Downhome July 2021

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Chill out with these summer drinks!

$4.99 July 2021

Vol 34 • No 02

Record-setting wildlife catches

Origin of Jensen Camp DIY backyard oasis

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life is better Published monthly in St. John’s by Downhome Publishing Inc. 43 James Lane, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3 Tel: 709-726-5113 • Fax: 709-726-2135 • Toll Free: 1-888-588-6353 E-mail: mail@downhomelife.com Website: www.downhomelife.com Editorial Editor-in-Chief Janice Stuckless Assistant Editor Nicola Ryan Editor Lila Young Art and Production Art Director Vince Marsh Illustrator Mel D’Souza Illustrator Snowden Walters Advertising Sales Account Manager Barbara Young Marketing Director Tiffany Brett Finance and Administration Junior Accountant Marlena Grant Accounting Assistant Sandra Gosse

Warehouse Operations Warehouse / Inventory Manger Carol Howell Warehouse Operator Josephine Collins Retail Operations Retail Floor Manager, St. John’s Jackie Rice Retail Floor Manager, Twillingate Donna Keefe Retail Sales Associates Crystal Rose, Jonathon Organ, Elizabeth Gleason, Erin McCarthy, Marissa Little, Elizabeth Gauci, Kim Tucker, Heather Stuckless, Katrina Hynes, Lynette Ings, Stef Burt, Ashley Lane, Sarah Bishop

Subscriptions Customer Service Associate Cathy Blundon Founding Editor Ron Young Chief Executive Officer/Publisher Grant Young

Operations Manager, Twillingate Nicole Mehaney

President & Associate Publisher Todd Goodyear General Manager/Assistant Publisher Tina Bromley

To subscribe, renew or change address use the contact information above.

Subscriptions total inc. taxes, postage and handling: for residents in NL, NS, NB, PE $45.99; ON $45.19; QC, SK, MB, AB, BC, NU, NT, YT $41.99. US and International mailing price for a 1-year term is $49.99.

Canada Post Canadian Publications Mail Sales Product Agreement #40062919 The advertiser agrees that the publisher shall not be liable for damages arising out of errors in advertisements beyond the amount paid for the space actually occupied by the portion of the advertisement in which the error occurred, whether such error is due to the negligence of the servants or otherwise, and there shall be no liability beyond the amount of such advertisement. The Letters to the Editor section is open to all letter writers providing the letters are in good taste, not libelous, and can be verified as true, correct and written by the person signing the letter. Pen names and anonymous letters will not be published. The publisher reserves the right to edit, revise, classify, or reject any advertisement or letter. © Downhome Publishing Inc. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada.

Printed in Canada

Official onboard magazine of

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into the fire

Contents 78

JULY 2021

48 Catch of a Lifetime Todd Hollett tracks down some of the record-setting wildlife catches in Newfoundland and Labrador.

metal creations

56 Facing Down Forest Fires Connie Boland talks to a ground crew forest firefighter and a water bomber pilot about their experiences and advice for staying safe and avoiding forest fires.

74 Making Space for Everyone For those who need accessible accommodations, the devil is in the details.

Connie Boland

78 Fired Up The Newfoundland Blacksmith is planning a creative event this summer on the rocky beach of Fogo Island.

Nicola Ryan www.downhomelife.com

July 2021

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Contents homefront 10 I Dare Say A note from the Editor

JULY 2021

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a legendary pairing

12 Letters From Our Readers A family’s pandemic project, an inspirational senior, and the Bluenose and the Thebaud

20 Pandemic Pictures Young people share their COVID-19 experiences 24 Downhome Tours Readers explore Mexico with Downhome

26 Why is That? Why do we sometimes say we “sweat like a pig”? Why do cats get the “zoomies”? Linda Browne

28 Life’s Funny That Fizzy Feeling Ralph Matthews

29 Say What? A contest that puts words in someone else’s mouth

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weird wakeup

30 Lil Charmers Let’s Celebrate!

32 Pets of the Month Patriotic Pups 34 Reviewed Denise Flint reviews Under Amelia’s Wing and interviews the author, Heather Stemp

36 What Odds Paul Warford’s throwing punchlines

38 Fresh Tracks Wendy Rose reviews the award winning self-titled debut Nick Earle & the Reckless Hearts 4

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moving pictures

82

water adventures

features 42 Spawned by the Moratorium A new short film explores the cod moratorium’s ripple effect through the lens of one fisherman.

66 Sure Shots Featuring photographer Erik Mclean

explore 82 10 of the Prettiest Places to Paddle Our readers show us the beautiful places they’ve paddled around.

90 The Stage is Set A new worldclass venue in Cow Head is just the ticket for Theatre Newfoundland Labrador. Nicola Ryan www.downhomelife.com

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Contents

JULY 2021

104 calming liquids

96 liquid calm

home and cabin 94 Stuff We Love Boating Buddies Nicola Ryan

96 Backyard Oasis How to add a relaxing water feature to any outdoor space. Marie Bishop 100 Todd’s Table BBQ Striploin Steaks

104 Everyday Recipes Refreshing summer drinks

94 all aboard

110 Down to Earth Your Questions Answered Kim Thistle 6

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classroom memories

reminiscing 112 Flashbacks Classic photos of people and places 113 This Month in History The Trail of the Caribou

114 Two-Room School Days Memories from a United Church school in Central Newfoundland Munden Batstone About the cover Trinity is one of many beautiful locations for leisurely padding around in a kayak, canoe or paddle board. We highlight 10 of them as suggested by our readers, beginning on p. 82.

Dennis Flynn photo

117 A Soldier’s Legacy How a St. John’s street honours the public service of Captain Philip Jensen.

Doug Wells 120 Visions and Vignettes

Adventures of two young scalawags in a fictional long-ago outport Chill Out With These Summer Drinks! • 104 Harold N. Walters

Cover Index

Inclusive Vacations • 74 Fired Up • 78 10 of the Prettiest Places to Paddle • 82 Record-setting Wildlife Catches • 48 Origin of Jensen Camp • 117 DIY Backyard Oasis • 96 www.downhomelife.com

126 Puzzles 138 Classifieds 140 Mail Order 144 Photo Finish July 2021

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Check out some of the creative entries so far in our Pandemic Pictures youth-oriented contest.

Page 20

WATCH: Animated short film about the cod moratorium.

Check out what the filmmakers say about it on p. 42.

DownhomeLife.com/magazine

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How to create a backyard oasis in any size space.

Story on page 96

Digital Explore Guide Download our free 2021 Explore travel guide, complete with links to tourism websites and videos, from Issuu.com.

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Submission Guidelines and Prize Rules

You could WIN $100!

Every reader whose PHOTO, STORY, JOKE or POEM appears next to this yellow “from our readers” stamp in a current issue receives $10 and a chance at being drawn for the monthly prize: $100 for one photo submission and $100 for one written submission. Prizes are awarded in Downhome Dollars certificates, which can be spent like cash in our retail stores and online at shopDownhome.com.*

Submit Today!

Send your photo, story, joke or poem to

Downhome, 43 James Lane, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3 or submit online at: www.downhomelife.com *Only 1 prize per submitter per month. To receive their prize, submitters must provide with their submission COMPLETE contact information: full name, mailing address, phone number and email address (if you have one). Mailed submissions will only be returned to those who include a self-addressed, stamped envelope. Downhome Inc. reserves the right to publish submissions in future print and/or electronic media campaigns. Downhome Inc. is not responsible for unsolicited material.

Hidden somewhere in this issue is Corky Sly Conner.

Can you find him?

Look carefully at all the photographs and in the text of the stories. If you spot Corky, send us your name, address and phone number, along with a note telling us where he’s located. Your name will be entered in a draw and the winner will receive a coupon worth 25 Downhome Dollars redeemable at our store, or through our website.

Send your replies to: Corky Contest

Congratulations

43 James Lane St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3

to Len Davis of North Bay, ON, who found Corky on page 81 of the May Issue.

mail@downhomelife.com www.downhomelife.com Deadline for replies is the end of each month. *No Phone Calls Please. One entry per person

www.downhomelife.com

July 2021

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i dare say All the world really is a stage. I mean, who’s going to argue with Shakespeare?

Todd Young photo

I’ve been to performances inside a wine cellar, in a military battery, on a former church altar, at a roadside, in a city park and in a gymnasium. In fact, my earliest exposure to stage plays was in our school gym in Twillingate.

We didn’t have a formal theatre space then, but thanks to a local group of talented thespians we had great theatre.

When the “house” lights went down and the curtain opened, we could have been in the grandest hall in the country. Except for the appropriately timed laughter, occasional sniffle, and quiet shuffling in the wooden chairs when your bum went to sleep, you could hear a pin drop.

The plays were always sold out and everyone would be abuzz after about how good the actors were, what an interesting story they told, and what a great night out it was. In a small town, it was a big event.

I’ve since been to countless performances at the LSPU Hall and Arts and Culture Centre in St. John’s. I even drove from St. John’s to Stephenville with a friend once to catch a special performance of the Stephenville Theatre Festival (STF) that night. The west coast, in fact, has some serious theatre chops. The STF is marking its 43rd season of stellar performances this summer, and Theatre Newfoundland Labrador’s 25th season of the Gros Morne Theatre Festival is being held in the new Nurse Myra Bennett Centre for the Performing Arts. Turn to page 88 to learn how this multi-million-dollar facility came to be built in the small community of Cow Head.

This province is steeped in culture and awash with multi-talented artists. This summer, as venues that were closed by the pandemic begin to awaken, show your support by showing up. Let the actors transport you and entertain you. It’s guaranteed to be money and time well spent.

Thanks for reading,

Janice Stuckless, Editor-in-chief janice@downhomelife.com 10

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A lot has been written this past year about living with COVID-19, mostly from adults’ point of view. But what do our young people think of it all? We’re offering anyone under 20 to share with us their view on the pandemic by writing a story or poem about it, or drawing or painting a picture that tells us what this past year has been like for you. What stands out? What has affected you most? What will you remember about this when you’re all grown up?

We’re accepting your stories, poems, paintings and drawings – anything creative really – until June 30, 2021. We’ll publish them online and in upcoming issues of Downhome. Entries will go into a draw for a free one-year subscription to Downhome of your very own (one drawn in May and one in June). At the end, there will be a grand prize draw from all entries for a gift pack of goodies valued at approximately $300!

Submit your entry today! (little kids will need a parent’s or guardian’s help): By email: editorial@downhomelife.com

By mail: Downhome Pandemic Pictures 43 James Lane, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3

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The Inspirational Senior

During this difficult time for all of us, I have a short story of inspiration that I’d like to share. As we know, our seniors have been hit particularly hard during COVID19, isolating from their families and, in the worst cases, losing those they love the most.

This letter is about an 83-yearold man, from Triton, NL. He’s a retired miner with a Grade 10 education who sat at his kitchen table one day armed with nothing but a mechanical pencil and several pads of paper, and wrote a 461-page book! That’s more than 100,000 words about the Green Bay area where he grew up and his life in Newfoundland. This man is my father, Archie Anstey.

He is living proof that it doesn’t matter where you came from, or what your circumstances are or how old you are – everyone has it in them to do extraordinary things!

Dad, I love you and am so proud of you. You are a true inspiration!

Todd Anstey Toronto, ON

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It’s never too late to try something new or mark something off your bucket list. Congratulations, Archie, on becoming a published author and contributing to the anecdotal history of your region. Anyone who’s interested in reading Archie’s book can find it on Amazon under the title “Anstey: A Newfoundland Story.”

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Just a Boy and His Dad Joel, with the help of his dad, hooks his very first conner off the dock at our cabin on Exploits Island!

Brenda Budgell Grand Falls-Windsor, NL

Thanks for sharing this awesome moment, Brenda. Your first catch is always a big deal, especially when it’s with your dad. Seeing Joel enjoy this experience reminds us how important it is that everyone be able to access the spaces we all share.

As Lisa Walters tells us in this month’s feature about accessible vacations (page 74), “The outdoors should be for everyone.”

Memory of Barry Dewling I was shocked when I opened my June edition of Downhome to find that Barry Dewling had passed away (p. 17), even though I hardly knew him.

On Sunday afternoon, May 3, 1992, the Downhomer held a rally in Nathan Phillips Square in front of Toronto City Hall, to protest the government’s mismanagement of the East Coast fisheries. Thousands of people showed up in support.

During the rally, I ran into Jennie and Josie, the loveable musical sisters from Port Rexton, NL. Their band played country and Newfoundland music all over southern Ontario.

They introduced me to a young man with them: Barry Dewling, who was also from Port Rexton, and a fellow musician.

There were a number of notables who flew up from Newfoundland to speak to the crowd that day, including www.downhomelife.com

Fisheries Minister Walter Carter and politician John Efford. But the man who touched my heart the most for his passion and love for Newfoundland was Barry Dewling.

He had left Port Rexton on the previous Friday and drove nonstop to be in Toronto for the rally on Sunday.

After the rally was over, he left immediately for the long drive back home to be at his job on Wednesday.

Even though I only met the man for a few minutes, I will never forget Barry Dewling. Rest in peace, sir. Even though you were born in Toronto, you were indeed a true Newfoundlander.

Bruce Roberts Via email

Thanks, Bruce, for sharing your story of the lasting impression Barry Dewling made on you that day long ago. His family will be touched, no doubt, to read it.

July 2021

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Family Brought Together by COVID-19 Three weeks into the COVID-19 quarantine, my aunt, Lillian Bouzane, emailed our extended family suggesting we write and share poems about this pandemic and our reactions to it.

It would be a fun project to help us cope with what was turning out to be a longer and more serious ordeal than we could have imagined. She would share the poems with everyone as she received them and would publish them in an e-book.

At first only a trickle responded, but very soon, as poems were shared and enthusiastically awaited online each day, siblings, cousins, children, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and even spouses were sending in their poems. Poems of love, loss, fear, anguish, uncertainty, bravado, boredom, contentment and, yes, joy were shared by members of a family scattered across Newfoundland, Canada and the United States, many of whom had never met. Eventually we had a Zoom meeting where we matched poems to faces and launched our e-book of 75 poems, thanks to an enormous effort by Aunt Lill. We shared our poems with each other, but we also shared our pleasure and a new closeness as part of one big family. The e-book, Surprised By Joy: Poems in the Time of COVID, is now available on Amazon so we can share our poems with others who may feel comforted, amused or even justified by what they read.

Dolores Mills St. John’s, NL

Congratulations to this family for finding a creative way to deal with this pandemic, and making new paths to find each other when a virus is keeping us apart. Anyone who’s interested in reading this unique collection of musings from all ages and geographic locations can download it from Amazon.ca for the modest price of $3.94. Included in the free preview is a poem by nine-year-old Clarey Mills Ash. It’s exactly the youthful insight into these pandemic times that we’re looking for in our Pandemic Pictures contest. See page 11 for details, and page 20 for a sample of the talented entries we’ve received so far.

Continued on p. 16

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The Bluenose and the Thebaud I enjoyed the article about the Bluenose in the April edition, particularly the mention of the Gertrude L Thebaud.

The Arctic explorer Donald B. MacMillan leased the Thebaud from Ben Pine in 1937, for his annual expedition.

Walter Staples, the man who would become my father, sailed as a student crew member. On that trip he met his lifelong friend, James Russell Welch, who became my godfather and friend.

I grew up on stories of the trip and attended the 50th year reunion at Bowdoin College, where I met many of the other students and scientists.

The ship stopped in Port aux Basques on the way north, where one crewmember was replaced by Pious Farrell of Bay du Nord, Fortune Bay. Good to have a Newfoundlander aboard.

They were grounded by an outgoing tide when anchored off Baffin Land (then not known to be an island), but were able to refloat on the incoming tide and continue north so the students could get to the Arctic Circle as promised.

On the return trip, when the ship

stopped at Nain, Walter wrote a letter to his sister Hilda at home in Maine.

A few years ago I was contacted by a stamp collector who had obtained the letter from another collector. Fascinated by the letter, he googled and found Dad’s book, North Bay Narrative, and then found me. He offered to return the letter to me if I would donate it to the Peary-McMillan Museum at Bowdoin. I was happy to see it and to pass it on to the museum.

(How the letter came to the first stamp collector is a mystery. Hilda had saved her correspondence, but it was thrown out by her children after her death.)

The Bluenose and the Thebaud raced a number of times, and though the Thebaud won some, the Bluenose won most. Both ships were at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1933. I have a print of The Mastheadsman, a painting showing the Thebaud leading the Bluenose.

Jim Staples Via email

Thank you for your letter and accompanying images, Jim. After all these years, stories of the Bluenose and other great schooners from her era continue to fascinate.

