Episode 41 continues the spooky Halloween season with the ghastly true crime story of the Smuttynose Axe Murders. On a remote island miles off of the coast of Maine two women were brutally murdered in 1873. Learn the story behind the crime and why there might be questions as to who the killer was even to this day.
Nothing was cooler as a child of the 1980's than reading Fangoria Magazine. With graphic bloody photos from classic horror films it was Fangoria that gave 80's and 90's kids ideas of what horror movies to rent from the video store. Hear a little more about it when we go way Back In the Day.
The epic 2,100-mile/6-day Road Trip has been nothing but success up to this point. Now it is time to hear about the trip's greatest fail. The attempt to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway. Why was it a fail? Listen and find out.
The latest Top 5 list contains some of Cape Cod's most underrated attractions. Not necessarily secret spots, but ones that don't get enough love. Which ones made the list?
There's a brand new This Week In History about the launch of Saturday Night Live as well as a Time Capsule surrounding a very special birthday.
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 40 here.
Episode 41 continues the spooky Halloween season with the ghastly true crime story of the Smuttynose Axe Murders. On a remote island miles off of the coast of Maine two women were brutally murdered in 1873. Learn the story behind the crime and why there might be questions as to who the killer was even to this day.
Nothing was cooler as a child of the 1980's than reading Fangoria Magazine. With graphic bloody photos from classic horror films it was Fangoria that gave 80's and 90's kids ideas of what horror movies to rent from the video store. Hear a little more about it when we go way Back In the Day.
The epic 2,100-mile/6-day Road Trip has been nothing but success up to this point. Now it is time to hear about the trip's greatest fail. The attempt to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway. Why was it a fail? Listen and find out.
The latest Top 5 list contains some of Cape Cod's most underrated attractions. Not necessarily secret spots, but ones that don't get enough love. Which ones made the list?
There's a brand new This Week In History about the launch of Saturday Night Live as well as a Time Capsule surrounding a very special birthday.
Be sure to watch for my livestreams called Without A Map Friday's at 8pm on Instagram which serve as a sort of postgame show for the podcast. Find them on IGTV and YouTube after they've finished.
Helpful Links from this Episode(available through Buzzsprout)
Listen to Episode 40 here.
Intro
Hello world. Welcome to the in my footsteps podcast. I'm your host, Christopher Setterlund. Coming to you from the vacation destination known as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and this is episode 41. This week is going to be a great show. Continuing with the Halloween season True Crime horror spooky season, we're going to tell the story of the Smuttynose axe murders. A truly horrific crime that occurred on the remote Smuttynose island off the coast of Maine. We're gonna continue with a new road trip from my epic jaunt two years ago. With the epic fail. That was my attempt to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway. We're gonna go way back in the day as I reminisce about what it was like to be a kid reading Fangoria magazine, which was all about horror. I'm going to share my top five picks for the most underrated Cape Cod attractions. There's going to be a brand new this week in history and Time Capsule centered around the birthday of my niece, Emma. All that more coming up right now on episode 41 of the in my footsteps podcast. It is definitely fall season. Now the weather balloon kind of popped. And now we're at the point where we're not really seeing 70-degree days anymore. So it's all downhill as far as temperature goes until April or May on Cape Cod. But I love it. I'm fully immersed in the season, eating lots of pumpkin-based products, including a pumpkin based whoopie pie the other night. And I'm also looking to get myself a little pumpkin to decorate and bring around to take photos with to kind of capture the mood of the season. I don't know, I've done that a couple times before in the past, I had to find the perfect pumpkin, and then get sad when it gets rotten and I gotta throw it away. This last week was also my annual trip back in time when it's the season when the monster cereals are released. I don't know if any of you have had those or they were out all the time when I was a kid, Count Chocula, Booberry, Frankenberry it's the whole marketing thing where they're only out in October now and I can't help myself. So I got myself a box of Count Chocula and watched a few Saturday morning cartoons from the 80s to kind of get that vibe that I had on episode 39. So that was a lot of fun. It's almost time for all of the obligatory Halloween-themed photos, go to the pumpkin patch at night. Do any of you have those around where you live, I mean, if you're not from Cape Cod, or the New England area, we've got everywhere, the setup with the pumpkin patches, just to give you that feel that vibe of October and fall there at least not that scary. I don't know if anyone does the haunted house or walking through a cemetery this time of year, you know, just on your own to kind of feel the vibe the spooky vibe. I did it last week with this really creepy cemetery up in Truro which I'll talk about more on next week's podcast which is going to be a bonus episode. And it's going to be all about the scariest places I've ever been. So that'll be I'll dive more into that next week. But I enjoy kind of indulging in the scary this time of year. This is why with the podcast for the month of October, I've been leaning into true crime, the horror stories that I could find from New England. And that's what we're going to get into this week. This was one of my top picks for just an unbelievable story and wanted to share with you. So let's dive right into now the Smuttynose axe murders. Turn off the lights for this one and close your eyes and just imagine this scene. Here we go on episode 41 of the podcast.
