Playing in thePast

Many of the games played in Canada came from faraway places and would be unfamiliar now. They also relied more on imagination rather than on store-bought toys or electricity. Are you able to guess which of the games on these pages were common in Canada’s

Conkers >>

Conkers was a bit like hitting a piñata, but with chestnuts. In the fall, the players would gather up chestnuts and boil them in water and dry them or bake them to make them hard as a rock. They then tied their conkers to a tree branch. The players tried to break the other chestnuts by throwing their chestnut at them. Nuts that did not break all year were called a “yearsie,” and their lucky owners would treat them like trophies.

Ante, Ante, Over the Shanty >>

Think of this as kind of like a game of catch and tag all at once. Players made teams and threw a ball over a low building like a shed. If the other team caught the ball, they ran and tagged the throwing team. If they didn’t catch it, they would yell “Ante, ante (pronounced “auntie”), over the shanty!” and throw the ball back.

<< Taboo

The players of this game would decide on a thing, usually a word or phrase or sometimes an item, that they would call taboo. This meant the players could not speak the word or name of the phrase or the item while they tried to get everyone else to say it. The amazing part: Players did not speak the taboo for their entire lives!

Blind Man’s Buff >>

This game is like monkey in the middle and tag, but not so much fun for whoever is It. The It player was blindfolded and spun around. The other players danced around the It player, who tried to tag somebody. Sometimes the It player had to guess who they caught by touching their face or listening to their voice.

<< Mumblety-Peg

This game is like flip the bottle but with sticks! Players drew two circles in the dirt, one inside the other, and gathered three sticks. They called these sticks peg, mumble and beater. The peg stick was placed outside the circle standing up, and the mumble was balanced on the peg facing the circle. The players took turns hitting the mumble with the beater to land the mumble in the smallest circle.