The Thebaud grounded off Baffin Island Continued on p. 18 16

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Sponsored Editorial

Above: Spirit (after a roll on the ground) Below: Princess Tammie

Paige and Spirit

Spirit of Topsail and a Special Grandfather Paige Payne was 19 when she got her first Newfoundland Pony. She’s 27 now and lives in Parson’s Pond on the Great Northern Peninsula, along the famous Viking Trail. There’s a lot of excitement about Paige’s two Newfoundland Ponies and for good reason. Princess Tammie (Reg. #336), is in foal and if all goes well, she will have the first foal (that we know of) to be born in Newfoundland & Labrador in 2021! Paige’s stallion, Spirit of Topsail (Reg. #337) is the sire and the 24-year-old holds a special place in her heart. Paige’s grandfather, Archibald Payne, helped take care of her ponies while she was working up to 60 hours a week at her previous job.

“If I was gone all day, he would feed and water them so I didn’t have to in the dark,” she said.

One of the challenges with stallions is that they need to be kept in a separate area so her grandfather kept ‘Spirit’ at his place and developed a bond with him. “If you tell Spirit to give you a kiss, he’ll put his nose to your lips. He is so gentle,” she said.

On June 10, 2020, Paige’s grandfather passed away after a short illness. Paige plans to honour the memory of her grandfather by naming the foal ‘Archie’ if it’s a colt. For now, the hard work continues while she waits out the birth of the foal. On her days off work, Paige repairs fences, takes care of the animals, and drives to Pasadena to buy hay. Recently she got a pump set up so she doesn’t need to lug buckets of water anymore which is a big help.

What would be a great help to Paige and the affordability of keeping her ponies, is being able to place them on a community pasture for them to graze in the summer. The loss of habitat and grazing and breeding land is the biggest threat to the survival of the Newfoundland Pony.

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Delightful Read Rose Noel’s account of her family’s road trip in 1968 was a delightful read (“Trip of a Lifetime,” May issue]. She understates the episodes in a way that only highlights the courage and daring of the adults, the patience of the children, and the love they all had for that sister living so far away in Grand Bank. The Waltons don’t hold a candle to this family. I hope we are still producing hardy, optimistic people like them.

Gerald Barnable Via email

Compared to the stories our parents, aunts, uncles and grandparents tell us about travel back in their day, do we even know what “family adventure” means anymore?

Wild and Free These are my three dogs running down one of the many walking trails at Fogo Island.

Kayleigh Batten

Corner Brook, NL Thanks, Kayleigh, for submitting this gorgeous photo to the Pets of the Month section on DownhomeLife.com. Readers are always welcome to share their photos of their pets, kids, adventures, views etc. on our website. And for anyone who might be looking for something to do on Fogo Island later this month, read about the inaugural Burning Rock Festival (see page 78).

Dear readers, Would you like to comment on something you’ve read in Downhome?

Do you have a question for the editors or for other readers? Submit your letter to the editor at DownhomeLife.com/letters or write to us at 43 James Lane, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3.

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In May,

we launched a special invitation to youth under 20, to share their views on the COVID-19 pandemic through creative expression – drawings, writings etc. Here are some of the amazing entries we’ve received so far.

Thank you to everyone who has reached out and shared their experience with us this way. Keep them coming! We’ll keep publishing them in subsequent issues. Turn to page 11 to learn how to enter and what you could win!

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Sophie Gelinas, age 11 Beaver Bank, NS

Samantha Lundrigan, age 10 Whitbourne, NL

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The Last Day

By Charlene Hatcher, 17

Kingston, NS (formerly of Champneys East, NL)

I once saw a photo

from the day the Second World War ended.

People gathered in the streets, hugging, kissing; the whole photo reeked of euphoria. I always imagined that would be how today, the last day of the COVID-19 pandemic, would look.

Today the masses emerged from their shops and homes, as though a bell toll had summoned them to the streets. They stood there, some masked, some not. Some had their mask dangling between their fingers, allowing the wind to catch it like a flag flapping in the breeze. Masks dangled from ears, hung around chins or covered whole faces. Even after all these years, some still had masks below their nose.

Then they slowly removed their masks, some in disbelief, others as though in a daze, seemingly stupefied by the feeling of the late afternoon breeze on their face and the smell of fresh-cut summer grass in the air. The sun shone on bare faces and the people forgot about their troubles for an instant.

Then they moved closer, closing the gap that absentmindedly kept them six feet apart. Although reluctant, they shook hands with the stranger beside them, hugged someone they saw around town a few times but didn’t really know.

They smiled at one another with more than squinted eyes, but with exposed teeth and lips. Some chose to stay back and watch while life moved on about them, no more than a rock in the stream in which water moves around.

Kids ran along the street, chasing after their friends. The elderly grumbled while they passed, those kids never watching

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where they’re going. Then they dared laugh at the memory of their youth, years spent doing the same. There were no talks of spending time in front of a screen; classrooms would be open in the coming days and the students embraced the prospect of seeing their friends and greeting their teachers in-person.

When the pandemic hit, the world came to a standstill. Cities appeared empty, with hardly a truck or car on the highway. The world stopped, wars stopped, life went on. Today, the world came to a standstill. Cities appeared lively, trucks and cars lined the highway, frozen in time. People stood still around the globe, gawking at the sight of so many people in one place. The world stopped, wars eventually went on, life never stopped.

The pandemic couldn’t stop much for long. In and out of lockdowns, it seemed one country would win the fight against COVID when another country was overtaken. On and on it went, the cruel game of whack-a-mole endured while people did not. First Italy, then the UK, the US, India; on the cycle went. But stores opened up, people travelled on “staycations,” then stayed home when an outbreak arose. Life went back to a semblance of normalcy before grinding to a halt again.

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Hannah Gelinas, age 8 Beaver Bank, NS

So today, the day the pandemic is declared over, people gather and unmask.

Weary, exhausted, tired and hopeful, they swarm parks, gyms, stores, beaches, airports and each other’s houses. They cook meals for their family and bake treats to deliver to their friends.

When they turned on the television to watch the evening news they viewed the same reaction across the world, more people unmasking and basking in delight.

Sorrowful and depressing newscasts gave way to cheerful and jovial stories of togetherness, with smiling news anchors and reporters not bothering to hide their glee. All was right with the world.

I wake with a start and glance at the clock. It’s 7:00 a.m. I’m 15 minutes late getting up. Online school starts in an hour.

The morning air is cold, so I turn and pull the covers over my head, burrowing

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down onto my pillow again. It’s Monday.

May 10, 2021. It’s another day stuck in the midst of Nova Scotia’s worst outbreak, stuck at home on lockdown.

What to do today... The same as yesterday? The day before? Maybe I’ll get up and go to the kitchen table that may as well be a fully functioning classroom at this point; I’ll sit there gazing at my classmates in their own little virtual square while the teacher teaches a lesson with their cat meowing for attention. After that, maybe I’ll play some piano or read a book, not too many pages: books are non-essential and if one runs out, they stay without. Or I could lay here and try to drift back asleep, back to the dream world where COVID doesn’t exist, one where the pandemic is over and life goes on. Well, I guess life still goes on. We’re just a rock in the stream with the river of life passing by.

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homefront Downhome tours...

Mexico

Costa Maya “I took my February edition of the Downhome magazine on vacation with me in February [2019], where it visited the Western Caribbean,” says Tim Norman of Gambo, NL, posing here in Costa Maya.

Costa Maya is a stretch of Caribbean coast on Mexico’s eastern Yucatán Peninsula. In pre-COVID times, Costa Maya was a popular cruise ship port with sandy beaches, a large pier and a modern shopping mall for tourists.

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Isla Cozumel “Our travels have taken us far and wide, but never without our little read!” write Debbie and Hans Frick of Mitchell’s Bay, ON, posing here at Cozumel in 2018.

Cozumel is an island in the Caribbean Sea surrounded by a diverse ecosystem of coral reefs that is home to more than 1,000 marine species. The coral reefs, warm Caribbean water and abundant marine life make Cozumel one of the best scuba-diving destinations in the world.

Ek Balam Ruins Lori Gillett of Mineville, NS, poses with two Mayan “warriors” at the Ek Balam Ruins in 2015. “We had to leave this copy with the warriors as they were very interested in the Downhomer,” she writes.

Ek Balam is a 15-squarekilometre archaeological site of well-preserved Mayan ruins dating from about AD 770-900. Visitors admire the artistry and symbolism of the frescoes as they climb to the top of the 96-foot-tall main pyramid, where they’re rewarded with a spectacular view of the jungle of the Yucatán Peninsula. www.downhomelife.com

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Expert answers to common life questions.

By Linda Browne

Why do we sometimes say we “sweat like a pig”?

Summer’s in full swing! On those sweltering hot days, when you can’t find a breeze or some shade, you might find yourself sweating so profusely that you proclaim you’re “sweating like a pig.” But are you really?

If you happened to read the “Why Is That?” section in the May issue (“Why do pigs roll in the mud?”), you know that pigs don’t actually have functional sweat glands. So where, then, does this saying come from? According to McGill University’s Office for Science and Society (OSS), which is dedicated to critical thinking, science communication and separating sense from nonsense, the term doesn’t have anything to do with the animal at all.

We need not look to the barnyard, but to the steel mill for the origins of this particular phrase.

“The term is actually derived from the iron smelting process in which hot iron poured on sand cools and solidifies with the pieces resembling a sow and piglets. Hence ‘pig iron,’” writes Dr. Joe Schwarcz, OSS director, in a piece posted to the OSS website.

“As the iron cools, the surrounding air reaches its dew point, and beads of 26

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moisture form on the surface of the ‘pigs.’ ‘Sweating like a pig’ indicates that the ‘pig’ (i.e. iron) has cooled enough to be safely handled.”

Makes sense. However, there are some who aren’t entirely convinced.

One of them is Pascal Tréguer, who has a background in linguistics and runs the blog “Word Histories.” He points to an 1824 edition of The Morning Post in London that details a boxing match, whereby it’s mentioned that one of the boxers “sweats like a pig” – one of the earliest examples of this phrase in print. There’s about two centuries between when the word “pig” was used in an iron smelting sense versus when this example appeared, he notes, so would it take that long for the phrase to catch on?

Also, he has doubts as to whether a technical phrase used by a limited number of people would make its way into the popular lexicon.

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Why do cats get the “zoomies”?

Have you ever been sitting peacefully at home, when all of a sudden, your kitty comes bounding around the corner, ears bent back, eyes wide as saucers, running at full speed like they’ve seen a ghost (and are trying to out race it)? You, my friend, were witness to what’s known as the “zoomies” or, as they’re technically called, Frenetic Random Activity Periods (FRAPs). And they’re a pretty normal part of feline behaviour.

This is a behaviour that you’ll likely notice more in indoor cats – especially if they’re the only cat in the household – and perhaps more so during the spring, says Rory O’Neill, a Calgarybased animal behaviourist. Basically, it’s how they expend their pent-up energy. It’s kind of like kitty cabin fever, she says.

“They really want to get outside and roam and investigate and smell the grass; they don’t want to stay inside all day… they just can’t deal with all this excess energy… so they start zooming around with all this exuberance,” she explains.

“It’s not exactly mentally healthy keeping the cat cooped up so much…

It’s not as bad when there’s multiple cats in the household, or at least one other cat. If it’s the only cat it’s worse because they have almost no outlet.”

Cats need stimulation and an outlet for their energy, so to help with that end, O’Neill suggests letting your cat outside, with supervision. If you have a backyard with a fence, let your kitty outside to explore (just keep an eye on them to make sure they don’t scale the fence and escape into the wild blue yonder). And if you don’t have a fenced yard, try your cat on a flexi leash (which they’ll either love or hate). Or if you’re really up for a cool pet project, you could try building a “catio” (an open-air enclosure that lets your furry friend enjoy the great outdoors while staying safe).

“They can’t run, but they can watch things, they can see the world, they can smell it. They’re not stuck inside.

Us humans can leave, but many cats can’t because of the danger, or they live in apartments,” O’Neill says.

Physical and mental stimulation is just as important to your cat as food, water and shelter, so you’ll want to make sure you’re meeting all their needs.

Do you have a burning life question for Linda to investigate?

Turn to page 9 for ways to contact us. www.downhomelife.com

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homefront life’s funny

That Fizzy Feeling My daughter, Shawna, had been sitting on her legs during supper and her legs went “to sleep.” We all know what this feels like, but she put a slightly different twist on the experience. When she tried to stand and her legs began to “wake up,” her comment was, “Oh, Daddy, my legs feel like ginger ale!”

Ralph Matthews St. Stephen, NB

Do you have any funny or embarrassing true stories?

Share them with us. If your story is selected, you’ll win a prize! See page 9 for details.

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what s i s i h t o “S box you call a m!” lunch. Yu nson e – Glen B

Say WHAT? Downhome recently posted this photo (submitted by Chris Miss) on our website and social media platforms and asked folks to imagine what this moose might be saying. Glen Benson’s response made us chuckle the most, so we’re awarding him 20 Downhome Dollars!

Here are the runners-up: “I’ll have an extra large twigs, large leaves smoothie, and a double shrub burger, please.” – Grace K Chik “Is there only one entrance to the buffet?” – Norah Keating Deveau “You expect me to self-isolate HERE for 14 days?” – Ellen Harris

Play with us online! www.downhomelife.com/saywhat

www.downhomelife.com

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homefront lil charmers

Red and White Peyton Rose celebrates Canada Day in style at Nanny and Poppy Martin’s cabin.

Jennifer Simmons Hickman’s Harbour, NL

let’s celebrate Dancing Queen Two-year-old Porsha Joe of Conne River, NL, dances at the Miawpukek Annual Powwow in 2018.

Kelsey Hodder photo

Jasmine Perry St. Albans, NL

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Canada Day Cuties Amber, Audrey, Olivia, Shelby and Molly start the celebrations bright and early.

Karen Crisby-Dawe Port de Grave, NL

Ready to Go Edward Jeffrey sports his best red hat and a million-dollar smile.

Mark & Ruby Snow Campbellton, NL

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July 2021

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homefront pets of the month

patriotic pups Happy Canada Day Goldendoodle Cooper (centre) and his friends, Walter and Briar, are all smiles in matching bandannas.

Maria Russell Labrador City, NL

New Canadian Vivienne, a Saluki rescued from Qatar, is living the Canadian dream in CBS, NL. Dominic Alexander Stephenville, NL

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First Rate Mate Ruger, a one-year-old Cape Shore water dog, enjoys his boat ride to the cabin.

Lori Butler via Downhomelife.com

Festive Fashion Jasmine’s feeling pretty in her redand-white outfit.

Denise Chippett Appleton, NL

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homefront

reviewed by Denise Flint

Under Amelia’s Wing Heather Stemp

Nimbus Publishing $14.95

Amelia and Me told the story of Ginny Ross, a young girl growing up in Harbour Grace, NL, in the 1930s, who was obsessed with flying. Author Heather Stemp picks Ginny’s story back up in the sequel, Under Amelia’s Wing. Encouraged by legendary flyer Amelia Earhart, 16-year-old Ginny has enrolled at Purdue University and is on her way to achieving her dream of becoming an aviatrix herself. But not everyone, including some influential faculty members, wants her to succeed. Ginny must negotiate her way through the pitfalls that strew her path if she ever hopes to earn her wings.

Generally speaking, Under Amelia’s Wing is a very pleasing read along the lines of several classic novels for young people about misfit girls. Ginny is the natural successor to such heroines as Jo March or Anne Shirley, with the added advantage of being a real person – Ginny Ross was Stemp’s aunt. In some ways, though, that adherence to literary tradition is a problem.

Wouldn’t it be nice to read a book wherein a girl wanting to be a pilot (or something else deemed “unsuitable”) was considered normal rather than exceptional? Where a girl wanting to do something special doesn’t have to be exceptional herself in order to succeed?

That’s more of a societal problem than a quibble with the book, though, even if Stemp lays it on a bit thick. The book is charming. The characters are relatable, the plot moves along well and the time period is nicely captured.

Let’s hope the final book in the trilogy comes along soon. It will be very welcome.

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Q&A with the Author Denise Flint: What made you decide to write a YA novel about your aunt?

Heather Stemp: The age of the protagonist was partly it. But young adult readers have characteristics I feel more comfortable with. The genre suits my writing preference. As a teacher for 30 years, I’m very aware of the importance of reading. If I can attract young people to read I’m very happy about it. I see what reading can do for a student in generally making them better learners and helping them do what they wanted to with their learning and education. I have lots of adult readers, too.

DF: How much of the story is true?

HS: The first book is 99 per cent true.

The second book has more fiction. In the second book, everything about Amelia is dead on, down to who she met and what she said. Whatever a reader thinks is the truth is the truth because what some people see, others may not. It is unique to the reader.

I like the idea that kids can read books and defend their opinions of what’s the truth using what they see in the book.

DF: Did you know your aunt?

What was she like?

HS: She lived with us until I was eight. She did not fit the mould. She wasn’t interested in singing or playing the piano or baking or cooking. She was an outlier from the beginning.

She was a bit of a loner. It may have been because growing up she was different from other girls. My father was the apple of his mother’s eye. Ginny www.downhomelife.com

and my grandmother really did have a difficult relationship. Within that family unit her needs were never considered to the same extent my father’s were. Because she wasn’t outgoing and vivacious, my father got the attention from that point of view, too.