Smuttynose Axe Murders
On a cold night, on an island isolated by miles of ocean, a pair of gruesome murders took place 2 women lost their lives at the end of an axe while a third survived to finger the perpetrator. The culprit was caught, tried, convicted, and put to death Case Closed. Or was it? what really happened on the tiny island of Smuttynose off the New Hampshire Coast nearly 150 years ago. This is the story as it is known as one of New England's Creepiest Unsolved Mysteries. Fishing in New England go together like peanut butter and marshmallow fluff, which is definitely a regional sandwich. Though not as thriving of an industry today as it was the lifeblood of the New England coast. For centuries, men flocked to such fishing areas with their families and tow hoping to create a better life. Though the whaling industry had died down by the latter half of the 19th century, fishing was still prosperous, and the fishing industry played a large part in the Smuttynose crime in 1868 A young couple John and Marin Hontvet arrived in America from Norway. They found their way to the tiny island of Smuttynose, which is seven miles off of the coast of Rye, New Hampshire. It's part of the Isle of shoals. The island is considered part of your County, Maine. The couple rented read two story duplex on the island, and they were the only year-round inhabitants of Smuttynose John captain to a schooner named Clara Bella and eventually brought his brother Matthew in to help him with the fishing. In 1871 Marin sister Karen, they rhyme arrived from Norway and took up a job at the nearby Appledore hotel on the neighboring Appledore Island. needing another hand to help with the business. John brought in a down on his luck, Prussian fisherman named Luis Wagner brought him into the fold in 1872. And though he became very close to John and Mara and others were distrustful of Wagner, he seemingly always fished alone and his past remained shrouded in secrecy. Despite the others' distrust, John Hontvet considered Wagner like family and invited him to stay on the other side of the red duplex. They lived in April 1872. Wagner's tenure in the hunt vet home ended shortly after the arrival of Marin's brother Ivan Christiansen and his wife and Neff. John Hontvet now had more than enough help on the Clara Bella so it was decided that Louise Wagner would take a job on another schooner, the Addison Gilbert and he departed Smarty nose in November 1872, with seemingly no ill will toward his friend and former employer. However, that was not the case. Wagner had been forced to move from the relative comfort of the Hontvets' home to a flophouse in a seedy part of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and his fortunes only worsened when the Addison Gilbert sunk with all of Wagner's belongings on board. This left Wagner desperate for money, and an unfortunate series of events led to one of the most horrific crimes of the 19th century. Wagner was at the docks when John Hontvet and his crew came ashore on the Clara Bella on March 5 1873. They were waiting for a train carrying a shipment of bait from Boston, and the train was running late, forcing John Matthew and Ivan to wait on the docks rather than return to their significant others on Smuttynose. Wagner made it a point to ask John if the women would be alone on the island. And when he was told yes, it gave Wagner an idea to row his way out to the island. He figured in the dark of night the three women would all be asleep and Wagner could sneak in, steal all he needed to recoup his losses from the sinking of the Addison Gilbert and slip away on scene. Wagner stole a Dory and slipped away towards muddy nose around 9pm. He wrote a considerably longer route south around a pair of the aisle of Shoals islands to avoid detection. Around midnight, he came ashore at Smuttynose and all was dark and quiet. However, upon entering through the kitchen of the red duplex, he was startled by the family dog as well as Marin's sister Karen, who was sleeping in a cot. As Wagner struggled with Karen, Marin and Anethe. The two other women who have been sleeping in a nearby bedroom came to investigate. Maron was able to get carried away and locked in the bedroom, which left anethe out at the mercy of Wagner. She ran out into the cold night air as Wagner grabbed an axe and pursued her. Aneth was able to identify Louise Wagner by name just moments before he killed her with an axe blow to the head. He then turned his attention back to the bedroom with the two other women. Wagner battered his way inside Mara and tried to get the barely conscious Karen to flee with her. But unable to rouse her, she jumped out the window and into the night, Wagner's blow with his axe did not kill Karen and he decided to finish her off by strangling Karen to death. Marin hid with the family dog in the rocks, while Luis made himself a quick meal in the kitchen. After eating, he resumed his search outside for Marin, but unable to find her, he decided to leave the island and assume that the cold would kill her. The island of Smuttynose was dark and quiet again as Wagner returned to Portsmouth. Once back in Portsmouth, Louise fled via train to Boston. Marin survived the night and was taken to safety at Appledore Island to be treated for frostbite. The Clara Bella made it to Smuttynose at 10am on March 6, and the lives of the men aboard were changed forever. Wagner was identified as the murderer his assumption that Marin had died from exposure