-old house.

He is the co-author of the JackPine Press chapbook To Kerouac and Back and co-author of the play Alison's Leather Couch and author of the best-selling The Lesser Known: A History of Oddities from the Heart of the Continent.