DF: Has she inspired other members of your family to reach for the stars?

HS: No, because we didn’t know these things about Ginny until after she died. When I retired I decided to write a family history. I reached out and we spent two or three years having lots of conversations. When she passed away I thought there’s still more I wanted to know. I went back to Newfoundland and met with all her friends. That’s when the family history changed to aviation. I didn’t even know there was an airstrip in Harbour Grace. It’s not something we talked about. None of us knew that side of Ginny.

DF: Do you think young girls still face these kinds of restrictions on their dreams?

HS: Absolutely. Things are better, but are we there yet? No. There’s still a much more traditional attitude towards what women and girls are expected to do than a lot of people realize, and we’re still in a position where strong women are not as celebrated as strong men. If a woman is assertive, she’s aggressive. If a man is strong, he’s successful. I do think that women have more opportunities available to them than they did in those times, but I still think that there are obstacles.

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homefront what odds

punchlines and punches

By Paul Warford

From my When I close my eyes, I can still see roll, visualize its trajectory. It just missed me, perspective, I the crossing the bridge of my nose before disappearsaw what ing back into the black ink.

When performing at Yuk Yuk’s, because of my looked like a wiry frame and small stature, I would open by rolling ball of saying, “Well, let me tell you a little bit about myself... I’m malnourished.” Big laugh and we’re off men, four fellas to the races. The opener was ideal: a quick, hongag that only took a few seconds to say. In wide, pushing est time, I expanded on the joke, adding, “If you itself towards have any food at your tables you’re not going to feel free to share.” Something like that. the exit. finish, One night, after saying this, someone threw a roll with very little hesitation. Presumably, they were aiming at my head.

I was far from angry about it, but I still chided the audience member after I’d left the stage and was reclining on the green room’s chubby white leather sofa. The club’s manager and mentor, Bill MacIntosh, pointed out to me: “Hey, you asked.”

He wasn’t wrong. For reasons other than rolls, I don’t open with that joke anymore.

Months back, the pandemic postponed a comedy tour I was slated to do across the island with my buddy, Michael Lynch. I’m happy to report that the tour has now concluded: eighteen shows in total, and like an expensive toothbrush, we worked hard to reach the nooks and crannies.

Some places I’d never visited before, like Port au Port. We performed at the Secret Cove Brewery and I began the show by telling them “Secret Cove” was an appropriate name because I didn’t know where I was. We had a lovely time in Port au Port. We had a lovely time in every town, for that matter. However, that’s not to say all of the sailings were smooth ones.

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where the following incident happened, in large part because after the fracas, the population was eager to point out that the perpetrator wasn’t from their town. He was a guest of the hotel – just as we were – who was born and raised elsewhere. Despite this, when I recounted the event to friends afterward, and I mentioned where it happened, they all responded with, “Ah, typical of that place.” I’m just not sure if that’s true, so I won’t single out the location because we met some very kind, very accommodating folks in the short time we spent there.

But there was a fight.

The toughest part of the tour was following Cecil O’ Brien. He’s so entertaining unto himself that when I return to the stage in order to reset the crowd and introduce Michael Lynch, I’m left herding kittens. People are chatting at their tables about how good he was, they’re wandering to the bathroom or the bar. For any school teachers out there, I’d compare it to a wasp flying into the classroom in the middle of a lesson. But we all love Cecil, and it’s part of my job.

And so it was in this town as I tried to get everyone situated so they could continue enjoying the rest of the show.

I’m doing my thing, trying to keep everyone entertained and engaged among this anticipated commotion.

But there was a drunk guy. While talking, I could hear someone at the back of the room talking over me, again and

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again. I lost patience, asking who the culprit was. I knew the crowd was on my side because I took note of their backward glances of disgust. The offender was hove off at the bar, three sheets to the wind and so hammered he didn’t know where he was. Once those nearby tried to silence him, it began.

From my perspective, I saw what looked like a rolling ball of men, four fellas wide, pushing itself towards the exit. Shouts and bawls were muffled against the crooks of elbows and pressed chests as everyone tried to subdue the wolverine now raging against the crowd. And what did I do, with my 20 years of comedy experience? I said into the microphone, using a calming voice, “Okay, everybody... let’s just... okay…” I guess I didn’t really help, but, much like with the roll, I was caught off-guard.

I’m glad this wacky job of mine still keeps me on my toes. To the folks of the town in question, thank you for having us. No harm, no foul. That said, before the next tour comes along, I may brush up on my weightlifting or Jiu-Jitsu, just to be safe.

Paul Warford began writing for Downhome to impress his mom and her friends. He writes and performs comedy in Eastern Canada.

Follow him on Twitter @paulwarford

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fresh tracks

new music talk with Wendy Rose

Nick Earle & The Reckless Hearts NICK EARLE COULD PROBABLY USE A REST

– he’s been keeping busy with his quickly growing music career for years now. In 2017, at the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival, I described Earle and Joe Coffin, then performing in blues duo Earle and Coffin, as a “teenage townie reincarnation of undiscovered delta blues artists,” after they blew my mind with selections from a thenunreleased live EP. It’s been a sort of magical experience, as a local music listener, to watch Earle explode onto the local music scene, achieve success at a young age and continue to grow up while growing into his industry.

At 21, he has already accrued seven MusicNL Awards, and two Canadian Folk Music Awards.

Earle’s debut album, Nick Earle and the Reckless Hearts, sees the young musician shift from blues to good ol’ fashioned rock and roll, though his original love of blues is still deeply present throughout.

It’s appealing – on Spotify alone, the album has garnered nearly 140,000 streams.

The album opens with “Get out of my Head,” which hooks the listener with a catchy riff, something 38

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reminiscent of Canadian rock bands Big Sugar, Sam Roberts or Finger Eleven. Earle’s vocals have improved with age, with a tad more rasp and range to them.

“Make a Change” kicks off with a bluesy riff, but has more of a vintage vibe, akin to ’80s radio – until you hit the guitar solo, which is where Earle’s talents really shine. (Ring, ring! Uh, Jimi Hendrix is calling, and he wants to know if ya wanna have a jam… lefthanded guitarists only.)

“Crosscut Saw” is more of a modern rock hit, though at times it feels like a 1-888-588-6353

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long-lost ZZ Top B-side. On the fourth track, “It Ain’t Bad to be Me” Earle sings, “Twenty-five hours a day, my mind is flying high” – likely trying to mentally juggle all the things he has to do with his band, cover band, solo performances and more, in his quest to add an eighth award to the mantle.

The group’s cover of blues legend Robert Johnson’s “Kindhearted Woman Blues” made me think of George Thorogood & The Destroyers’ classic chugalong hit, “Bad to the Bone” – and then I remembered that George Thorogood & The Destroyers actually covered this particular tune as well. It’s worth noting that Earle’s version has a different kind of energy not found in Johnson’s original or Thorogood’s simpler rendition.

“High Times” and “Nobody’s Fault www.downhomelife.com

but Yours” are fun rock and roll bops, but the latter half of the album’s standout track is “I Wanna Know.” A slightly heavier rock piece that fans seem to have latched onto, this track boasts over 70,000 of Earle’s approximately 140,000 Spotify streams.

“I wanna know what you see in him, I wanna know when your new love began,” Earle sings. It’s a concept that has been done a million times, no doubt, but it’s a universal theme that many can relate to in some way.

Nick Earle and the Reckless Hearts closes with “Don’t Know it’s a Lie,” and after a second listen through of the 39-minute album, it’s safe to say this record is a must-play for fans of rock and roll, blues and blues-rock, from AC/DC to ZZ Top, and all the legends in between.

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Dan George photo

Q&A with the Artist Wendy Rose: Are many people surprised when they make the connection between Earle and Coffin and Nick Earle and the Reckless Hearts?

Nick Earle: I find that music fans have a surprisingly good memory, so most things I do will always hold a connection to Earle and Coffin, and various things I’ve done previously. I honestly find it to be flattering that people care enough to remember about the duo and those records we put together as teens.

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WR: The self-titled debut album, Nick Earle & The Reckless Hearts, earned you two 2020 MusicNL awards – Group of the Year and Rock Artist of the Year.

That brings your total to how many now? How many would you estimate between yourself and your bandmates, Clare Follett and Dan George?

NE: Over the years I’ve collected seven

myself, and the total must be over 10 for all of us as a group. MusicNL has always been a great source for artist development, and it’s a real honour to have my work recognized by them.

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WR: The group’s debut album was released in the spring of 2020. What did that album launch look and feel like at that time?

NE: Once we locked down the date of

the release, we started planning release shows and a tour to follow, and unfortunately all of those events were cancelled due to COVID-19. We were proud of the music we had recorded and were excited to share it, so we decided not to postpone the release and let it out to the world.

WR: Now, over a full year later (and after a second lockdown), you’re finally back on stage playing for live crowds. You kept busy throughout it all, though, playing live streams via Facebook. Do you think you’ll blend both virtual and in-person events going forward?

NE: As of right now, with the volume of

performances I have, I’m currently not doing any separate streaming shows, but with the release of new material to

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come this year, I believe I’m going to work on having some joint events, where we can put off in-person shows but stream them as well, to connect with as many folks as possible.

WR: Between The Reckless Hearts, solo gigs, session work, your pop/rock cover band Danger Blonde, Clare’s solo career, and Dan’s numerous musical projects, how will you three make the time to write and record another album?

NE: We started working on the hopeful

2022 release in August of 2020. We’re taking our time, and by not rushing anything creatively I believe I’m achieving and creating the best music I’ve ever made. For now, the self-titled record was my last ode to blues/rock.

I’ve decided to take myself away from just thinking genre and began writing and recording what feels right, and I’m very excited to get that out to the world.

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features

Spawned by the Moratorium A new short film explores the cod moratorium’s ripple effect through the lens of one fisherman. We sit in on their chat as the creators discuss their inspiration.

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The animated short film, Last Fish, First Boat, tells the story of the 1992 cod moratorium through the eyes of fifth-generation fisherman, Eugene Maloney. When the federal government shutters the fishery, Gene and his crew haul up their fishing gear one last time. Gene pivots to boat-building. Now in his 80s, Gene continues to build boats from his Bay Bulls woodshed, overlooking the southeastern shores of Newfoundland and Labrador.

In the following conversation, filmmakers Kat Frick Miller and Jenn Thornhill Verma discuss why Gene’s story and the cod moratorium remain relevant today, almost 30 years on. www.downhomelife.com

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Kat Frick Miller

Our film is based on your book, Cod Collapse: The Rise and Fall of Newfoundland’s Saltwater Cowboys, which is part historical nonfiction, narrative and memoir. Of all of the stories you could have drawn from, Jenn, why did you focus on Gene’s story for this project?

Jenn Thornhill Verma

The day before the cod moratorium was formally announced, when the federal fisheries minister John Crosbie is in Bay Bulls confronted by hundreds of people – fishermen, plant workers, men, women, children and news crews – Gene Maloney isn’t in the crowd. He’s taking a break from fishing to go home for dinner (what Newfoundlanders and Labradorians call lunch). That’s when Gene learns the cod fishery is closing. When he sets back out in boat, it’s to haul up all of his fishing gear one last time. Gene had boots in the boats in the harbours where the cod moratorium happened. We can see through his story that the moratorium was more than an end to fishing; it marked an end to a way of life. We know now the signals that the cod population was collapsing had been there: from 1962, the earliest recordings of the cod population, to 1992, Atlantic cod were already 90 per cent depleted. But Gene’s story humanized the moratorium response. What resonated with you about Gene’s story, Kat?

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KFM When you wrote the book the pandemic was not yet happening, but Gene’s story so perfectly tied into this moment as an illustration of your world upending overnight. I was surprised by how much I could relate to it, but I kept thinking about it more and more, imagining Gene: he would have gone out in boat, working with a crew, hanging out on the wharf, that kind of daily structure. Then, to have that abruptly end, removing all of your social connections, your work connections, it felt so relevant. We always need those examples of people’s journeys through a really difficult time and how they navigate that period. And I appreciated the lightheartedness that Gene brought to his story. He’s able to carry on, lucky enough and determined enough to find something else to turn his hand to – boat-building.

JTV I love how Gene jokes about the lawns, fences and houses look-

ing a touch more manicured in 1993. People who were accustomed to leading busy lives are suddenly trying to find things to do. There’s a universal theme here about your identity changing overnight, having to pivot your career and redefine what you do now. Let’s talk about how the film came together – especially given you and I have never met [in person], and you’ve never met Gene Maloney either. Kat, how did you get from idea to illustration to animation?

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KFM The pivot in Gene’s story felt very similar to this idea of us taking

on a new collaboration in the digital realm. Your script allowed us to travel back to when Gene is a kid and contrast his life then to when he’s a working man on the water. That narrative illustration is a rewarding process, and the strength of your story along with your reference photographs helped me to shape a world that had a lot of depth. The contrast of the broad scenes painted of Bay Bulls in the hustle and bustle of the fishery’s heyday with the quieter moments of precise detail with Gene whittling in his woodshed, draws you in. Once we honed the script, we storyboarded, which was a new process to me – breaking down the narrative and isolating those moments we wanted to illustrate. We landed more than a dozen still-images, then giving thought to the animation, asking which elements we could highlight that would bring the images and the film to life. I timed the animation to your audio narration.

JTV That’s where our co-producer, Matt LeMay – an award-winning filmmaker; and our sound designers – the indie rock duo, Jamie Bonaparte and Michelle Opthof of Paragon Cause – came in. They took what we started and fine-tuned the production with an original soundtrack. I had just had twins (in May) just before we launched the project, but I was just as excited to see what we all birthed!

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KFM To think about what we created from our own isolated pods, across

three provinces (me in Nova Scotia, you all in Ontario, and our main character, Gene, in Newfoundland and Labrador), and to think about what we can come up with when we are face-to-face and really have that in-person energy to travel on-site – the ideas that we can explore, the stories that we can create will be awesome. Can we give a sneak peek of our next film project?

JTV Last Fish, First Boat tells the story of the human outfall from the

1992 cod moratorium, and the next story we want to tell, Unsettled, also shares the human consequences of fishery closures. Resettlement – moving people from small, often outport, rural and remote communities to places that offered the promise of prosperity in terms of jobs and economic growth – is part of the life history of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians. We’ll focus on another story from my book, about April MacDonald and her family, resettled as part of the Fisheries Household Resettlement Program from Woods Island in the Bay of Islands to Lark Harbour in western Newfoundland. Resettlement has affected the trajectory of tens of thousands of people from hundreds of communities across the province – Indigenous and settler communities alike. We know resettlement is not unique to Newfoundland and it happens for any range of reasons – in response to economics, geopolitics and climate change – but it feels unique here because of how it’s linked to the fishery, but also because almost as soon as people settled in the outports here, they were leaving and it’s still happening today.

“Last Fish, First Boat” is a six-minute animated film, funded by Canada Council for the Arts, and distributed by Canadian Geographic (via YouTube) with an educator version via McIntyre Media.

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features

TODD HOLLETT TRACKS DOWN SOME OF THE RECORD-SETTING WILDLIFE CATCHES IN NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR

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HUNTING has always been a proud tradition in

Newfoundland and Labrador. Many people, including myself, are exposed to heading into the woods with their parents or grandparents to snare rabbits (snowshoe hare) and grouse, hunt ptarmigan (locally called partridge), and then when you get a little older and more hardy, you get to tag along for the fall moose or caribou hunt.

I remember the joy of getting my first caribou licence for the Middle Ridge Caribou Management Area and hunting the native deer, though unsuccessfully that year, with my father. A few years later, I got my first moose licence, a bull-only licence for the Burin Peninsula Foot. We spent many hours searching for a bull moose, only to spot 13 cows that season and only one bull, which was running at full tilt with no way to get a shot at it. Then on my third attempt at big game hunting, I finally shot my first moose, a big cow. My father still laughs at the memory of me looking at him and excitedly saying “She fell down, I got her!” before the hard work of getting her out began, but that’s a story for another time.

Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the last great wilderness areas that remain and has become an ultimate hunting destination for nonresident hunters. With an approximate population of 120,000 moose (the most concentrated population in North America), a majestic stag caribou (the only place in the world with a non-resident woodland caribou hunt) and a world-record black bear, hunters could bag the Newfoundland Grand Slam of all three species. Indeed, Newfoundland and Labrador has a reputation of producing some record-size animals on a consistent and world-renowned basis.

BLACK BEAR Newfoundland and Labrador has a black bear population of about 10,000 animals and is truly considered bear country by sportsmen the world over. The black bears in this province have a reputation of being the biggest in North America.

Dave Evans, owner and operator of Victoria Lodge, says he has seen bears that in his estimate are “pushing 700 pounds, easy.” And he’s not far off, as the largest black bear ever taken in the province weighed an astounding 687 pounds. The record bear for Victoria Lodge weighed 500 pounds.