proved to be his undoing. When Wagner returned to his old boarding house in Boston in his other old haunts, he was quickly arrested by police without incident, he was sent to Saco, Maine for trial. Marin's firsthand testimony was so overwhelming that he was convicted and sent to prison in Thomaston, Maine to await execution. He escaped at one point and yet was recaptured in three days as he made it a point to tell everybody that he saw that he was a famous killer. Wagner was executed by hanging on June 25 1875. Now proclaiming his innocence. In the aftermath of the murders, John and Marin moved to Portsmouth. Ivan returned to Norway, while Matthew's fate is unknown. Karen and Anethe Christiansen were buried in the Portsmouth South cemetery, and the red duplex on Smuttynose was ransacked by ghoulish tourists that would take pieces of blood-splattered wood and other trinkets before the home ultimately burned in 1885. Despite the seemingly airtight case against Luis Wagner of robbery and revenge against John Hontvet, there is still a shred of doubt as to his guilt. questions arose of how Marin could survive the cold night in nightclothes. How Luis could row those many miles to and back from Smuttynose and how he was convicted purely on circumstantial evidence. The police were so sure they had found their man that the case was closed after Wagner's capture. There may have been small seeds of doubt, however, it seems overwhelmingly likely that Karen and Anethe Christiansen met their demise on Smuttynose at the hands of Louis Wagner. And today Smuttynose Island is privately owned, though people are allowed to walk the grounds during the day. There's a marker and some rocks denoting where that red duplex once stood. But other than that, there's nothing left on the tiny island as any sort of reminder of that terrifying March night nearly 150 years ago. But if you're looking for a chance to get up close and personal with the Smuttynose AX murder case, the purported weapon the axe itself that supposedly was used by Wagner to murder two women is on display at the Portsmouth Athenaeum. And that is definitely one of the creepiest, craziest stories that I've read, researched and shared for the podcast. Hope I don't give you nightmares with that one.
Road Trip: Blue Ridge Parkway
One of my favorite things about road trips, in general, is the drive itself, the scenery, and seeing things that I'd never seen before and getting to kind of lose yourself in forests and rolling hills and mountains and oceans, and the thought of beautiful scenery all mixed together with the foliage and forests and scenic mountain overlooks. That's what led me to the idea of the Blue Ridge Parkway. It's considered America's favorite drive. Millions of people enjoy the Blue Ridge Parkway each year. And in 2019, I wanted to be one of those people. The Blue Ridge Parkway itself is a road that spans 469 miles. And as you know, from this trip, I didn't have lots of time to spare to stay in places and see places for longer I wish I did. But that'll be for another time. So my goal was not to drive the 469 miles of the Blue Ridge Parkway, it was more to drive maybe an hour on it like a chunk that was 20 or 30 miles to really get the feel for it, get some good photos. The Blue Ridge Parkway, the main entrance in the northern part is in a town called Afton, Virginia. And for me Afton, Virginia was about 120 miles south of Winchester, which if you listened to Episode 40 of the podcast, was my last stop. So it all made sense. These are all kind of in order that I was driving. And the plan was to drive down to Afton Virginia, start at the beginning of the Blue Ridge Parkway and drive, you know for an hour and then continue on my way. It made sense to start from the beginning of it and drive what I could because Southwest is the direction that the road travels along the Blue Ridge Mountains. And I didn't want to go too far southwest because I had places to see and it's like, with so little time to spare I couldn't risk going 100 miles in the wrong direction. The Blue Ridge Mountains for which the road is named as part of the Appalachian chain. And this road which was going to originally be known as the Appalachian scenic highway was begun under the administration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt on September 11 1935. And it took over 52 years to complete this road. And granted it's 469 miles but still the Trailway it ends near Cherokee North Carolina. And so it's neat because there's no fee to drive the Blue Ridge Parkway so it's not a toll road or anything. But commercial vehicles are prohibited except for tour buses, I guess that scene is different. But the thing is, the roadway is not maintained in the winter. And because it's mountains that you're basically driving through a lot of the time, there's weather trouble, so sections of the road will get closed off. And there is a Georgia this segment is called the fail of the Blue Ridge Parkway for me so you know that I don't get to drive it. I arrived in Afton, Virginia, and I got to the beginning of the actual road, and there was a sign, I took pictures of the sign as Oh, this is great. But there was a problem. The road was blocked off right at the beginning. So I said, Man, that's not good. It's the last week of November, and you're in the mountain. So you've got parts of the roads, like I said, closed off. So the beginning was closed off. Undeterred, though, there was a visitor center located