About the Author
Andrew MacLean is the author of the weekly newspaper column Backyard History, published in over a dozen Atlantic Canadian newspapers.
He also writes and hosts the Backyard History Podcast, produced by Jordan Lauzier, and is the writer of the Backyard History TV show on Bell Fibe TV1.
MacLean’s debut book, Backyard History: Forgotten Stories From Atlantic Canada’s Past, was published by Friesen Press in December 2023. The first print run sold out in a chaotic ten-day frenzy. Signed copies are available exclusively at backyardhistory.ca.
Six months later, this was followed by Backyard History: Forgotten Stories From Atlantic Canada’s Past Volume Two, and another six months after that by Backyard History: Rebellious Women in the Maritimes, a third collection focused on the compelling and often overlooked stories of 17 women in Atlantic Canada. The collection includes their own writings, sourced from letters and diaries, to allow them to tell their own stories in their own words.
In October 2025, the fourth Backyard History book, Mysterious Stories From Atlantic Canada’s Past, was released. MacLean’s fifth book, Wartime Stories From The Maritimes, is scheduled for release in 2026.
Andrew MacLean received a degree in History at Fredericton’s University of New Brunswick, proceeding onwards toward a Master’s at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Before becoming a writer, he lived an eclectic and far-ranging life. He backpacked through 37 countries across five continents, visiting more than 200 cities. He funded his travels by measuring trees in the backwoods of New Brunswick for forestry research during the summers and exploring the world in the winters.
He has run more than a dozen election campaigns in five Canadian provinces and worked in aerial surveying from Nunavut to the Florida Keys, using lasers to map rising sea levels caused by climate change.
The pandemic brought all that globe-trotting to a halt and brought MacLean home to New Brunswick. Being back home reminded him of the long, winding tales his grandfather used to tell in the tiny village of Tide Head. Inspired, he began digging into obscure moments in Maritime history as a lockdown passion project.
He started writing his discoveries in the storytelling style he had grown up with, paired with rigorous research. His first post, about the sea monster Old Ned in Lake Utopia, went viral on social media in January 2021. Just a month later, he landed his first weekly column in The Daily Gleaner, the very newspaper he delivered as a kid.
Today, Andrew publishes new stories from Atlantic Canada’s past through the Backyard History newspaper column, books, podcast, television series, and live talks throughout the Maritimes.