Not only does Francis Mest have a record moose from this province (see p. 51), but also the bear he killed on the same hunt in 2017 made the Safari Club International record books at 52nd place. The skull on that bear scored 19 9/16 inches. www.downhomelife.com

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WOODLAND CARIBOU Newfoundland and Labrador is considered the best woodland caribou hunting grounds in the world, having produced 22 of the top 25 Boone and Crockett stags. Records for caribou are based on a point system, with a requirement of 220 to get in the record books and a 295 for the top record overall. The antler measurements are made in inches, and take into consideration the condition and number of points (including both shovels and the top points).

Gerard Beaulieu, a master measurer with Boone and Crockett Club, says that 99.9 per cent of record woodland caribou were taken in Newfoundland and Labrador. He states that possibly the nicest animal ever killed was on the Gander River by Harold Pelley of Glenwood. That animal scored 405 3/4 and is “possibly the nicest rack ever, and is definitely in the top five ever killed in the history of caribou hunting,” Gerard says.

Jeff Samson of Eastport is the current holder of possibly the biggest rack of antlers ever for a woodland caribou.

He took the animal with a compound bow, which means that Jeff had to get a lot closer, he estimates within 15 metres, than a rifle hunter would.

“I knew it had a big rack on it, so just for curiosity’s sake I figured I’d go and get it measured right,” he said in an interview with the CBC. He logged onto the Boone and Crockett hunting club website and plugged his estimates into the online measuring tool. To his surprise, it suggested he had a world record.

He took the animal, killing it with one arrow, in the woods east of Gander on September 5, 2013. While size matters for the record, the antlers were also graded on the condition and uniformity, or “if they look good and are in good shape.” The old record, also set by a bow hunter, had stood for 47 years. Samson, who told the CBC he’s not a trophy hunter, values the meat over the recordsetting rack.

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QUEBEC-LABRADOR CARIBOU There are few specimens submitted from this rare race of caribou. The largest was shot near Nain by Inuit hunter Zack Elbow in the winter of 1931, and retrieved by Charles Ray Peck. The Boone and Crocket Club record entry quotes Peck as saying, “During the summer of 1932, I was coming from Norway on a chartered Norwegian sealing vessel.

When we reached Nain… we decided to explore a fjord that ran inland for, perhaps, 50 miles to the northwest.”

Peck and his friend, Hoff Benjamin, enlisted the help of Zack Elbow, an Inuit of Nain, to go caribou hunting. Elbow led them about 19 kilometres inland to an area where he had shot a couple of caribou the previous winter. “When he lead us to this place, I could see two huge heads lying on the ground, 50 yards away.”

Peck presented the mighty racks to the Boone and Crockett Club in 1951, and it was deemed the largest caribou rack ever recorded, scoring 474 6/8 inches. The main beams measured 60 4/8 inches on the right and 61 1/8 inches on the left, had an inside spread of 58 2/8 inches; the brow points were 14 4/8 and 21 2/8 inches, and it had 22 points on the right side and 30 on the left.

MOOSE Francis Mest says that he considers his moose and bear hunt in Newfoundland in September 2017, with guide Bob Efford of Efford’s Hunting Adventures, as the hunt of a lifetime. Mest is the proud owner of a mature bull rack that has a 36 6/8 inch spread with 17 points and excellent paddles. It unofficially scores 278 and ranks 130 in the Safari Club International record books. Mest advises that this may not be your typical trophy hunt, but is a prime opportunity to take a mature moose.

“This is a hunt for the guy who wants to kill a bull moose and not spend $19,000 to do it,” he says. His advice to any hunter wanting a Newfoundland moose is to take the first bull they’d be happy with if it were the last day of the hunt. Efford’s guiding has produced trophy animals that measure from 43 to 59 inches, and hunters using rifles can expect an 85 per cent success rate. Bow and muzzleloader hunters are also permitted.

Measurer Gerard Beaulieu says it’s difficult to get a true trophy moose in Newfoundland as the Newfoundland subspecies, Alces alces americana, is lumped in with, and is 10 per cent smaller than, western moose Alces alces andersoni. www.downhomelife.com

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POLAR BEAR While the record for the largest polar bear ever taken in the province has very little fanfare, it was a 1,200-pound bear taken in Labrador. The lack of records is most likely due to the fact that only traditional native hunting of the great white bear is permitted.

ATLANTIC SALMON The land-locked salmon (ouananiche) is a miracle of adaptive evolution. They are genetically identical to sea-run fish, but have been cut off from the sea by geological changes since the last Ice Age. Ouananiche are abundant and known to grow very large in the province’s food-rich, freshwater ecosystems.

The world record ouananiche was caught in the Smallwood Reservoir in Labrador and weighed an impressive 22 pounds, 11 ounces.

The record for a sea-run salmon in the province is a 26-pound fish caught in Flower’s River in Labrador by Had Glover Deane on August 1, 2007. The oldest known fish ever caught was 14 years old.

ATLANTIC BLUEFIN TUNA Glen Best of Fogo has been fishing for a lifetime, but it couldn’t prepare him for the catch of the day on Sunday, September 1, 2019. On that morning, Best and a couple of buddies headed out from Princeton to try their hand at tuna fishing because large numbers of the big fish had been seen feeding in the area.

They didn’t have high hopes, but were pleasantly surprised when one took the bait. Best told the CBC, “It was a pretty big rush, pretty exhilarating, because I’d never done it before and I really didn’t know what I was doing.” They hooked the fish at about 9:40 a.m. and worked like dogs to reel it in.

They finally got it on board the boat at 11:00 a.m. The bluefin tuna weighed a record 922 pounds. Most of it was sold to a local restaurant, though Best kept a portion to savour for himself.

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World Records Alaskan Moose 17 5/8" spread, 36 points - Yukon Grizzly Bear 17 4/16" skull length - Alaska Alaskan Brown Bear 17 15/16" skull - Alaska Black Bear 733 lbs - Pennsylvania Polar Bear 11' tall, 2000+ lbs - Alaska Grey Wolf 230 lbs - Alberta Bison 2,400 lbs, 24" horn spread Wyoming Brook Trout 14.5 lbs, 31.5" long - Ontario Brown Trout 41.8 lbs - Michigan Rainbow Trout 48 lbs - Saskatchewan Swordfish 1,182 lbs - Chile Atlantic Bluefin Tuna 1,496 lbs - Nova Scotia Atlantic Halibut 515 lbs - Norway Atlantic Mackerel 6.2 lbs - England Atlantic Cod 5 feet long, 103 lbs - Norway

ATLANTIC HALIBUT Roger LaCosta, his brother Sam, niece Tracy and her boyfriend Blaire Payne were on the waters of Bay St. George at dawn on June 24, 2009. It was on this, the second day of a commercial fishing trip when they really caught the big one.

After trawling in the area all morning, they noticed a particularly strong strain on one of their nets. Suspecting a large fish, they started to haul in their gear until the source of the resistance became clear. The flatfish ensnared in the net was so massive they decided to let it swim to the bottom to tire itself out. It took their combined strength to haul the 328.4pound halibut over the stern of the boat. Newfoundland halibut generally weight about 19.8 pounds, so this was a true monster. They eventually sold the fish for $492.

Atlantic Lobster 44 lbs - Nova Scotia Snow Crab 2.6 lbs, 5.7" across shell - Japan Atlantic Scallop 9" across shell www.downhomelife.com

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life is better Stealing a moment on the Port au Port Peninsula Becky Wiseman, Springdale, NL

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features

Connie Boland talks to a ground crew forest firefighter and a water bomber pilot about their experiences and advice for staying safe and avoiding forest fires.

Johnny Letto photo

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Dep t. Fis herie s, Fo restr y

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A MASSIVE firefighting airplane skims a lake to scoop up 1,600 gallons of fresh water. It soars toward thick curtains of smoky grey, fiery orange and forest green against a bright blue sky. An impressive sight.

Johnny Letto has been a water bomber pilot with Government of Newfoundland and Labrador Air and Marine Services since 2007. “It’s very intense,” he says during a recent telephone interview from the hanger in Gander. “Every day is different. You go to work not knowing what’s going to happen, or when you will see your family again. But at the end of the day, it’s job satisfaction when you know you’ve helped save a town or someone’s life if they are stuck at a cabin.” www.downhomelife.com

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Johnny Letto has been flying water bombers in Newfoundland and Labrador since 2007. Johnny Letto photos In the spring of 2013, Johnny worked the forest fire that forced the evacuation of 1,800 residents from the town of Wabush. It was the worst fire he’s seen.

“That fire created its own weather.

It was very intense,” the chief pilot says. “There was one evening, we had finished for the day and there was nothing else we could do. We were sitting on the ramp with ash falling out of the sky and black streaks down our faces. We said, ‘This is going to get ugly. We could possibly have to get aboard our planes and get out of here.’ When a fire gets that big and that intense, there is really nothing we can do. It’s up to Mother Nature to take care of it.”

The month-long fire started 11 kilometres from the town. More than 60 cabins were destroyed and an estimated $2 million was spent to put down the fire.

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Johnny also oversees the operation and maintenance of the provincial government’s two air ambulances.

Flying is sort of in his blood: his father is a bush pilot with more than 30 years experience. “I grew up in that world, and I guess I really didn’t have anything else I wanted to do,” Johnny says. “My background sparked my interest in water bombers.”

He’s avid about fire safety, especially in the woods. “Always have a back-up plan for when things could go south. Have water nearby and ready to use. Don’t let your fire get 1-888-588-6353

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Johnny Letto photo

Dept. Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture photo

too big, and notice your surroundings. The weather in Newfoundland can change in the blink of an eye. You can have a very calm day and 40-50 kilometre [an hour] winds five minutes later. Always be cognisant of how fast a situation can change.”

Carry a small fire extinguisher or set your campfire next to a brook, Johnny advises. “Douse your fire, then douse it again. Embers can burn buried in the ground for quite some time. An actual lightning strike can sit in the ground two or three days before it will ignite a fire. It smolders and when conditions are right, www.downhomelife.com

The quicker a fire is spotted and reported, the faster a water bomber can get the drop on it. and winds pick up, it can become a forest fire.”

Call 1-866-709-FIRE (3473) or 9-1-1 to report a wildfire in Newfoundland and Labrador. “Our initial attack is the key factor to the water bombing fleet. The quicker someone alerts us, the quicker we can get there, and the quicker we can put the fire out,” Johnny says.

Anyone encountering a forest fire should stay on the backside of the wind, he adds. If there is a lake or pond nearby, get in the water. If you have a cellphone, call for help. Before leaving home to travel into the woods, make sure people are aware of your location.

A couple of years ago, a ground crew in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, became trapped while fighting a forest fire. Water bombers from Newfoundland and Labrador, and Ontario responded and rescued the July 2021

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Stephanie Pinksen has been deployed with several fire crews across the country.

Dept. Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture photos

crew. “They went above and beyond to make a water drop,” Johnny says.

“Forest fires are ever evolving and ever-changing. You’re dealing with wind, smoke, heat and other airplanes or helicopters.”

Heavy turbulence can set off alarms in the aircraft. “You can feel the heat of the flames,” Johnny adds.

“It’s pretty intense.”

The rewards outweigh the risks, although pilots must know the limits of their capabilities and those of the air tanker. “Don’t push yourself too far,” Johnny reminds himself. “When I go to work, I realize I have a threeyear-old. That’s a big part of it.”

SCENES FROM THE GROUND Stephanie Pinksen smiled at the little girl approaching the table at a fast food restaurant in Fort McMurray.

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contingent deployed from Newfoundland and Labrador to battle a forest fire that would see 88,000 people flee the area, destroy more than 2,400 buildings, and spread over more than 550,000 hectares.

“She thanked us,” says Stephanie, now acting Wildland Fire Management Training Specialist with Government of Newfoundland and Labrador. “It was one of those experiences that make you realize it’s all worth it.”

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RESIDENTS BE VIGILANT

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Forest fire season is in effect for the island of Newfoundland May 1 September 30, 2021, and in Labrador May 15 - September 30, 2021.

Ninety-four recorded wildfires burned 4,177 hectares throughout the province in 2020. There were 72 fires on the island, burning 145 hectares, and 22 fires in Labrador, burning 4,032 hectares. Totals for 2020 are below the previous provincial 10-year average of 105 fires and 30,757 hectares burned.

Stephanie Pinksen, acting Wildland Fire Management Training Specialist with Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, believes people are more cautious and aware of safe forest fire practices. “We advise people to remain vigilant,” she says.

Individuals are responsible for being aware of the forest fire hazard rating before lighting an outdoor fire. Failing to comply with regulations may mean fines and penalties, including costs associated with fighting a forest fire.

Stephanie reminds people that anyone travelling through forest land on an all-terrain or motorized vehicle during forest fire season is required to have the vehicle fitted with a muffler and a screening or baffling device to prevent sparks or particles of burnt carbon from escaping and creating a fire hazard. Operators are required to be equipped with a fire extinguisher containing a minimum of 225 grams of ABC-class fire retardant.

To report a wildfire in the province, call 1-866-709-FIRE (3473). Visit the Department of Fisheries, Forestry and Agriculture online at www.gov.nl.ca/ffa for updates and information such as: • Daily updated forest fire forecast map • Information on active forest fires • Public reminders and wildfire prevention tips • Under “Wildfire Prevention” link to FireSmart, a national program committed to helping Canadians – including home and cabin owners – reduce wildfire risk.

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Ties can become close when working in a fire suppression team. (Above) Stephanie with teams from New Brunswick and Nova Scotia in British Columbia.

(Right) Stephanie takes a selfie with a crew in British Columbia.

The Alberta deployment was one of 12 Stephanie has been involved with during her 13 years as a professional forest firefighter. The first woman ever deployed from Newfoundland and Labrador, she’s helped defeat blazes in Saskatchewan, Ontario and British Columbia. Fire suppression resources in Canada are shared on a formal basis under the Canadian Interagency Mutual Aid Resources Sharing (MARS) Agreement.

Provinces deploy staff and equipment after ensuring adequate resources remain at home to manage any fires that might occur. Newfoundland and Labrador has a fleet of five strategically placed water bombers, several helicopters and more than 80 fire suppression staff.

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Stephanie Pinksen via Facebook

especially when you fly over a fire and you see the devastation, but once you get established you feel more comfortable and it’s a lot less unsettling,” she says.

“I leave my home and family, but it’s always rewarding,” the mother of two says. “You feel like you’re doing something good for the world.”

“Fort McMurray was one of my more memorable deployments,” Stephanie says. “They are all challenging and exhausting mentally and physically, but the situation in Fort Mac, with so much property lost, was extra heart-wrenching.”

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in the event of a forest fire near their community. She works with municipal fire departments to familiarize them with the Fire Smart program, and trains new staff, including students, to work under strict safe work practices and COVID-19 protocols.

“I think people view forest firefighting like they see it in the movies. It’s not like that,” Stephanie explains.

“You don’t walk into a fire that’s crowning (intense and fast moving).

We assess the situation, take a step back, and call in a water bomber or chopper for reinforcements. We don’t put lives before trees.

“During every deployment I’ve been on, a firefighter’s physical and mental safety were always number one,” she adds. “All the safety practices are embedded in your brain.

It’s emphasized at morning briefings and evening debriefings. It’s

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very, very important.”

Stephanie has worked in base camps and bush camps. She’s slept in trailers, lived in tent cities, ate supper in mess halls and trekked through the woods while deployed.

Training is rigorous. And if a forest fire broke out in another province or territory tomorrow, she would not hesitate to put up her hand.

Stephanie says she’d like to someday play a logistical role on an incident management team or volunteer as agency representative.

A camaraderie develops between the members of the fire suppression team, Stephanie says.

“You are usually in a crew for a full 14 days. You work, eat and spend your evenings with them. That’s another part that makes deployment rewarding. You feel like those people have your back.”

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Submit your favourite photos of scenery, activities and icons that best illustrate the down-home lifestyle. We’re looking for a variety of colourful subjects – outports, wildlife, laundry lines, historic sites, seascapes, hilltop views, and so much more – and photos from all four seasons.

This is your chance to get in on our most popular reader contest and try to woo the judges into choosing your photo for the 2022 Downhome Calendar. These calendars are seen by tens of thousands of subscribers and displayed all year long.

What are you waiting for?

Submit today, using one of these ways:

by mail: Downhome Calendar Contest 43 James Lane St. John’s, NL A1E 3H3 online: www.downhomelife.com/calendar Must be original photos or high quality copies. Digital photos must be at least 300 dpi, files sizes of about 1MB. We can’t accept photocopies or photos that are blurry, too dark or washed out. Include a self-addressed stamped envelope if you want your photos returned.

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features

sureSHOTS Featuring photographer Erik Mclean

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A WELL-CRAFTED photograph can do so much more than just record a moment in time. It can convey a message, elicit an emotion, open a mind, open a wallet. Just as there are artful photos that have been used to market products, some images created for commercial use also make stunning works of art.

Erik Mclean is a photographer whose work has been used globally in marketing campaigns and could also fill an upscale art show. He currently works in marketing and graphic design in St. John’s, NL. One of his favourite photos is a self-portrait he took near the start of the COVID-19 pandemic (below).