right there. The neat thing was the visitor center was this big trailer like a double wide, and it was up on a high peak. So you got all these beautiful views. And I'm watching the highway below and cars going by and I'm just getting into the feel of oh, man, you know, I'm going to ask these people where to pick up the roads. So I can at least drive a little bit of it to say I did. Inside the visitor center, there's a model map of the Blue Ridge Parkway in front of you. So it's neat. It's like you can look at the road. It's like a model railroad except it was Blue Ridge Parkway. A neat piece of irony was that it was a husband and wife that were working there running the visitor center. And they were from Deerfield Massachusetts of all places. Now granted, Deerfield from where I live is about three hours away out in Central Western Massachusetts. But when you're down in Virginia, and you bump into people that happen to be from somewhere in your home state, it was kind of neat. They were really nice. They told me how the roads were closed. So they gave me two points that I could try to pick up the road where they figured it would be open. The one that I can remember that actually gave me hope that I would have some success was there was a connecting point in the village of love Virginia. I said, Oh man, a town named love, that's a good omen. Before leaving the visitors center, I took a photo there was an old abandoned Howard Johnson's restaurant there. So if you look it up, you can find photos and postcards of it when it was open, has actually been closed since 1998. And it's just sitting there decaying. So I got photos of that, and photos from the visitors center. But then I was on my way to drive to love. So I stuck it in my GPS, and drove these back roads, because it was about 20 miles to get to love. All I know is that the first place that I can't remember was a failure to. So that's why I'm talking about the loved one, because they got to the first place. And it was basically like you drove up a mountain to get to where you'd meet the Blue Ridge Parkway. And the first place I got to when I drove up to the top of the mountain there was blocked off again. So then I was continuing on to love. And I said Now this, this is going to work, I need to get a chance to at least drive. Now I was thinking even if I could drive 1000 feet. And I would say I drove the Blue Ridge Parkway, just grab some photos and fake it the best I could. And within the last five minutes or so like according to the GPS to when I get to that connecting point in love Virginia, I started bumping into a few other cars like they were all going in the same direction. So I started to get a good feeling like all they were all going to this connecting point because there was an overlook there as well. And I drove up to the top and you can see it you know when you're on your GPS, and it's closing in, it's like the finish line. So I'm ready and I'm ready and I get to the top and not only is it blocked off, but it's blocked off in both directions. So I couldn't even get on the road at all. The only thing I could do when I got to the high point was pull over and just look down the road. And just imagine driving on it. Because I had somewhere else to be before the night ended on this day of the road trip I couldn't even risk going a little further. Because I'm sure as the road travel southwest, there'll be less and less chance that the roads would be closed off because the temperatures a little warmer. But unfortunately, with the sunset there being before five o'clock, all I could do was pull over and plug in the next place I was going to see and skip over the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was such a fail. I wanted to drive it and get the beautiful mountain shots and the foliage and all these photos that you see if you look up the Blue Ridge Parkway, but all I got was driving connecting roads to be told that it was closed. I think it was the only failure from the whole road trip. Every other place that I wanted to see I saw I mean I saw the Blue Ridge Parkway I've got a picture of the entrance but it's blocked off. But I didn't get to see any of those views. The funny thing is the things I remember most that I take away from my attempt at the Blue Ridge Parkway come from the visitors center and bumping into the couple from Deerfield and getting pictures of old abandoned Howard Johnson's. It reminded me a little of the old Simpsons episode where Homer is driving on the highway. And there are all these signs for a barbecue place called flaming Pete's, and when he finally gets the flaming pizza that actually just burned down. That was like me on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was all this anticipation of the scenes I was going to see of the beautiful mountains and foliage and then when I get there as blocked off so all I could do is just keep on going. But if any of you ever driven the Blue Ridge Parkway, have you gotten the photos and the beautiful scenes I mean, I've gone to their websites that are associated with the Blue Ridge Parkway and seen what I missed and get more angry and jealous. But that was my road trip fail Blue Ridge Parkway. All I got was the visitor center and an old broken down Howard Johnsons. Next time, we do a road trip which will be episode 43 of the podcast. That one has a much happier ending although it started similarly to the Blue Ridge Parkway. So that's a little tease for the next road trip.
