DATASET 00

Lies

There’s no good place to start. Our primary sources tend to be vague at best on measurements of distance, elevation, time, space. Some even dispute that Backwater is a literal place and insist it’s a lie encouraged by the eclectic souls who populate this isolated ledge. Folk here value their solitude and independence so highly that we’ve been advised to treat their information with skepticism.

We found our way into Backwater, also known as the Autonomous District of Pokelogan, because of a pilgrim with an uncommon material connection to it. But we’ve discovered that there are many more ethereal paths that lead seekers out of their ruts and across an unmarked threshold into sacred territory.

It’s difficult to say for sure whether what we report here are facts or not. Experiences in Backwater seem to be coloured by the attitude of the perceiver. This may explain reports of supernatural phenomena by visitors and perhaps some of the more unsettling local legends. For this reason, we begin this exploration with the most concrete and banal of our evidence, whether or not it can be certified as “true.”

 i. “Anna”

LEGAL NAME: **WITHHELD**

MAIDEN SURNAME: Schmid

ALIASES: Anna Miller, Mary Louise Sullivan, Linda Swansbourg

born: January 12, 1933 - Illertissen, Bavaria

SIGNS: Sun in Capricorn, moon in Cancer, rising unknown

died: January 5, 2015 - nova scotia, canada

NATIONALITY: German

The subsequent documents were found among the personal effects of Anna Miller*, secured in two lockboxes found in Barbara M’s garage on the south shore of Nova Scotia, in the summer of 2019. According to our interview with Barbara, they had belonged to her neighbour Anna, who had passed away in January 2015. Barbara reported that Anna kept the lockboxes with her in the hospital when she was admitted after a stroke, and during a visit asked Barbara to destroy them after her death.

Since Anna had no family, the boxes were discharged to Barbara after Anna’s death. Fortunately or unfortunately, Barbara was unable to open either lockbox to destroy the contents, and they were subsequently sold to us at a yard sale by her sons. The boxes themselves had to be bashed open with blunt tools. By the time we returned to interview Anna’s friends and neighbours and learned she’d wanted the contents destroyed, it was already too late.

From a rural converted trailer on a rushing river, Anna Miller lived an outwardly quiet life for almost thirty years after immigrating to Canada from Germany in 1989. But secretly, she was doing something that required most of her time and all her remaining material resources, something that put her into direct contact with an enduring mystery, the jurisdictional accident known as the Autonomous District of Pokelogan.

*Her real name is perhaps unique in the area where she spent the final third of her life, and to respect her privacy even in death, we use one of her chosen aliases.

EARLY LIFE

"Anna" was born in 1933 in Illertissen, Bavaria, the only child of middle-class parents. Trained as a secretary, she spent the first half of her life living and working in Germany, Italy and Switzerland.

Copy of Anna Miller’s first identity papers (under her birth name)

PATERNAL CONNECTION

Anna's father Anton was a stonemason who traveled both to Canada and South Africa between 1914 and 1945. There is some evidence to suggest he was involved in mining operations in both countries.

Anna's father Anton was a mason who traveled both to Canada and South Africa between 1914 and 1945. There is some evidence to suggest he was involved in mining operations in both countries.

FAILED MARRIAGES

Anna married and divorced twice in her twenties. The first one ended after less than a year… possibly acrimoniously. The second one was more successful and Anna kept her second husband's unusual Italian surname even after the divorce.

Anna’s first marriage to a man surnamed Stahl lasted only a year. She seems to have seen it as a serious mistake. [Photograph unaltered by us]

LIQUIDATING ASSETS

After the death of her parents in the 1980s, Anna sold an income property in their hometown of Illertissen. It had been built by her father on land inherited from her maternal grandfather.

The 19th century property deed, inherited from Anna’s mother’s side of the family.

There may have been other property. Anton Schmid, Anna’s father, had contacts (and possibly extended family) in Atlantic Canada and South Africa, according to an address book from 1930 contained in the lockbox. At some point, Anna ordered a deed search on a plot of land in Atlantic Canada, which she paid taxes on with cheques from German and Swiss banks until 2013.

Anton Schmid’s address book lists New Brunswick addresses alongside the Hamburg branch of a South African bank.

A 1990 deed search for a parcel of land situated somewhere in Atlantic Canada.

 

IMMIGRATION

With the funds from the sale of the property in Illertissen, Anna, aged 55, bought a small house in a remote corner of the Maritimes and emigrated to Canada with some furniture, an Opel and her German shepherd.

German Reisepass that Anna used during her immigration process.

Our interviews indicate that Anna was a kind and generous person, a dog lover, and good to her neighbours, even if most people found her odd and “foreign.” She rarely discussed details about her life and when she did, it may have been false information. For example, Barbara M. said Anna spoke often about her three children, all of whom had predeceased her. We, however, found no evidence in Anna’s personal documents that she had ever had any children.

ANNA’S LAST HOME

Anna's Nova Scotian home was a converted trailer outside the town of Port Meduse (which is named after an older Acadian settlement known to have been in Pokelogan, deserted after the Acadian Expulsion in 1755 on land since reclaimed by the sea).

Anna’s first and last Canadian home, a cozy converted trailer on the edge of a wide, rushing “bewitched” river.

But why here? Why leave a comfortable life and income property in Germany for this rural nook of Atlantic Canada? It was certainly gutsy, moving across the world to live in the woods in an unknown land. It seems that she may have believed she was guided here by a recurring dream…