You’d never sink your life savings into a Ponzi scheme, right? Especially one operated by a former pig farmer who wants you to breed racing pigeons. But you might be surprised at what you’d do, given certain circumstances.                         

Almost 1,000 people in Canada and the U.S., many of them just as smart as the rest of us, fell for such a scheme between 2001 and 2008. That’s when Arlan Galbraith of Cochrane, Ont. operated Pigeon King International. A crackerjack salesman with a lifelong love of the birds, Galbraith sold breeding pigeons to farmers, contracting with them to buy the offspring, ostensibly for markets in the Middle East. And he did buy the young birds for many years, paying the breeders promptly.

Those payments were a godsend to the breeders because many were struggling to keep their family farms afloat. Even when Galbraith, who said his mission was to save the family farm, changed his story and said the birds were being raised for squab, a meat delicacy, instead of racing, investors stuck with him.

Problem was, Galbraith didn’t actually have a market. So he basically warehoused the offspring that he bought, operating a business that depended on fresh cash from investors for continual and unsustainable expansion. By the time his company collapsed, Galbraith had scooped up nearly $42 million from the farmers but had agreed to buy back $356 million worth of young birds. You can imagine the outcome.

Galbraith, and what he did to all those people, is the subject of The Pigeon King, a docudrama with country music. The Blyth Festival production is at the NAC starting April 24.

“He was primarily selling hope,” says Blyth artistic director Gil Garratt, who plays Galbraith in the show. “I don’t think he would have been able to achieve what he did if Canadian farmers were not living hand to mouth … and the precarious nature of the family farm in the 21st century.”

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