Sponsor: Wear Your Wish
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This Week In History
This week in history is all about the debut of the not-ready-for-primetime players and one of the staples of television history more than just comedy just television history. 46 years ago this week, October 11 1975. The television show Saturday Night Live debuted. The show literally just began its 47th season and the episode that just aired at the time of this podcast was the 900 and 10th episode in the show's history. When it started it was called NBC Saturday night. And the very first host was stand up comedian George Carlin. It's always been a sketch comedy show. They've always had Weekend Updates for the news. They've had some of their most successful skits on this show have gone on to become huge movies like The Blues Brothers and Wayne's World. Some of the not as successful like it's Pat or the ladies man. The original cast for that first show included Laraine Newman, John Belushi, Gilda Radner, Chevy Chase, Jane Curtin, Garrett Morris and Dan Ackroyd. And although he was on it a lot, Steve Martin was never actually a member of the show. And Chevy Chase left after the first season. He was replaced by Bill Murray. I mean, you're talking legends of comedy that started on that show. Think of how many people that went on to become huge Hollywood stars in movies got their start on SNL. I just named you Dan Ackroyd John Belushi Chevy Chase. Bill Murray. Eddie Murphy. You want to get on to when I started watching in the early 90s. I mean, it was Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Phil Hartman, and then later on Will Ferrell Jimmy Fallon, the show when it debuted replaced the best of Johnny Carson that had been what had been running in that 11:30 time slot for years. Within a few years of Saturday Night Live beginning it was such a huge hit that they started doing the best of Saturday Night compilation shows to put on earlier for people that couldn't stay up until 11:30. The show has been known since the beginning for its guest hosts that get involved in all the skits. Originally, the plan was to have three rotating guests host Richard Pryor, Lily Tomlin and George Carlin but that fell apart and now you've got everyone wants to host that show and be the musical guest. And yeah, there's been ebbs and flows in terms of quality and popularity. There's a crater in the mid-80s, where it really wasn't as good. But then it's like you get graduating classes where new cast members come in, you know, the originals left and they were replaced with Eddie Murphy's crew, but then he left and eventually you got to where it was Phil Hartman, and Kevin Nealon and Dana Carvey, and then they were joined by Sandler and Farley and David Spade and Rob Schneider. And then when they left you got Will Ferrell one with Molly Shannon and Sheri Oteri and Jimmy Fallon. And it just keeps going. It doesn't seem like it'll ever stop. They're closing in on 1000 episodes. As of this recording of the podcast, there have been a total of 159 cast members have Saturday Night Live. And although I couldn't find the number of people that have hosted the show, the person that's hosted the most is Alec Baldwin, who's done it 17 times since 1990 46 years ago this week, episode one of Saturday Night Live debuted on NBC. And now we've got a very special time capsule that I had promised from last week on the podcast. We're gonna go back to October 10 2001 20 years ago, and a very special birthday of a very special person. It's hard to believe that my niece Emma is now 20 years old. But here we go with a little time capsule to tell you what was going on the day that she came into this world, the number one song was fallen by Alicia Keys. This was the lead single from her first album Songs and a minor. This song immediately made a star out of Alicia Keys and put her on the map. I mean, it was a huge way to bust through and obviously since then, she's had hit songs hit albums, and awards that she's won, but it all started with Fallin'. The number one movie was American Pie two. This was the sequel to the huge hit American Pie about teenagers in their lives like a sexy rom-com and kind of really dirty but in a good way. It made $288 million worldwide on a budget of 30 million, but it's got a rating of 52% on Rotten Tomatoes. That doesn't really matter if you like gross-out humor and that kind of teen comedy stuff. You'll love it. I loved it. The American Wedding is one that came after and not as much but the first two you can't miss. The number one TV show was friends, friends is considered one of the best sitcoms ever. It was a huge hit in the 90s and the 2000s. It ran for 10 seasons, and 236 episodes. It made stars out of its six main cast members, including Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox. It centers around those six cast members in their lives, how they intermingle with each other as they live in the same apartment complex in Manhattan. And of course, it's got the huge theme song, the hit, I'll be there for you by the Rembrandt's and that song even hit the top 20 in the US. And if you were growing up living in October 2001, and you were in the video games, which I definitely was back then. And you wanted a brand new Playstation two, which was the huge gaming console from 2001. You could get one from Toys R Us for $694 which when adjusted for inflation is $1,072 for a PS two, Oba Don't worry though, because if you bought the PS two, you got 50% off your first game you bought games were normally $84 or $130. Today, if you're wondering if those are inflated prices, I was looking and the cheapest PlayStation five that I could find right now was 459 99. So it's cheaper now than it was back then. And even it's like half of what the price was when you consider inflation. But that was what was happening on October 10 2001. But the most important thing that happened that day was my niece Emma came into this world and she's been one of my favorite people on this planet for 20 years now. And I've had a lot of fun misadventures with her from watching old McDonald's commercials in my bedroom when she was little, to taking her out for her senior photos and going to an old abandoned driving site and finding an old mattress and taking photos and sending them to my sister to say that that's what she wanted for her senior photos or corrupting her a little bit with the music that I like. She's now in college, and she's smarter than I could have ever hoped to be. And she's gonna be so much more than I could ever have hoped to be. And I'm very proud to be your uncle. And I hope that you have a happy birthday. And we'll have some kind of crazy adventure when you get back from school for the holidays Happy Birthday E.