“It’s a photograph of myself behind a stack of toilet paper while wearing a fur coat and gas mask,” he says with a laugh. “A lot of my photos get used as stock photography worldwide, and that one especially took off and was used by a lot of bigger global brands. I was stuck at home and I thought it would be a play on the hoarding culture that we seen at the beginning of COVID.” Erik’s interest in photography and videography began in his teens, and coincided with his love for snowboarding and skateboarding in western Newfoundland. The St. George’s native was fascinated with extreme sport imagery. When he moved to St. www.downhomelife.com

John’s after high school he got away from extreme sports – “Not many mountains out this way,” he jokes – and put aside photography for a bit.

Erik rediscovered his passion for the lens while studying graphic design at College of the North Atlantic, which included a photography course.

While Erik could be shooting anything, he really enjoys landscapes and cars. “I’ve always been interested in cool and exotic cars, and I guess I just love the designs and character that each of them have,” he explains.

For landscapes, a favourite destination is the Bonavista area. But it was the lure of a rock formation on the Avalon’s Southern Shore that led to a most memorable shoot.

“I remember the first time I went out to the Berry Head arch. It was super late in the evening, but I really wanted a night photo from there,” Erik recalls. “When I arrived in Port Kirwan, I asked one of the locals for directions to the trail head, and he looked at me like I was crazy for wanting to make that hike in the dark. When I got to the arch, it was beautiful to see it under the stars, and it was also probably the darkest environment I have ever experienced. Very worth the walk!”

That’s just one of the rewarding things about photography – it takes you places. And based on what we’ve seen of Erik’s work so far, he’s going places.

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explore

For those who need accessible accommodations, the devil is in the details.

BY CONNIE BOLAND

Matthew McCoag photo

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Matthew McCoag photo

The message isn’t complicated.

It doesn’t require an assessment or a study.

Like all good messages, it comes from the heart.

Most often, simple is best.

If Lisa Walters could design a billboard, it would probably say something like, “The outdoors should be for everyone.” The accompanying image would be a wheelchair user on an accessible nature trail.

“Since becoming a wheelchair user, I have discovered how much of this province feels really off limits to me,” Lisa writes in a recent email interview. She has Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. “Having very limited access to nature is one of those things that is hard to accept.”

Lisa is a disability blogger and accessibility advocate in St. John’s, NL. Her blog, DamselInADress.ca, is a candid, often humorous, glimpse into the world of a twenty-something with a chronic illness, a chocolate addiction and a desire to be best friends with American actress Mindy Kaling. Lisa also authors AccessYYT on several social media sites, highlighting accessible places, events and activities in the provincial capital and surrounding area.

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to ensure their operation is accessible,” Lisa says. “They can ensure there’s a ramp or a barrier-free entrance; automatic doors are great; accessible checkout counters; and wide aisles without a lot of clutter so disabled customers can get around more easily.” Menus can have large print or be printed in Braille. Restaurants that cannot be physically accessible can provide curbside pickup or home delivery, which has became a common service during the COVID19 pandemic.

Lisa says businesses that are not accessible can find a way to improve their accessibility. “There are funding opportunities available that can help,” she suggests. “There are some other things that are very easy and make a difference, too, like ensuring their social media spaces are accessible. If they have a Facebook page or website, they should list the accessibility features of their business so a disabled customer doesn’t have to call or message to ask if they can get in.

“They should say if they are completely inaccessible. They can use image descriptions and alt text on the photos when posting, and caption their videos. They can make hashtags accessible by capitalizing the first letter in each word so a screen reader can read it. All of this makes a big difference.”

Lisa authored a Social Media Accessibility Guide for businesses, politicians and public figures and made it available freely on her blog, “An entrepreneur can ensure their tourist attraction is accessible by putting in the work to make it as accessible as possible, by making their social media and website more accessible, and by being transparent about 76

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Lisa explains that when it comes to businesses proclaiming accessibility, the details are important - what exactly makes them so? what makes their attraction accessible,” Lisa says. “I would love it if businesses could stop providing a blanket statement like ‘this place is accessible’ or ‘this place is fully accessible’ without telling us what makes it that way. The thing is, no matter how hard most businesses try, they likely aren’t accessible to every disabled person.”

Details are key, Lisa explains. “Tell us if there’s a ramp, a step up to get inside, if the doors are wide enough and there’s space to move around. If that business is an accommodation, they should give all these details as well as lots of photos. I need to know a place will work for me and my wheelchair before I pay to stay there and show up with my suitcases.”

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Accessibility benefits us all

Round Da Bay Inn, in Plate Cove West on the Bonavista Peninsula, is doing it right, says Lisa. Owners Karen and Chris Ricketts follow her on social media. “Every time I post a suggestion that can make a business more accessible, they are immediately getting to work to do that thing. They have a wheelchair-accessible suite that works great for me, but they recognize it might not meet every wheelchair user’s needs because access needs can vary so much.

“They are putting in a lot of great work to highlight accessible businesses across the Bonavista Peninsula and are helping in every way they can to make the area more accessible. They are passionate about this and it shows.”

The Newfoundland and Labrador Tourism online guide lists 656 tourist accommodations, 122 of which are wheelchair accessible.

“If everyone could remember that accessibility benefits all of us, I think it would be easier to get others to focus on making our province more accessible,” Lisa says.

“Our province is definitely behind in terms of accessibility, so it’s important for business owners and politicians to seek out and demand solutions to make it less difficult to improve accessibility. If everyone continues to pay attention to the experiences of disabled residents, and to familiarize themselves with things that would be considered accessible or inaccessible, it will be easier to spot problems that could be fixed.”

Lisa says conversations about accessibility are needed. “I think it’s really important for non-disabled www.downhomelife.com

people to also be having these conversations and pointing out inaccessibility, because it’s often left to those of us who are disabled to do the work,” she says.

“If we all keep talking about this and trying to see our towns and also our online spaces from the perspective of someone who may have varying disabilities, we will normalize the conversation about access and get a little closer to inclusivity.”

Lisa recently posted a photo captured at Cape Spear. She’s sitting in her wheelchair looking at the cliffs and ocean from a wooden observa-

tion deck. The wind is playing with her hair. “It’s not something I do a lot, especially with the lack of accessible trails in St. John’s, but I feel hopeful about improvements being made,” she wrote on Instagram.

“I’d love to see this trail expand, and I’d be so happy to see more outdoor places across the province soon holding space for those of us who use mobility aids. The outdoors should be for everyone.”

It’s not a billboard, but it’s a start.

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explore

The Newfoundland Blacksmith is planning a creative event this summer on the rocky beach of Fogo Island

By Nicola Ryan Brian Carey photo

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There he is!

Ian Gillies photos

Perched on a workbench outside Mallard Cottage. Now he’s tucked into the corner table at the Duke. Have you seen him? He’s been spotted diving into a rushing river, balancing at the top of Signal Hill and popping into your social media feed. This #Fishyfishfish has been spotted in more places than Corky Sly Connor!

“He” is a remarkable piece of art: a four-foot-tall, 48-pound fish skeleton made of reclaimed metal by blacksmith Ian Gillies, a.k.a. The Newfoundland Blacksmith. In preCOVID times, Ian ran Gillie Forge in Brigus South on the Southern Shore.

These days he works from his garage at home, using a traditional forge and anvil to hammer out his projects and ideas. After a year of social distancing, he’s bursting to create and collaborate, and Fishy is just the beginning. www.downhomelife.com

Ian is planning a new sculpture and a public art event set to begin in late July on Fogo Island.

Ian’s a history buff, and he likes to explore themes of local history and heritage in his art. “I’m all about the history of Newfoundland,” especially as it pertains to blacksmithing, he explains. “I work with the old Newfoundland railway spikes. I like working with old steel, found steel, rusty steel.”

In his latest piece, the rusted hull of July 2021

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a ship and old wrought-iron railings come together to form the gracefully curving skeleton of a fish – a figure Ian likens to the Newfoundland fishery, once solid and strong, now deteriorating and transforming into something new.

He works in the traditional method, carefully stoking the forge with coal, getting the steel to the perfect temperature before skillfully hammering it on an anvil.

“The art of making is only half of it when you’re working with coal,” says Ian. “The trick is [getting] the right temperature. But once you do it long enough, it comes pretty easily.”

Creativity burns inside Ian. It fuels him to always be practising, learning and making. It’s powered him through the many stages of his career – twenty years touring with rock bands, minding everything from carpentry to electrical; publishing a book; running a digital graphics 80

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company – and the many stages of his life, including leaving the touring life to settle down back home in Conception Bay South to be a full-time single dad to his son.

Blacksmithing is not very common in this province. So when Ian heard another blacksmith artist, Marc Fiset of Fogo Island Metalworks, was working out in central Newfoundland, he set out to meet him.

“It was in a minute of talking to Marc [that] we knew that we are the exact same kind of person – we just go headstrong into things and we just make,” Ian says.

“We both just want to create.” That immediate meeting of the minds has led to the development of a unique public event.

What the two artists have in mind for this summer is a casual event on the beach inspired by the legendary Burning Man festival – an unstructured, experiential event where folks can gather and have fun being creative together.

“We’re not performers or anything like that,” Ian explains. “We’re just artists that want to create, and we want to share that with people.

If people want to come by and experience the whole process, watch, get involved – they can in whatever way.”

Ian adds with a chuckle, “We have no idea who’s going to show up, if anybody’s going to show up.” He’s anticipating other creative folks, including local chefs and musicians, will be able to join them. “This is an 1-888-588-6353

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opportunity for people to come out and be creative – whether it’s with food, if it’s with steel, if it’s whatever they want to do,” he says.

Ian’s main focus is on the creation

Ian with Fishy in his CBS home forge of the art. The culmination of the couple of weeks’ work will be a large sculpture of reclaimed steel with a heritage theme – similar to Fishy, but on a bigger and bolder scale.

“It’s going to be something fishing related. We’re both just going to take www.downhomelife.com

what we’ve learned and get out there and see what we come up with.

By the last weekend we hope to have a large, 10-12 foot sculpture made of steel,” he says.

“We may cover it in something and set it on fire, to give it a certain finish,” he adds with a hint of mischief. “It’s the Newfoundland Burning Man. That’s why we’re calling it the Burning Rock Festival.”

The festival is slated for July 25 to August 7, on the rocky beach near Marc’s forge in Shoal Bay. It’s a striking location that lends itself perfectly to social distancing in these pandemic times. “There’s going to be lots of distance for people to be able to come by, outdoors,” Ian says.

If this year’s Burning Rock is a success, Ian would like to the see the event grow and happen every summer. There’s been plenty of positive response so far, he says, and even knowing the Brian Carey photo pandemic could bring more unexpected shutdowns, they are not deterred.

“No matter what happens, Marc and I are going to be out there doing this,” Ian says determinedly.

So if you’re out near Joe Batt’s Arm this summer, look for the blacksmiths. Ian and Marc will be there, scheming, hammering, cutting and welding their artistic vision into solid steel.

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The gentle lap of the water

against the hull, the glint of sunlight on the waves, the fresh breeze on your face – they clear your head, warm your heart and take you away from any troubles or stresses on shore. In these pandemic times when tensions are high and escapes are blocked, getting on the water has never been more appealing.

There are plenty of avid paddlers among the Downhome readership.

They’ve happily shared snapshots of their summer outings, giving us insight into some of the most inspiring places to paddle. The following are 10 different locations around Newfoundland that reward paddlers with incredible, Instagrammable experiences. Have you been to any of these places? Do you know of other hidden gems? Submit your photos anytime at DownhomeLife.com/submit.

Or enter a scenic paddling photo in our 2022 Downhome Calendar Contest going on all summer: DownhomeLife.com/calendar.

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Aquaforte Leigh Gilbert

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South Brook Carla Legge

Juggler’s Cove Dean Ducas

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Portland Creek Donna Keough

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Spread Eagle Leigh Gilbert

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Norris Point Wayne Loveys

Little Bay Islands Mike Parsons

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Trinity

Jacqueline Hicks

Croque Steve Faulkner

Codroy River Wayne Osmond

www.downhomelife.com

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A new world-class venue in Cow Head is just the ticket for Theatre Newfoundland Labrador.

By Nicola Ryan

All photos courtesy Theatre Newfoundland Labrador

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For the past 24 seasons,

Theatre Newfoundland Labrador (TNL) has been putting on sold-out performances for the Gros Morne Theatre Festival. Based in beautiful Cow Head in Gros Morne National Park, the festival dedicates itself to the creation and development of plays for and about Newfoundland and Labrador, and entices hundreds of theatre-lovers to the small community every summer. It’s an absolutely world-class event that had definitely outgrown its original facilities. This year, after a brief COVID-19 delay, TNL is thrilled to be moving into a brand new stateof-the-art venue, The Nurse Myra Bennett Centre for the Performing Arts.

Gaylene Buckle, TNL general manager, is thrilled over the new space. “It’s amazing,” she enthuses. “Every person who’s worked on that building has put their heart and soul into it to make sure it is what it is.”

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The new, fully accessible facility is twice as large as their previous venue, the Warehouse Theatre. The main stage, the Fortis Theatre, has a 178-seat capacity, a large proscenium stage and tiered seating. Outside, an airy lobby welcomes eager audiences.

“Certainly one of the things that we had uppermost in our minds when we were designing this facility was to make sure that the audience are getting the best experience they can get,” Gaylene says.

Backstage, the centre has expanded technical spaces, new dressing rooms, a state-of-theart kitchen to support the dinner theatre, and dedicated office space for the managers, directors and designers.

“We hired Denise Dolliver, who had been our production manager for many years, as our theatre liaison between the contractors and the architects and the company. So I can guarantee the attention to detail in every aspect of that building – from the office to the box office to the production facilities to the performance venue. It’s all been so good and beautifully organized. Every artist and every community member that walks into that space and gets the tour is like, ‘Holy Moses!’ It’s hard to believe that this is in Newfoundland – let alone Cow Head, a community of 425!”

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support came from contributions by the provincial and federal governments, plus more than $3.5 million was raised from the private sector.

“The Set the Stage campaign led by [former premier] Brian Tobin brought the private money into play; Gudie Hutchings, our MP, was so instrumental, and all the departments have just been amazing to work with. Same with the provincial government and all the program officers. I can’t tell ya!” Gaylene says.

Contractors from Pittman’s Enterprises brought their expert crafts-

manship. The Basil Dobbin Family Foundation contributed $1 million and gave the centre its name – a fitting tribute to Nurse Myra Bennett, hero of the Northern Peninsula and subject of TNL’s long-running play Tempting Providence.

“I’m not going to say that it hasn’t been without a hell of a lot of stress,” laughs Gaylene, “and a hell of a lot of work and hell of a lot of ‘oh my God what are we gonna do?’ But I can tell you that it’s been a great big amazing team of people who have put this thing together, and now I can’t wait 1-888-588-6353

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to start sharing it with the world!”

From September to April, in the off season, TNL focuses on community engagement and fostering new talent with their Corner Brook Youth Theatre. It was always the intention of TNL to put the new centre to use year-round as an incredible resource for the arts community – for other plays, concerts and workshops; a workspace to design and create new costumes, sets and props; a location to collaborate with local farmers and producers; and especially a hub for the high school drama festival.

“That’s one of the things we’ve been talking about for a number of years,” says Gaylene. “How much more can we create now that we have this lovely building?”

Last year, the Gros Morne Theatre Festival was disrupted, like most things, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, the company is eager to get back to treading the boards, albeit with a reduced lineup of shows scheduled with a local audience in mind and safety protocols including bubbled seating, masking, physical distancing and sanitizing in place.

“In some ways, it’s probably not a bad thing that we have to limit what we’re doing and our audiences because it gives us an opportunity to really figure out how this building works,” says Gaylene.

They’ve been working hard to adapt, adopting new software, creating meticulous contingency plans and coming up with creative solutions to pandemic-era challenges.

The company plans to film all of its plays and make them available to patrons, with a little tour of the building included at the end of the show, so they can virtually attend. www.downhomelife.com

TNL Gros Morne Theatre Festival 25th Anniversary Season Tempting Providence

by Robert Chafe June 25 - August 29 The Only Living Father

by Tom Cahill June 26 - August 27 Neddy Norris Night July 2 - August 27 S.S. Ethie – Dinner Theatre

by Shane Ellis-Coates July 17 - August 28

The Only Living Father

“Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to have a great big open house because COVID’s not allowing that,” sighs Gaylene. “We had it planned last year, but we didn’t want to go ahead and [reschedule] and then have to shut it down again. It’s just not the year. The Grand Celebration will be in early June of 2022 – please God! – when we can all get together and celebrate together.”

This year, the festival’s 25th season opens on June 25 with Tempting Providence and tickets are selling quickly. “It’s such a wonderful, beautiful play,” says Gaylene. “And to have the new centre named for Myra Bennett… it just feels amazing.”

