"Gunpowder Gertie" Stubbs is a fictional pirate, often mistakenly reported as real.

Stubbs, the story goes, was born in 1879, in Whitby

Whitby

Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, the daughter of George Stubbs

George Stubbs

George Stubbs was an English painter, best known for his paintings of horses.-Biography:Stubbs was born in Liverpool, the son of a currier and leather merchant. Information on his life up to age thirty-five is sparse, relying almost entirely on notes made by fellow artist Ozias Humphry towards the...

, a train engineer and his wife, Violet, a seamstress. Her family moved to Sandon, British Columbia

Sandon, British Columbia

Sandon is a ghost town in British Columbia, Canada. It is also the birthplace of hockey Hall of Fame member Cecil "Tiny" Thompson.-Location:Sandon is located in the Selkirk Mountains, about ten kilometers east of the town of New Denver.-History:...

 in Canada in 1895. Her mother died in an avalanche and her father turned to alcohol. Having to fend for herself, Gertrude became a pirate on the Kootenay River

Kootenay River

The Kootenay is a major river in southeastern British Columbia, Canada and the northern part of the U.S. states of Montana and Idaho. It is one of the uppermost major tributaries of the Columbia River, which is the largest North American river that empties into the Pacific Ocean...

 in Canada. She was known as "Gunpowder Gertie, the Pirate Queen of the Kootenays" and her steamship was called "The Witch." She supposedly hid her treasures and never let anyone know the location, even after her eventual capture and imprisonment by the mounties.

The story of Gunpowder Gertie was told as an April fools joke in the local Kootenay area

Kootenays

The Kootenay Region comprises the southeastern portion of British Columbia. It takes its name from the Kootenay River, which in turn was named for the Ktunaxa First Nation first encountered by explorer David Thompson.-Boundaries:The Kootenays are more or less defined by the Kootenay Land...

 newspaper, the Kootenay Review. So many people believed that it was true that it was later retold as historical fact on the CBC

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

program, This Day in History. The story of Gunpowder Gertie was written by Carolyn McTaggart, a local storyteller and resident of the Kootenays.