Top 5: Underrated Cape Cod Attractions
I'm excited for this week's new top five, this is going to be one that's kind of in my wheelhouse. This is going to be my picks for the top five underrated Cape Cod attractions. And what I mean by underrated, is they're not necessarily secret places and I'm giving away for anyone that wants to try to come and give me grief like I've gotten before. These are just ones that I think are so much better than the love that they get shown by visitors and locals. And as I say with every top five lists, these are in no particular order. Do you may have different ones if you live on Cape Cod, if you visit Cape Cod, you may have your go-to’s for your favorite attractions. But despite how popular Cape Cod gets, especially in the summer, I say it's a vacation destination. There are still places that are lesser known and lesser explored that are right out in front of you. Of course there's a slew of honorable mentions for Cape Cod's most underrated attractions. Honorable Mentions include the Papa Knesset spit out in Mashpee, the white cedar swamp in Wellfleet Scargo tower in Dennis, which mere harbor in Harwich, and Highfield Hall in Falmouth, but let's get into the actual top five. So top five underrated Cape Cod attractions number one, the knob in Falmouth. This is right on Quisset harbor. Basically, if you're on your way to Woods Hole, you can find this. It's like a peninsula with a fist at the end. That's a rock outcropping. That is one of the most beautiful spots on the cape for sunsets. It's photographed by everyone like once you find it, it's one of those things where you'll always go back there, it is very popular, even though it's a little bit out of the way. It's about a half-mile walk from the parking lot out to the tip of the knob. But there are weddings out there, there's a little beach there that people will go swimming at sometimes people will fish off the knob. It's a hidden gem, but it's not that hidden and Quisset Harbor itself with all the boats, that's another great photography spot. Number two, is the Bourne recreation area. It's literally a park right underneath the Born bridge. So if you're driving along the connector road that brings you from the Sagamore Bridge in the mid-Cape highway down to the Bourne bridge where you connect to either route 28 Going south to Falmouth or you go over the Bourne bridge, and you get on route 25. There's a connector Road in between, right before you hit that last curve to go towards the Bourne Rotary, there's a road that shoots off to the right, and goes down into Bourne village. And that's where you'll find the Bourne recreation area. And it's neat because there's a little parking lot, they actually just built a bigger parking lot. So you could probably fit 30 cars down there. But it's right on the railroad tracks. There's a bike trail that goes along the Cape Cod canal. And it's this interesting dichotomy because it's kind of secluded, but it's bustling with traffic. You're parked in an area that if you're going over the Bourne bridge, you don't see really, but yet there are boats and bikes and cars going overhead. And the train will go by every now and then. So it's just awesome. It's a great place to sit and watch life go by. Number three, the Aptuxcet Trading Post Museum, this is not far from that Bourne Recreation Area. The Aptuxcet trading post itself is a replica of the original trading posts on Cape Cod from Plymouth colony. It was built originally in 1627. This one when they excavated the area, they built an exact replica I think it was in the late 1920s There's the whole grounds now you can walk they've got the trading post and old saltworks. There's the Grey Gables railroad station which Grover Cleveland President Cleveland used when he used to visit and there's a big bluish-white windmill that was owned by actor Joseph Jefferson, who originally played Rip Van Winkle in 1896 but you can visit the museum you can walk straight out to the canal just again and watch life go by. But it's a beautiful historic area, great views and highly underrated. I just did a book event there not too long ago and it was amazing. Number four is Long Beach in Centerville. So this may be achieved because it's technically connected to craigville beach. So if you know Craigville Beach, which is hugely popular, then you know Long Beach because if you walk Craigville Beach West far enough, that's where you end up. This one is also beautifully secluded because you can park if you park at craigville Beach, it's a longer walk. There are a few little parking areas along Long Beach Road, and you can just walk down and there's a pathway that leads you out to the beach. The great thing is that East Bay empties in on one side. So Long Beach is like a barrier beach. If you walk on the river side of it. There are boats kayaks, paddle boards going by. There used to be this incredible shell tree out at the end of Long Beach. It was a little over a mile walk to get out to it, but people adorn this basically a piece of driftwood but it was much bigger a bigger tree adorned with hundreds and hundreds of shells, and then some asshole cut it down who claimed it was their property. I don't know the ins and outs of it but it's a real douche move when someone cuts down this tree that people would hike out to see the beautiful shells on it. I'll share a photo on Twitter so you can see what I mean because now it's gone. And number five on the top five underrated Cape Cod attractions is bearBerry Hill in Truro stands just over 100 feet tall. It's right near Ballston beach and tomorrow. It also overlooks the youth hostel where I went and stayed in fifth grade at the Cape Cod National Seashore, which I covered in Episode 21. The views are incredible. The sunsets are incredible. You're overlooking the great beach on the Atlantic side of Cape Cod. You also can hike down the other side of Bearberry hill, which will lead you out to this really secluded part of the beach where there's really no cell phone service. It's like you and nobody else in the world. And that's kind of something that's missing on Cape Cod, especially in summer finding those little crevices where people don't go, but I highly recommend bearBerry Hill for the scenery to get to see the sunset and sunrise. It's incredible. Those are my top five underrated Cape Cod attractions. Have you heard of any of them? Have you been to any of them? Are there any I missed? the knob, the Bourne recreation area Aptuxcet Trading Post Museum, Long Beach and bearBerry Hill. Those are my picks. Make sure to give me a shout on Twitter Instagram, or shoot me an email Christopher setterlund@gmail.com. And let me know what you thought of this week's top five.