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HOME and Cabin

stuff we love by Nicola Ryan

Boating Buddies KEEP DRY CARRY ON Having a dry space to secure your keys and valuables is essential when you’re out in a kayak or other water craft. We like this waterproof dry bag from Earth Pak. The roll top compression design helps the bag float if it falls in the water (or gets swept overboard by a splash), and it comes with a waterproof phone case. earthpak.com

WATER DOG’S BEST FRIEND Designed for dogs that love to join their humans on the water, these lightweight, soft foam Float Coat dog life jackets are the ultimate in canine floatation. Available for dogs of all shapes and sizes, they’re buoyant, comfortable and secure. There’s also a strong handle to help hoist your best pal back aboard after a swim. ruffwear.com

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WATERPROOF BINOCULARS When you’re blessed to have waters that abound with icebergs, seabirds, whales and marine life, it’s always a good idea to have a set of binoculars on board for a closer look. These Hooway marine binoculars have 7x magnification and a 50mm objective lens – and best of all, they float!

Sold on amazon.com or walmart.ca

HERE FISHY, FISHY! The Garmin Striker 4 portable fish finder uses sonar technology to detect fish underwater. The perfect size for a small boat or kayak, it provides quality imagery on its 4.3-inch display. Having one will save you from casting into empty water and might also raise your chances of catching a tasty supper. garmin.ca

AT YOUR SERVICE The Docktail bar holds all the refreshments you could want for your next boat social. It has several slots to hold all sizes of bottles, cans or solo cups; two bowls for snacks; and a removable cutting board insert for slicing garnishes. It sets up easily on an adjustable rod holder mount. (Reminder: Have a designated captain. Do not drink and drive a motorized vessel.) docktailbar.com www.downhomelife.com

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HOME and Cabin

Backyard Oasis

How to add a relaxing water feature to any outdoor space

BY MARIE BISHOP

At last, they have arrived – those long, warm, glorious days, peaceful evenings by the fire, balmy breezes brushing softly through the leaves, kids and adults alike splashing in the pool... or pond, or ocean. We need to take every opportunity to enjoy summer at its finest, wherever your happy place is – and for most of us it’s found in, on or near water.

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It’s not just being in the water that brings the refreshing benefits. It’s also the soothing sound: the tumbling of water over rock and into a pool below, or the lapping of lazy ripples on the edge of the ocean. Resting your eyes on the gentle surface of a pond where flies pitch and fish jump can be meditative.

It’s no surprise that we are drawn to water, especially in the summer. Anywhere water is found, the air is full of negative ions. Studies have shown that negative ions have many positive effects on our bodies.

They clear and clean the air, ridding it of pollutants, spores, pollen and bacteria, making it easier for us to breathe. So, the more we surround ourselves with water, the better we feel.

Maybe that’s why water features have become such a big part of garden landscapes.

From a bowl size, plug-in water fountain, to a fish pond, to a running stream complete with waterfall, we have become invested in bringing water to life in our personal outdoor spaces. And because it’s so popular, it’s easier than ever to make it a reality.

Most garden centres and retail stores have a variety of ornamental water features for every size of garden. Small tabletop fountains offer the relaxing, gentle sound of light rain while you are enjoying the sun or evening shade. Add a few plants to the space where the fountain is displayed to create a miniature tropical oasis. A larger, standalone fountain feature can be purchased for a corner of the garden or placed in a relaxing www.downhomelife.com

sitting area.

Any size fountain or waterfall could be a fairly simple DIY project. All you need is a pump, some hose and something for the water to spill over and into.

Let’s say you want to make a fairly simple in-ground water feature. Prepare the spot you have in mind, which usually means you need a hole the

Most garden centres and retail stores have a variety of ornamental water features for every size of garden.

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size of the container you are using to collect the water. Keep in mind this container needs to be big enough to also hold the pump you’re using, and your water feature needs to be near a power source to run the electric pump. In order to create a waterfall effect you will need some height – a few vertical rocks or stone structure is perfect. Next you’ll need enough hose to reach from the pump to the top of the vertical rock formation. Once you have figured out the location and gathered your materials, a little imagination will go a long way. You will need to hide the pump and hose to create a more natural-looking setup.

Some lichen-covered rocks and leafy plants will help with the visual. These few relatively inexpensive items and some creativity will result in a beautiful water feature for all to enjoy.

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are professionals who can bring your water feature dream to life.

Depending on your budget and the size of your space, the options are endless. You could even have a fish pond – what a way to bring your garden to another level! The number of plants you want to grow and the type of fish you plan to house there will have certain requirements that must be met for their wellbeing. However, once it is set up and maintained with the proper equipment, the rewards are immense – visually and physically.

Gardens are joyful places anyway, but adding the pleasure and benefit of a water feature to the visual gift of a garden enhances the experience beyond measure. Love your outdoor space, enjoy your summer to the max and stay safe!

www.downhomelife.com

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Todd’s table

BBQ Striploin Steaks 100

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Todd’s Table

By Todd Goodyear

When he’s not dreaming up or cooking up great food, Todd Goodyear is president and associate publisher of Downhome. todd@downhomelife.com

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Okay seriously,

is there a better smell in the summer than that of meat searing on the grill? How many times do you arrive home from work pondering what to cook today, when that familiar smell of summer hits you right in the gut? Someone in the neighbourhood has the BBQ going! Yes, you smell it with your nose but you feel it in your stomach, and it’s back in the vehicle and off to the supermarket or butcher to get some nice, fresh striploin steaks.

I like to have mine cut no less than one inch thick for the BBQ, and sometimes even a little thicker, depending how hungry I feel.

One great thing about steak is that if you can’t finish it all, the leftovers with a couple of eggs the next morning is an excellent idea.

Try it sometime, it’s delicious. I would suggest reheating the steak on the BBQ for just a couple minutes – this way you are creating that beautiful aroma for your neighbours at like 6:30-7:00 in the morning. They will be wondering, what’s he at this morning? LOL!

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BBQ Striploin Steaks 2 (1" thick) striploin steaks 2 tsp kosher salt 1 tsp fresh cracked black pepper

Resting Butter (sometimes called steak butter or finishing butter. I just call it delicious):

4 tbsp softened unsalted butter 2 cloves crushed garlic 1 tbsp Worcestershire sauce 1/2 tsp dried thyme leaves, or basil or rosemary 1/2 tsp salt 1/2 tsp pepper

Place the steaks on the cutting board and liberally sprinkle kosher or coarse salt on both sides. The fresh cracked pepper will be added after they come off the grill. This way the pepper will not be burned and leave a bitter taste.

Let the steaks sit for 30-40 minutes after salting to allow them to get up to room temperature. While your steaks are sitting, go ahead and prepare the butter. Combine all ingredients in a small bowl until mixed well.

Give yourself 10 minutes ahead of the steaks reaching room temperature to start the BBQ and crank it up on high. You will want the grill to be the hottest possible. This is a very important step to a great steak.

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Lay your steaks on the grill at a 45-degree angle, and the first time you move them it won’t be to flip them but to move them to the opposite 45-degree angle, same side. This method produces those beautiful diamond shaped grill marks that look so impressive.

A one-inch thick steak will need to cook for approximately 4 minutes on the first side (2 minutes and 2 minutes for the grill marks) and about 3 minutes on the other side (1 ½ minutes twice for the grill marks). I would recommended to use an instant-read meat thermometer at this point to ensure the right temperature, as gas grills often vary in heat and you want to get it right. You may have to leave the steak on a little longer. Remember during the resting time the meat continues to cook, so for medium rare, take the steaks off at an internal temperature of 130°F.

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Right before the steaks come off the grill, place a tablespoon of the resting butter for each steak on your cutting board. Remove the steaks from the grill and place them on top of the butter. Crack some pepper over the steaks, then spread the remaining butter on top of each steak and let rest for 5-8 minutes. I promise you, steaks cooked this way will be simply amazing.

Finish the plate with the side of your choice. Corn on the cobb, mushrooms and onions, salad, asparagus, peppers, baked potato or fries – whatever you fancy will be just fine. I am just featuring the steak cooking method this time, and you can have the side of your liking.

Todd’s Tips Get the grill as hot as possible.

Allowing the steaks to reach room temperature before grilling is crucial.

Resting the steaks for 5-8 minutes is so important.

It’s worth repeating. Cook with confidence!

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HOME and Cabin

everyday recipes

Toast to Summer Nothing tops off a hot day working in the garden or lounging on the patio like a cool, refreshing, colourful drink.

Mermaid Submitted by Pat Roberts

Crushed or cubed ice White rum Curaçao Lemonade

Per glass: Fill 1/4 with ice, 1/4 with rum, add a splash of Curaçao and fill with rest of the glass with lemonade.

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Outport Spritzer Ice cubes Auk Island Outport Raspberry Screech Wine Ginger ale or 7-Up

Add 3 or 4 ice cubes to a wine glass.

Fill 1/3 with wine and top with ginger ale or 7-Up (adjust wine:soda ratio to suit your taste).

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Sparkling Strawberry Punch Submitted by Frances Buckley

5 cups strawberries 1 cup sugar 3 cups orange juice

3/4 cup lemon juice 1 1/2 L ginger ale, chilled

Mash together 4 cups strawberries with 1/2 cup sugar; let stand one hour. Slice remaining berries and set aside. Force strawberry mixture through a strainer into a punch bowl.

Add orange and lemon juices, ginger ale and remaining sugar, and stir. Add sliced strawberries and serve.

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Triple Melon Cocktail Submitted by Bernie-Ann Ezekiel

3/4 cup watermelon balls 3/4 cup honeydew balls 3/4 cup cantaloupe balls 1 L puréed melon (400 ml watermelon, 300 ml cantaloupe, 300 ml honeydew) 1 tbsp fresh mint, chiffonade 1/4 cup lemon juice Juice from 1 lime 1/2 cup white rum 2 tbsp white sugar

Thread the melon balls onto BBQ skewers (about 2 of each kind per skewer), and freeze. Mix together the remaining ingredients and refrigerate for at least 2-3 hours. Pour the cocktail into 8 oz mason jars, place a frozen melon skewer in each and serve immediately.

Yield: 6 cocktails

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Frosted Lemonade 1/3 cup lemon juice, freshly squeezed 3 tbsp granulated sugar

1/3 cup ice water 3 cups vanilla ice cream

Chill water with ice cubes for several minutes to make it super cold.

Add lemon juice, sugar and ice water (ice cubes removed) to a blender. Blend until sugar dissolves. Add ice cream and blend again until combined and frothy. Divide into 3 cups. Serve immediately.

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Raspberry Martini 1/2 cup crushed ice 6 tbsp raspberry vodka 3 tbsp simple syrup*

1/2 lime, juiced 10 raspberries (plus extra for garnish) 2 sprigs of mint

*Make simple syrup by boiling equal amounts of water and sugar until sugar is dissolved. Let cool completely before using it. Fill a cocktail shaker with all the ingredients. Secure the lid and shake vigorously for 20-30 seconds. Strain cocktail through a sieve into two martini glasses. Garnish with extra raspberries and a sprig of mint.

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HOME and Cabin

down to earth by Kim Thistle

Your Questions Answered “I live in the Massey Drive area, planting beets for the first time from seed. The plants are growing nicely, and I am wondering when to thin them out and how.”

Most beet seed are pellets that contain more than one seed, so it is important to thin and give your plants room to grow. Beet seedlings should be thinned when they are about 3" – 5" tall. I leave about 5" or 6" between plants to give them lots of room to grow. Rather than pull the plant out and risk disturbing the seedling alongside, I cut mine off at soil level and save the beet tops to add to salad or just as a topping on fish or meat. The colour is attractive and they are delicious. Don’t waste these tasty little morsels.

“I have lavender, mint and chives growing in pots. What should I do with the plants over the winter: leave them outside or put them in the shed?”

Those particular herbs overwinter well outside. I would plant them in the ground if that is an option, but if you want to keep them in pots, be sure the pots are plastic or a material with give. Clay will absorb water, which will freeze and expand, causing the clay to crack. Put the pots in an area of the garden that gets good snow cover, as the snow acts as insulation that will help protect your plants.

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“I have canker on my blue potatoes this year. How do I get rid of it for next year?”

Canker. Ugh! The COVID of the gardening world. Scab is caused by a naturally occurring bacteria in the soil. Once you have had scab, avoid planting in that same area again. It is a good practice to rotate your crops every year anyway. Do not lime in the area where you are growing potatoes.

Scab, or canker, tends to thrive in soils with a pH higher than 5.5. It is almost non-existent in soils with a pH below 5.2. Avoid using fertilizers or organic matter that may increase the pH of your soil. You can lower the pH by digging in peat moss. Also, be sure to keep your plants watered, especially when they are in flower.

There are scab-resistant varieties that you can choose to plant, although your blues are not one of them. Try Goldrush, Russet Burbank, Norland, Superior or Chieftan.

Also, try this home remedy. I have never tried it, but I would be interested in hearing from anyone who does and finds that it works. Mix one cup of blackstrap molasses with five gallons of water and let it sit for 24 hours. Pour this over the soil just before planting time. Do this a couple more times throughout the growing season. Pour it on the soil, not the leaves. If this does work, there will be a lot of happy Newfoundlanders. We love our spuds.

“How do you set the chestnut tree from seed? Do you set the nut with the casing or without? What is the best procedure to follow from setting to transplanting?”

Horse chestnuts are relatively easy to grow. The nut, or conker, has to go through a chilling period. Often if you pick these nuts up off the ground in spring, they will have started to sprout, so the work is already done for you. If you are worried that the critters will make off with all the nuts, you can gather the seed in the fall and put them in the fridge or an unheated area. They need to be chilled for about three months to germinate.

After this period, put them in a glass of water to test them. Any that floats should be discarded, as it is not viable. You should open (peel) the conker before planting. Put it in a two- or three-gallon pot with good soil containing lots of organic matter, and be sure to have good drainage. As your tree grows, be sure to transplant it into successively larger pots until you are ready to plant it in the ground. Good luck and have fun!

Do you have a gardening question for Kim? Email downtoearth@downhomelife.com.

Kim Thistle owns a garden centre and landscaping business on the west coast of the island. She has also been a recurring guest gardener on CBC’s “Crosstalk” for almost three decades. www.downhomelife.com

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reminiscing flashbacks

New Recruits The submitter’s grandfather, Howard L. Morry, is among the members of the Royal Newfoundland Regiment, No. 11 Section, C Company in this photo from the Great War. Do you recognize anyone in this photo? Let us know – see page 9 for the best ways to reach us.

Chris Morry Ottawa, ON

Regiment Runner Pte. Andrew Ralph Smith was awarded the Military Medal for his role as a company runner during the battle of Ledgehem, October 14, 1918. A letter in his military file states, “He repeatedly carried messages from the front line to Battalion Headquarters and back over ground swept by machine gun fire and snipers.

Throughout the day he showed a complete disregard of danger.”

Gloria Brown Dartmouth, NS 112

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A Peaceful Place “My mother, Cecilia Hoskins of Badger’s Quay-Valleyfield, lost two brothers with the Royal Newfoundland Regiment during the First World War: Pte. Frederick Stratton in France and her twin brother, Cpl. William Stratton, in Belgium,” writes submitter Fred Hoskins. “In the summer of 1984, her granddaughter, Carol Hoskins, visited William’s grave in Ypres, Belgium. The enclosed photograph shows Carol kneeling at his headstone among the dozens of immaculately kept graves.”

Fred Hoskins Gander, NL

This Month in History On July 1, 1928, the Caribou Monument – a tribute to the Royal Newfoundland Regiment – was unveiled in Bowring Park in St. John’s, NL. Presented to the park by Major William Howe Green, the bronze statue depicts the official emblem of the Regiment.

It is a replica of the original statue designed by British sculptor Captain Basil Gotto as part of the Trail of the Caribou – then a series of five battlefield memorials built to commemorate Newfoundland’s contribution to the First World War. These memorials stand at Beaumont-Hamel, Gueudecourt, Mansnieres and Monchy-le-Preux in France, and Coutrai in Belgium.

The original planner of the trail, Padre Thomas Nangle, always hoped a sixth monument could be built at Gallipoli, Turkey, where the Regiment first reached the Front in 1915. This was prevented by the collapse of the Ottoman Empire and a long civil war that led to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey in 1923.

Today, the Trail of the Caribou is complete. After many years of collective efforts, the sixth and final caribou was installed in Gallipoli on April 13, 2021.

Veterans Affairs Canada

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reminiscing

Two-Room School Days Memories from a United Church school in Central Newfoundland

By Munden Batstone

I first went to school when I was four years old. I’ve been told that I cried to go with my sister, and the teacher told my parents to let me come along. My claim to fame at the time was that I could recite the alphabet frontward and backwards.

From 1949 to 1957, I attended a two-room United Church school on Fourth Avenue in Windsor (now Grand Falls-Windsor). Having cocoa malt served during recess on the old iron stove at the back of the room was a special delight; the cod liver oil passed out in the blue bottles was not. On the day they were dispensed, 114

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you could see the remnants of the blue bottles smashed and littered all along the way to our homes.