Back In the Day: Fangoria Magazine
I am a big fan of classic horror movies going up probably through the 90s there are some today that are good still, but nothing beats the old days for me. As you can tell by the back in the day segments on this podcast. Today things are so much easier because of the Internet where you can just search for anything I do it while I'm recording the podcast I look for any stats and facts that I need for whatever I'm recording. The other side of that coin though, means that the classic physical paperback magazines those days, they're still around. But magazines are dwindling because you can just read a lot of the stuff online. The sweet spot between being a horror movie fan and liking to read was Fangoria magazine. This was fan service for those that liked bloody horror movies. This was the way that I grew up. I learned a lot about horror movies. I started reading Fangoria magazine in the late 1980s. It's still around today. And it's been around since 1979. Currently, it's published four times a year, which is good because it was in trouble for a while in the 2010s. With the internet, like I was just saying the need for physical magazines became less and less so Fangoria started to struggle. And luckily, they've been sort of resurrected since 2018. But nothing beats what it was like in the 1980s. For me going into stores and seeing the photos that will be on the cover. You get the classic horror movie villains, Freddy Krueger or Jason or Michael Myers or Leatherface and you get some pretty graphic bloody photos on the front of these magazines that would make you want to see the movies if you were a fan, or it would gross you out if you didn't like them. Fangoria was seen as that niche for the horror movie audience. Since there had already been magazines dedicated to science fiction fans or soap opera fans, it was only natural that you get a horror movie one, especially as they really grew in popularity throughout the 70s and into the 80s with the genre, slasher movie genre, it took until the seventh issue released of the magazine for it to become profitable. And that was with the movie The shining with Jack Nicholson on the cover. And it's kind of funny because you think of teen heartthrob magazines like Tiger Beat team beat 17 those magazines where they made idols, pop culture idols out of singers and actors, the younger generation back in the 80s. With Fangoria magazine, it was similar where it made idols out of those horror movie villains. So it was almost like if you had teen beat in 1988, and you had New Kids on the Block on the cover, you would get more sales from the teenage girls that love New Kids on the Block. It was a more popular issue. With that said with Fangoria, if you had a cover that had Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees with some bloody kill going on, you sold more than if it was some unknown movie. With a photo of like some weird monster on it. They would do profile pieces on film series or movie reviews or profiles of the horror movie villains like they were real people. And that was always fun. You would learn some of the origin stories, especially being 12-13-14 years old, and reading about Freddy Krueger and maybe something behind the scenes about the character that you didn't know. And it would make you appreciate the movies more. They got so popular that in 1992, they started doing the Fangoria chainsaw awards which were like the Oscars for horror films. The very first chainsaw Awards took place on May 16 1992. At the Los Angeles airport Hilton. It was hosted by Bruce Campbell of the Evil Dead. Being that it celebrated the horror movies of 1991. It was not surprising that the silence of the lambs won a ton of awards. For me, the heyday of Fangoria was the late 80s, early 90s When I would go to either down to the corner store near where I lived and buy a new magazine if it had someone cool on the cover. Or better yet, my uncle John used to work at a bookstore in Hyannis and you longtime Cape Cotters might remember a bookstore, this was in the Kmart Plaza. Well, what used to be the Kmart Plaza was a bookstore called Dwyers. And I used to go there at times because my mother would work there, my uncle work there, and it would allow me the chance to go in and grab magazines and sit and read them for free. So that was where it was really a can't lose situation. You get to read the magazine without the risk of you know, you spend your money on it and then it's crap. And then it's like, well, you don't get the money back so you could read the magazine for free. And naturally after reading the magazines and finding these gross gory horror movies, the next thing you got to do is go to the video store and rent them. Boy that is a really old-fashioned phrase to read a magazine and then go rent a video but that's what I used to always do. Yeah, I would rent Friday the 13th they always had a new one every year basically coming out, or the New Nightmare on Elm Street movie but the best was finding the B movies that were just crazy Gore like maniac cop or Rawhead Rex, pumpkin head was good, or ones like the mutilator or CHUD that was a good one cannibalistic humanoid, underground dwellers, or Ghoulies that was like the offshoot of gremlins. It was so much fun and it definitely didn't desensitize you to violence like reading about it and seeing the gore. It didn't make it any less creepy or cool when you're 1213 years old. Like I know they talk about violent video games like people try to make the connection that it leads to violence and it really doesn't. The same with reading horror movie magazines didn't suddenly make it where me seeing someone like get their head crushed in didn't make it not creepy. Much like with a lot of the physical media, the rise of the Internet started to kill off the business for print magazines like Fangoria, but you can go right now to fangoria.com They're still there. print magazines come out quarterly. If you're a child of the 80s like me, maybe you go and grab one and kind of reminisce about the old days. It's wild to think how easy to please. We were back in the 80s and early 90s. I mean, a perfect night for me at age 13 would be something I read out of Fangoria magazine renting that movie, getting some McDonald's and a Mountain Dew. And just watching it on video. Can't go back to those days. Well, you can mimic it. But that was a trip way, way back in the day to the days of reading Fangoria magazine and then watching the gory horror movies that it reviewed inside of it. Did you ever read Fangoria? Do you go to their website? Or do you still read them if possible, I'm glad to see that they're still around. And they're kind of stable after being basically out of business for a few years. But I'll link to them in the description of the podcast. So you can go check them out yourselves and see why I wanted to mention Fangoria on the podcast and why I thought it was so great in such a big staple of my childhood back in the 80s and early 90s.
Closing
That's going to wrap up episode 41 of the in my footsteps podcast. Thank you to everyone who's been listening from the beginning. Any of you who have come along for the ride since I got started. Coming up is going to be the one-year anniversary of the podcast. So I'm really excited about that. And the fact that I've gotten this far with this passion project, that content creation that I really enjoy. I'll be doing a live stream on the actual one-year anniversary of the podcast, which will be November 5. So I'm gonna probably put together something for a q&a where anyone goes on Instagram. If you follow me there, you can just ask a question about the podcast or anything I've done with it. Because that'll be fun. I've been wanting to do a q&a forever. So now I'm going to try to force one to happen. Check out the without a map live streams on Instagram Fridays at 8pm. Follow me on Twitter, subscribe on YouTube. I do videos on there for K New England and also clips from the podcast and the live streams go up on there. You can find any of my first six books there at Amazon. Or you can find the first three through Schiffer Publishing and The last three through the history press. If you want to buy me a coffee, you can go to buy me a coffee.com just search for the in my footsteps podcast. And whatever donations come they go to advertise in the podcast to try to reinvest in what I'm doing. But beyond donations, the best thing you can do is share this podcast, go give it positive reviews on Apple, Spotify, wherever, and just tell people if you're into New England travel history, lifestyle, nostalgia, all that stuff. This is for you. Visit my website, Christopher setterlund.com. It's got all the links you could possibly need, including links to my in my footsteps podcast blog, which I do a lot of writing for. But you can also go and search the archives. I'm trying to share a lot of my spooky Halloween season articles that I've written in the past because there's not enough time to share all of them on the podcast in the month of October. Next week is episode 42. And it's going to be my monthly bonus episode. So a little bit shorter 20 to 25 minutes, this is going to be all about the scariest places that I've ever been, and kind of what goes into them and why I seek out these kinds of adventures. And also the places that I thought would be scary but weren't. And then maybe a little bit about other scary places that I want to visit in the future. But that's coming up next week. And again, happy 20th birthday to my niece Emma. I think by the time you hear this, your birthday will have passed but I told you that I wanted to make sure it wasn't before your birthday that I shared this. So you're getting it after so it's like an extra present. Hopefully all of you out there getting a chance to enjoy the change in seasons unless you hate fall then you're not enjoying it. But I like I always say I love this time a year. The leaves are changing, the weather starts to get crispy, but you still get those nice days where it's in the 60s still. It's perfect for hiking and the pumpkin patch walks and then, later on, this month with the Halloween stuff haunted houses and all that good stuff. I may not go trick or treating anymore for Halloween, but I do have my tradition and it's always to watch the original Halloween movie with Chinese food. I've been doing that for so long that I've been doing that longer than I trick or treated. But whether you love October and love fall and Halloween or you hate it, just enjoy the day for whatever you can for yourself. Taking care of your own mental health is more important than anything else that should be first and foremost. It's not being selfish to make sure that your head is in a good spot. And I know some days are harder than others some weeks, some years, I know that they're harder than others, but you got to lean into whatever makes you happy. Because there's been plenty of times in my life recently and in the more distant past where it feels like the darkness is just there and it's there to stay. But the clouds always break the sun always rises, metaphorically, and literally. So just hang in there and take care of your own mental health. Whatever road you're on right now. In this life, don't walk in anyone else's footsteps create your own path. And like I said, enjoy every moment you can because you never know when the next sunset could be the last sunset. Thank you again to all of you that have tuned in to any of these 41 episodes. 42 is coming next week. I appreciate all of you and I thank you so much for indulging my creativity my outlet whenever you can. Have a great day. Great week, and I will talk to you all again soon.