There was one pot-belly stove in each classroom. On cold winter days, the students across from the stove, and by the window, would freeze, and those closest to the stove would swelter. “Please, sir, may I put my 1-888-588-6353

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jacket on/take my jacket off?” was a familiar question during those days.

When the fire got going, the pot belly would turn red. The teacher was responsible for “banking down” the fire during the day, and I can still hear the scraping of the coal shovel as it was pushed down to the bottom of the bucket to get the final chunks of coal. Once empty, an older student would be sent to the storage room to bring back a bucket full. This went on all day!

Students from Kindergarten to Grade 3 were housed in one room, while Grade 4 to high school students were in the “big room.” Morning prayers were read from a special book and there was one for each day.

“New every morning is the love, our waking and up-rising prove. Through sleep and darkness safely brought, restore to life and power and thought.” One never forgets!

I remember the day the Queen was crowned – June 2, 1953. I still have the picture of our parade group outside the school (opening photo). I carried the flag, the Union Jack, at the front of the parade. The Queen (played by Louise Braye) rode in her carriage up front. I still have the copper token given out that day. The inscription on it reads: “Elizabeth II Regina Coronata MCMLIII.” Students were introduced to poems, literature, history and other subjects because they listened to the lessons of all the other grades. You had no trouble to remember poetry because it was read so many times, and what imagery was created: “There’s a schooner in the offing and her mainsail set with fire, and my heart has gone aboard her for the islands of desire.”

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Basic arithmetic and the times tables were recited over and over. If you attended school each day you had to get the learning through repetition.

There were two toilets in the back of the school, across from the storage room. The smell of the lime and lye mixed in with those indoor outhouses odours will never leave my memory. And remember the green dust bane that was sprinkled over the floor in the evening by the cleaning staff? You just became immune to

On cold winter days, the students across from the stove, and by the window, would freeze, and those closest to the stove would swelter. these smells after a while. That was like the odour from the clothes you wore. In each household at least one person smoked, and during the winter there would be no place for the smoke to go except into the walls and the clothes of everyone there. Second-hand smoke was present, daily, to all of us kids. You never gave it any more thought than that. I remember my father smoking cigarettes on a cold, sunny winter’s day, and the smoke filling the rays of sunlight from the windows. It was filling our lungs as well. I never smoked, even though just about everyone else did and it was the cool thing to do that July 2021

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I remember the day the Queen was crowned – June 2, 1953. I still have the picture of our parade group outside the school. I carried the flag, the Union Jack, at the front of the parade. The Queen (played by Louise Braye) rode in her carriage just in front.

you saw adults doing, and it was being emulated in the movies. I hated the smoke and was not about to ruin my lungs. I was a runner from my early days and later became a varsity runner at Memorial University, winning the occasional ribbon for my beloved Faculty of Education.

Perhaps the lack of smoking helped me be faster.

I loved the movies and spent every minute I could at the Vogue Theatre or the Windsor Theatre (better known as Father Meaney’s because it was run by the RC parish). Taking in the movies was where I picked up a lot of my education of the world, from Casablanca to Three Coins in a Fountain, to the outlaw Jesse James. As a kid I became a Roy Rogers or a Gene Autry, rounding up outlaws all day. I always had a good imagination and I reenacted the movies over and over in my dreams, falling in love with every starlet I saw.

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In the United Church two-room school in Windsor, there were basically two types of students. There were those who attended school daily, did the work faithfully and got promoted all the way along. Then there was the other group who, for whatever reasons (and there were many), dropped out along the way.

From the UC school there came seven who went on to get masters degrees and three who earned doctorates. I ended up with four degrees, including a masters.

The early education that I got at the two-room school put me in good stead to learn on my own because you had to if you wanted to succeed.

That style of learning helped tremendously when I got to Memorial University in 1962.

When I finished my degrees I had quite a career teaching and ended up as a consultant to post-secondary education in St. John’s. I retired in 2000.

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reminiscing

A SOLDIER’S LEGACY

How a St. John’s street honours the public service of Captain Philip Jensen

BY DOUG WELLS

PHILIP JAMES JENSEN was born January 18, 1888, the son

of Isaac and Frederica Jensen of Harbour Breton, NL. He would grow up to fight and almost die on the battlefields of Europe. After returning home, he turned his passion towards the fight against tuberculosis.

Top image: Patients in a tubercuosis ward on Jensen Camp Road.

Courtesy of The Rooms, Provincial Archives Division (E 25-36), St. John's, NL.

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Philip joined the First World War in Valcartier, Quebec, on September 23, 1914, at the age of 26. His medical examination considered him fit for the Canadian Overseas Expeditionary Forces on August 29, 1914.

He was part of the Royal Highlanders of Canada (Black Watch), 13th Battalion Canadian Expeditionary Forces. Philip was 6’3” and 150 lbs, with dark brown hair, blue eyes and a “ruddy” complexion.

Tuberculosis patients on the deck of Jensen Camp.

Photo courtesy of Newfoundland and Labrador Collection, Provincial Resource Library, A.C. Hunter Library, St. John's, NL.

Philip did further training at Salisbury Plain in England. In February 1915, he was en route to the Western Front and soon took part in one of the deadliest battles of the war, the Second Battle of Ypres. Jensen’s close friend, John Hollands, fought with him and died on the second day of battle. Philip said, “I have lost my best chum.” Philip wrote letters to his brothers (Arthur and Frank) telling about the horrors of the battle. In one he describes the early days 118

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of battle: “Just imagine, great shells tearing up the ground, killing men; besides this there were so many more buried, with only the boots, or some part of them, sticking out of the ground; the stench was unbearable… I went with a party to bring in wounded, and to carry water, and next morning we had dug ourselves in, after having been fighting four days, with no food and no water till then.”

Philip was seriously wounded on April 26, 1915. He’d received six shrapnel wounds to his back from trench warfare at Ypres and was experiencing paralysis in his right arm.

Philip wrote, “I felt I was dying… Then there came another shell and buried me right in.” Stretcher bearers found him alive at No Man’s Land, and he was sent by train to Boulogne. He was soon transferred to the 2nd Southern General Hospital in Bristol, England, where he wrote the letter to his brothers on May 1, 1915. Philip, now part of the 17th Battalion, was transferred from hospital to hospital in England for treatment of his wounds and his suffering from gassing. After six months in hospital, the Medical Board recommended a four-month period of recovery for Philip and considered him unfit for further combat duty. He was sent home to Canada “to be dealt with by the Militia Authorities there.”

On February 29, 1916, he was discharged at Quebec as medically unfit for overseas service. His conduct and service was “good” and he was awarded the 1914-15 Star, British 1-888-588-6353

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War and Victory medals.

After his discharge Philip returned to St. John’s, NL, and continued with recruiting efforts. He was eventually promoted to the rank of captain and, for a short period, served as aide-decamp to Governor Davidson. Philip’s volunteer efforts towards the establishment of Jensen Camp – a hospital treating soldiers with tuberculous – and raising funds for the Red Cross greatly enhanced the war effort and conditions of wounded soldiers. Philip gave public lectures in various communities around the island, often accompanied by his sister Laura, on his experiences at the Front, the Battle of Ypres, and hospital life in France and England. Lecture halls in St. John’s were filled to capacity when Philip spoke. A close friend of Philip’s said, “When he went to Grand Falls, the people lifted him up on their shoulders.” In six months of lecturing, he was credited with raising more than $5,000.

Adeline Browning was instrumental in getting the tuberculosis treatment project underway and, with Philip’s help, the facility for returning soldiers became a reality in 1916.

It was named Jensen Camp, in honour of Philip’s efforts to help get it built. The new 17-bed hospital was located at what is now the east side of the intersection of Jensen Camp Road and Blackmarsh Road in the west end of St. John’s.

A commemorative plaque hangs on the wall at the Royal Canadian Legion, Branch #1, on Blackmarsh Road, recognizing the efforts of 1-888-588-6353

A plaque honouring Pte. Jensen hangs at a Royal Canadian Legion in St. John’s Philip Jensen. The inscription reads: “This plaque has been placed by the Newfoundland and Labrador Lung Association to honour Pte. Philip Jensen (1888-1956), Royal Canadian Highlanders, of Harbour Breton. Pte. Jensen’s efforts in 1916, combined with the encouragement and guidance of Adeline Elizabeth Browning, C.B.E., were instrumental in raising sufficient funds to construct and furnish a camp to accommodate returning veterans of World War I who suffered from tuberculosis. The camp, which was located near this site, was named in his honour and known as Jensen Camp. Unveiled by the Honourable Frederick W. Russell, C.M., KSt.J., LL.D., Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Newfoundland, on November 11, 1994.”

Philip Jensen is said to be the first Newfoundlander to serve in the Great War, as he had joined before the Newfoundland Regiment was formed. He went on to study theology and became the Rector of St. Thomas’ Episcopal Church in Garrison Forest, Maryland, USA, for more than 33 years. Philip died in 1956.

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reminiscing visions & vignettes

Gnat, do you mind…

Whales?

By Harold N. Walters

Harry was reading the Classics Illustrated version of Moby Dick on the day the pilot whales came to Brookwater. He was sitting in the shade of a pile of split firewood (firewood he was supposed to be stacking in the woodhouse) when Gnat swung open the garden gate, bawling out halfway to the top of his lungs.

“There’s a bunch of potheads down in the cove!”

“Pod of potheads,” said Harry, correcting Gnat with the proper collective noun he’d likely read in Moby Dick.

“Chuck down that comic and come down on the beach,” said Gnat, turning and dashing away.

Harry secured his comic with a junk of wood and chased Gnat. Pausing at the top of the Scrapes, the boys observed ten or a dozen pilot whales frolicking in the deep water outside Neddy’s Sandbar. Snouts broke the surface. Blowholes spouted geysers 120

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of briny spray. Flukes slapped the water like beaver tails.

Down on the government wharf, Wince Cody hauled his speedboat close to the pilings. Harry and Gnat skidded down the Scrapes and joined Wince.

“You going out there?” Harry asked, jitting his chin at the turbulence the whales created.

Wince yanked on the outboard motor’s pull chord, coaxing it to life.

“I’m going to try and chase them off, so they don’t accidentally swim in through the Bottleneck and get stuck in the lagoon. Want to come?”

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Nimble as wharf rats, Harry and Gnat scurried aboard Wince’s boat.

Minutes later, Wince neared the whales, steering his boat between the pod and the Bottleneck. He shuttled back and forth, gradually herding the whales away from the narrow notch on the eastern side of the Big Head.

“That’s that,” said Wince when the whales veered and swam out of the cove.

As Wince throttled down and steamed back to the wharf, Harry stood in the bow and pictured a page in his comic: peglegged Captain Ahab standing in the bow of a dory, harpoon hoisted, ready to hurl it at the Great White Whale.

Next day, the whales cruised Brookwater cove as if they’d forgotten Wince Cody’s speedboat. Harry and Gnat stood among a crowd of youngsters on the wharf. They watched what seemed like whale playtime but was probably serious feeding on something tasty – capelin maybe – in the Arm. “Wince Cody said they might swim through the Bottleneck and get stuck in the lagoon,” said Gnat.

As if to fulfill Wince’s prophecy, the pod swerved toward the cut in the cliff that formed a narrow gut leading into what was more of a small, pinched-off fjord than an actual lagoon. Six or eight dorsal fins steered straight for the Bottleneck, but before they reached the gut, Wince Cody’s speedboat, whining like a manic bandsaw, zipped across their bow and herded the whales away for another day.

When Harry and Gnat arrived at the wharf on the third morning, the potheads were still in the cove. Most of the pod churned the saltwater 1-888-588-6353

outside the Bottleneck. Repeatedly, they swam past the opening, turned and doubled back.

What Wince Cody feared had indeed happened. Overnight, one of the whales, probably surfing the swell of the rising tide, had sluiced through the Bottleneck and trapped itself in the lagoon. The Bottleneck’s slanted channel bottom made it nearly impossible for the whale to fight its way out of the lagoon.

Visible in the clear, calm water, the whale circled the lagoon, butting against its sheer walls like a blue-arsed fly bumping against a church windowpane.

“There’s one in the lagoon,” said Harry, stating the obvious.

“Let’s go then,” said Gnat.

Slick as billy goats, me laddioes scravelled back up the Scrapes and followed a sheep’s path (okay, it could have been a goat’s path) through the tuckamore trimming the cliff’s brow like a straggly haircut.

Five minutes of scrambling on the path brought Harry and Gnat to an outcrop from which they could look down into the lagoon.

“There he is,” said Harry, pointing.

“Trapped for sure,” said Gnat.

Visible in the clear, calm water, the whale circled the lagoon, butting against its sheer walls like a bluearsed fly bumping against a church windowpane.

“He might get out when the tide rises again,” said Harry.

“If he’s lucky,” said Gnat.

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For half an hour the boys sat on the rimrock, their legs dangling. They watched the whale swim round and round, following the sides of the lagoon but failing to breach the Bottleneck. The inquisitive sun lingered with them.

While studying the whale, Harry remembered the comic he’d been reading the other day – Moby Dick, still under a junk of firewood as far as Harry knew. He nudged Gnat. “I got an idea.”

Round and round the lagoon Uncle Sim’s green punt pursued the beleaguered whale…

Gnat raised an eyebrow. “I ’low.”

“We’ll need Uncle Sim’s green punt,” said Harry, already up and running.

After Harry untied Uncle Sim’s green punt from its mooring, Gnat sculled it alongshore towards the Bottleneck. Harry stood in the bow, a six-foot gaff lodged across the prow, a weapon not unlike Ahab’s harpoon, except instead of a barbed tip it had a blunt hook.

Abreast of the Bottleneck, Gnat held Uncle Sim’s green punt in place, biding his time, waiting to ride the perfect wave through the Bottleneck’s throat into the lagoon.

“There he is!” Harry hefted the gaff and pointed at the pothead. A gleam akin to Ahab’s manic glare glistened in his eyes.

“I sees en.” Gnat sculled Uncle Sim’s green punt towards the ripples formed by the whale’s dorsal fin.

The whale continued to chafe the sides of the lagoon, seeking the open122

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ing to freedom. However, it failed to scale the inclined bottom and swim out to join the pod.

Harry, legs spraddled, struggled to balance the gaff in a throwing position. “Chase en. He can’t get out.” In his excitement, Harry dropped the gaff overboard. He barely managed to grab its stumpy end before it floated beyond reach.

“Bugger!” he cursed.

Panting like a pup, Gnat cranked the sculling oar, working to keep pace with the whale. Three times Uncle Sim’s green punt hounded the whale around the lagoon. Each time Harry teetered in the bow, clumsily holding the gaff, but always failing to heave it at the whale.

“I got to take a spell,” said Gnat, slumping on the aft thwart and letting the sculling oar drag.

“Don’t stop! Get up!” Harry insisted. “We’ll get en next time.” Harry squat down to check that the heavy bank line tied to the gaff was still securely knotted to a forward riser.

Gnat scrubbed his brow with his cap, stood up, grabbed the sculling oar and stirred up a foamy wake, an imitation of Wince Cody’s outboard motor in action.

Round and round the lagoon Uncle Sim’s green punt pursued the beleaguered whale – prey and predator tiring more with each circumnavigation. Around in circles they went until the flowing tide reached its peak, rested momentarily, and then – moon-drawn – commenced to ebb seaward. Water sucking from the lagoon gurgled out through the Bottleneck like water down a drain.

Sensing opportunity at hand, the whale pointed its blunt head at the Bottleneck’s spout.

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Sensing opportunity about to be lost, Harry, his cap hauled down tight like a crazy whaling captain’s, staggered under the weight of the gaff as Gnat brought Uncle Sim’s green punt broadside to the whale’s starboard.

Harry hove his makeshift harpoon... and missed his target.

But not entirely.

Just as the whale’s flukes broke water, the gaff wobbled through the air, crossed over the flukes, and flopped into the water beyond. The rope streeling behind the gaff fell across the whale’s tail and, somehow, got entangled.

Harry, more Jack the Sailor now than Captain Ahab, had caught a whale all by the tail. He didn’t, however, turn the whale inside out. The whale – half again the length of Uncle Sim’s green punt – sounded and almost dragged the stem of Uncle Sim’s green punt underwater.

The whale torpedoed toward the Bottleneck and Uncle Sim’s green punt picked up speed. The boys – 1-888-588-6353

inept, terrified devilskins – clung to the gunnels for dear life.

The whale shot up the slope of the Bottleneck riding the ebbing tide and, towing its tag-along tormentor, burst out of the lagoon’s narrow gap, joined its anxiously awaiting pod and set a course for open water. Uncle Sim’s green punt, nose down and foaming, raced behind.

Harry clambered aft to join Gnat.

Together, they clung to the elevated stern like doomed passengers on the Titanic’s poop deck.

Mind that whale hunt, Gnat? Luckily for the whalers, half a league west of Gooseberry Island the gaff’s rope snapped. Uncle Sim’s green punt bobbed like a buoy until Wince Cody’s speedboat arrived and towed it back to Brookwater.

Harold Walters lives in Dunville, Newfoundland, doing his damnedest to live Happily Ever After.

Reach him at ghwalters663@gmail.com

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OVER $20s in saving ! by joining

Now more than ever a Downhome membership is a great value. Not only do you save over $20 off the cover price, you receive: 1 Year (12 issues) OF DOWNHOME

Free WALL CALENDAR Free EXPLORE TRAVEL GUIDE 2 Issues INSIDE LABRADOR †

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Delivered with December’s issue. ††Delivered with June’s issue. Canadian mailing only. ††† Delivered with a spring and fall issue. *Plus applicable taxes

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Sign me up for a Downhome membership Name:____________________________________________________________________________ Address:__________________________________________________________________________ City:__________________________________________ Prov/State: ____ Country: _______________ Postal Code: ____________________

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* Valid in Canada on a 1-year term. Total inc. taxes, postage and handling: for residents in NL, NS, NB, PE $45.99; ON $45.19; QC, SK, MB, AB, BC, NU, NT, YT $41.99. US/International $49.99. ** Valid in Canada on a 3-year term. Total inc. taxes, postage and handling: for residents in NL, NS, NB, PE $114.99; ON $112.99; QC, SK, MB, AB, BC, NU, NT, YT $104.99; US/International $140.99.

Send to Downhome, 43 James Lane, St. John’s, NL, A1E 3H3 or call 1-888-588-6353

ORDER ONLINE TODAY! www.joindownhome.com

2107_Puzzles_1701-puzzles 5/26/21 12:41 PM Page 126

puzzles The Beaten Path

Marion M. Fagan photo

By Ron Young

Block out all the letters that are like other letters in every way, including shape and size. The letters that are left over, when unscrambled, will spell out the name of the above community.

M M K

E

S

S

T

m

J L R

H

T p n

H V

U

x

Q

S

E

M

T

K S

M

M

T

L

Q

R

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m

H

H

m

N

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J K

T

p

N

n

E

T R

T

S

H

Q

V L

S

x

m

Q

S

x

I S

p S

S

S

S

M

x

J

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L C

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n

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M

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R H K V

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H

Last Month’s Community: Lodge Bay 126

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2107_Puzzles_1701-puzzles 5/25/21 2:53 PM Page 127

Sudoku

from websudoku.com

Skill level: Medium Last month’s answers

?

Need Help

Visit DownhomeLife.com/puzzles for step-by-step logic for solving this puzzle

www.downhomelife.com

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Theresa Earle photo

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Downhomer Detective Needs You After more than two decades on the Urban City Police Force, Downhomer Detective has come home to rid Newfoundland and Labrador of a new threat – cunning thief Ragged Rick. A real braggart, the slimy criminal sends DD a blurry photo of his surroundings plus clues to his whereabouts just to prove he’s always a step ahead. DD needs your help to identify where in Newfoundland and Labrador Ragged Rick is hiding out this month.

Use these 5 clues to identify where Ragged Rick is now: • Name is derived from Old English for “holy cross” • Once home to Golden Eagle Refinery • Associated with a power generating station • Home of Terra Nova Yacht Club • Host of the annual SquidFest

Last Month’s Answer: St. Lawrence

Picturesque Place NameS of Newfoundland and Labrador

by Mel D’Souza Last Month’s Answer: Cuslett 128

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In Other Words Guess the well-known expression written here in other words.

Last Month’s Clue: Your estimation is as worthy as mine own In Other Words: Your guess is as good as mine This Month’s Clue: Cease pummelling all sides of the shrub In Other Words: _____ _______ ______ ___ ____

A Way With Words OUT st JUNE 1

Last Month’s Answer: Out on a date

This Month’s Clue

Rhyme Time A rhyming word game by Ron Young

1. A happy NL mosquito is a _______ ______ 2. Counterfeit $20 bills are _____ _____

B E R MUDA

3. A disinterested nobleman is a _____ ____

Answer: _______ ________

1. swim on a whim, 2. travel over gravel, 3. finer diner

Scrambled Sayings

Last Month’s Answers

by Ron Young

Place each of the letters in the rectangular box below into one of the white square boxes above them to discover a quotation. Incomplete words that begin on the right side of the diagram continue one line down on the left. The letters may or may not go in the box in the same order that they are in the column. Once a letter is used, cross it off and do not use it again.

’ C E I U

’

’

H D L D D E A G E E A F A A E A N D A P F E D N I O I R H E T H E U L H C M E S E E R H E I N S L T H N H O Y O T H V U T H T N R P W T Y U T U T

Last month’s answer: The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. www.downhomelife.com

July 2021

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Rhymes 5 Times Each answer rhymes with the other four

1. melon 2. gazelle 3. drugs 4. optimism 5. manage

____________ ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________

STUCK? Don’t get your knickers in a knot!

Puzzle answers can be found online at DownhomeLife.com/puzzles

Last Month’s Answers: 1. away, 2. disarray, 3. tray, 4. stray, 5. pray

Tangled Towns

by Lolene Young Condon and Ron Young

Sound out the groups of words below to get a familiar expression.

For best results sound the clue words out loud!

Haste Robber Heap Hatch _ __________ _____ Sod Amen Gum Aura _____ ___ ________ Last Month’s 1st Clue: Shim Hairy Dent Whom Honey Answer: She married into money Last Month’s 2nd Clue: Thy Felt Hour Answer: The Eiffel Tower

Unscramble each of the five groups of letters below to get 5 Newfoundland and Labrador place names.

1. SLEEVENTHLIP 2. ESLON NODP 3. TISTAM NOIPT 4. BOACHAIRS ROBOK 5. CLAKB CKUD DIINGS Last Month’s Answers: 1. English Harbour East, 2. Bay de l’Eau, 3. Grand Le Pierre, 4. Jacques Fontaine, 5. Terrenceville

A nalogical A nagrams Unscramble the capitalized words to get one word that matches the subtle clue.

1. PERT CRANE ~ Clue: the first to say “nailed it” 2. CHAR LOBE ~ Clue: he has a single purpose in life 3. TRAIN MUSIC ~ Clue: she’s good with other people’s hands 4. JAIL SUN SORT ~ Clue: they’re always making the news 5. REGIME LOST TOO ~ Clue: she never gets sick of the weather Last Month’s Answers: 1. parachute, 2. seamstress, 3. submarine, 4. forgetfulness, 5. explanation 130

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Four-Way Crossword F o re Wo rd s • B a c k Wo rd s • U p Wo rd s • D o w n Wo rd s

By Ron Young

Unlike regular crosswords, in Four-Way Crossword each letter is not necessarily related to the letter in the adjacent row or column, but is part of one or more words in some direction.

1-4: footwear 1-10: cobblers 1-91: independent 5-8: create 10-40: stellar 10-100: hunger 14-16: guided 16-11: erase 17-20: playactors 18-58: repent 21-25: fruit 22-25: apiece 24-28: swindle 24-44: taxi 25-28: warmth 28-48: weight measure 31-34: Far East 36-56: Mr. Linkletter 37-7: spine 37-35: club 37-39: snake 37-40: hog 41-1: sexual assaults 44-41: bruin 46-44: poke fun 47-43: clan 48-78: florescent 50-47: air shaft 50-70: big tub 51-54: capable 53-33: wreath 53-56: loaned 59-19: learns 59-79: decompose 60-57: space 61-64: look after 61-70: greenhorn 64-4: fiasco 64-94: deceased 65-95: boundary www.downhomelife.com

1

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67-7: salt pork 67-47: obese 67-64: Flintstone 67-70: base 67-97: brimming 70-68: also 75-72: owing 75-79: scare away 76-79: mother’s sister 80-100: charged particle 81-61: recline 81-83: weep 85-83: chat 87-85: limb 89-86: longest river 89-87: zero

91-96: bid 91-100: steak 96-66: posterior 96-94: colour Last Month’s Answer

O B L I T E R A T E

CCU UMP E A S TOO ARN KO P EOR ND I AO F S CA

P E E K I N G N U R

A T I NOD A T A CUR S HE S AN AN I E D P L LO PME July 2021

O E H T N A Z I T N

N O I S I V E L E T

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The Bayman’s

Crossword Puzzle 1

2

3

by Ron Young

4

5

6

7 8 9

10

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ACROSS 1. lock’s mate 4. Irish Republican Army (abbrev) 5. unwell 7. pool stick 8. kilonewton (abbrev) 9. fisher on the Grand Banks (colloq) 17. Great Big ___ 18. Hibernia product 19. Arnold’s Cove (abbrev) 20. Marine Atlantic terminal site 23. Newfoundland (abbrev) 25. penny 26. fuss 28. emotional 30. former Gander area newspaper 33. __ Poile 34. Sop’s Arm (abbrev.)

35. Sir Robert ____ 36. fibbing 37. Rink Road (abbrev) 38. hit (colloq) 39. Indian River (abbrev) 41. acclaimed NL restauranteur Jeremy _____ 42. recedes like the tide 45. “My hair __ like a birch broom in the fits!”

47. Amy Louise Peyton’s book on the Beothuk (2 wds) 48. sou’wester

12. burlap sack (colloq, 2 words) 13. __ Man’s Land 14. Adam’s apple (colloq, 2 words) 15. Santa’s helper 16. Victoria Cross (abbrev) 17. commercial salmon fisherman 19. contribute 21. Trinity East (abbrev) 22. “I might have been born in the woods, but I never ___ the boughs?

24. beach (colloq, 2 words) 27. rural village in NL (colloq) 29. “It’s a good ___ on clothes” 31. overseas 32. “How’s ye gettin’ __?”

34. slow mover 40. baseball stat 43. Blessed Virgin (abbrev) 44. opposite of NW 46. “He’s __ skinny you can see the sins on his soul”

ANSWERS TO LAST MONTH’S CROSSWORD

DOWN 1. homemade anchor (colloq) 2. emergency dept (abbrev) 3. armful (colloq) 6. rail pole (colloq) 10. unkempt person (colloq, 2 words) 11. Shanawdithit to her captors www.downhomelife.com

July 2021

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DIAL-A-SMILE © 2021 Ron Young

Pick the right letters from the old style phone to match the numbers grouped below and uncover a quote which will bring a smile to your face. ____ 8463

__ 47

_ 2

__ _ __ __ 83 2 24 37

_ __ __ 4 73 28 ___ 288

’

_ _ _ ___ _ __ _ _ __ 8 6 3 678 8 62 8 3 59 _____ 54557

___ 255

___ 487

__ 48

__ _ __ _ 78 7 45 7

Last Month’s Answer: I’m not arguing, I’m just telling you why you’re wrong.

©2021 Ron Young

CRACK THE CODE n

Each symbol represents a letter of the alphabet, for instance =S Try to guess the smaller, more obvious words to come up with the letters for the longer ones. The code changes each month.

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ 3 KX Z a 3k

_ _ _

K3r

b rr H

nK

_ S 7

nX AK 3k

n

_ _ _

bK

A

n

S _

_ _ _ _

S _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ L7 H H

_ _ _ _ S

Q7 A r

_ 7

_ _ _ _ Z r Hz

Last Month’s Answer: Be gentle to all others and stern with yourself.

134

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Food For Thought

© 2021 Ron Young

Each food symbol represents a letter of the alphabet. Find the meanings to the words then match the letters with the food symbols below to get a little “food for thought.”

regret =

tutors = _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Kz ` [ z Y

_ _ _

Y]z

desire =

grasps =

b

brutal =

_ _ _ _

grew crops =

_ _ _ _ _

b } i km

_ _ _

_

v`o

_ _

_ _ _

c b}

_ _ _ _ _

K} _ _

c`

mKz

_

_ _ _

}v Kt vz

_ _ _

}oz _ _ _

b`m

_ _

}v

v`Yv z k

_ _ _ _ _

kt m[}az Yzk

a` i]z

_ _ _ _ _ _

k` Y z m

_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _

_ _ _ _ _ _ _

at[t}]m

c `oK

`

m

_ _ _ _

b }]Y _ _ _

o}K _ _ _

Kb z

_ _ _ _

itvz

Last Month’s Answer: Memories of our lives, of our works and our deeds will continue in others. www.downhomelife.com

July 2021

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Different Strokes

Our artist’s pen made the two seemingly identical pictures below different in 12 places. See if you can find all 12.

ERN AND COAL BIN AT THE AVIATION MUSEUM IN GANDER

Last Month’s Answers: 1. Bench vice, 2. Headlamp, 3. License plate, 4. Hood, 5. Calendar, 6. Steering wheel, 7. Garage door, 8. Propane torch, 9. Rear wheel, 10. Spare wheel, 11. Window, 12. Roof “Differences by the Dozen”- A compilation of Different Strokes from 2002 to 2014 (autographed by Mel) can be ordered by sending $9.95 (postage incl.; $13.98 for U.S. mailing) to Mel D’Souza, 21 Brentwood Dr., Brampton, ON, L6T 1P8.

136

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HIDE & SEEK CAMPING

The words can be across, up, down, backward or at an angle, but always in a line.

BEARS CAMPER CAMPSITE CANOE COOKHOUSE COOLER FIREPIT FIREWOOD FLASHLIGHT HAMMOCK KINDLING LANTERN MARSHMALLOWS OUTDOORS OUTHOUSE

S J F I V V I D N H M I X P U D R K

K G T G Y U P L R O A B Q K L R H G

K S H E L T E R A J U M J H Y U I Y

T V K J C B K G R Z H T M I L P X W

A E X Z U P N E I V O I H O I B I K

T A G V U A L J G C K C O O C Y T E

T N E T R I O N Y S S Y Z O U K I C

www.downhomelife.com

SINGALONG SPOTLIGHT TENT TRAILER WOODS

PERMIT PICNIC PROPANE RESERVATION SHELTER F J W F N Z P T W B G L B B E J O F

Last Month’s Answers

R X X N A S O T C W R H M Q Q S P O

N H V R C L T P A O O U F L U R E C

V F T S A V H U M L O L N G O A R Q

A U I G F B G X P L D K E E F E I H

M T N R J O I D S A T S H U C B F I

O I N U E U L W I M U T I O U P Q A

N E E R G Z R L C R D Z I D M N L T

H X O E X H O R S E N I P R C E B E

S K L Z U W T K T H O A L O U L X E

F U W Q H N S F M F N H L M L M O Y

M U E H C A R B O N E A R D U E K D

C A N O E T O J E S S K X W O S L S

N L H B I P Y Y F F T G F Z O R I D

U E J J H R D U S F F I Y L M A T P

E J G B N I P O F R Z B W U P S E A

W D W J P D N H G I E K T F G S Q U

B R C F Y K I L L I N I Q O K H A F

R N W O O D S Z D A K I N D L I N G

T L Y Z O U D Y J W B F V G Q E S F

C A A A X S R P Z M D E I O P M E I

J X W D B U E W X J B K S O R E U I

B C X O G J N U M A H D A W R N T N

C O P P S X N R E T N A L S I F S K

H T J W W Q I D S Z B D K M I A C S

V E N I S O N R L E S Q M V C S Q I

A O O C O K Q Y W R L F F V C J W Y

T V N I W B A C C A L I E U E U P S

I O D G R M S A X N N F B G A U G Y

M Q U L I R J V I A M P U T N O V H

N N Q Y E E I O R P Q D N R A Q N L

S J J A A R D R M E I A E H U N O L

P C G K E G P K S W M I P T I B U A

G R E Y E U L O E R H Z A I Q M L E

B Q S Y D Z L A P C E W R X L R C K

E R E S E R V A T I O N T W C H R Z

V Z D Z D Q E S L E K P O P H O Z R

A X M O O H B L A E O N M R E U T C

R T H G I L H S A L F R K Q F J C W

July 2021

U C D Q C W G Y M N R N G R A N B Y

Z W E T T E N U R B R A N D O M R W

D I P J A B Q U D E T T O P S C B R

L W J F G X H O C G C U L Q S B P E 137

2107Mktplace_0609 Marketplace.qxd 5/27/21 4:12 PM Page 138

BUSINESS FOR SALE GROS MORNE

NATIONAL COTTAGES & MOTEL

Licensed to do Business in Ontario.

Business consists of 17 units.

More photos upon request.

Mortgage Agent # M18002662 FSCO# 12728

Serious Inquires Only

info@baysidegrosmorne.com %$#"! $% $# $ %! $

Building For Sale 5 Main Street, Deer Lake

4800 Sq. Ft. on Two Levels. Built in 1989.

Zoned Commercial and Residential.

Business Optional. $150,000

Call: 709-636-1230

Not intended to solicit properties currently under contract

Cottage For Sale King’s Point All seasons, custom design log cottage sheltered setting at top of bay. 2 bedrooms,1 bathroom, wheelchair accessible. $249,000 www.propertyguys.com/listing/nl/king-s-point/104494 Contact: 709.632.7194 | 709.640.0070

FOR SALE • GEORGE’S LAKE, NL

Fully Furnished, 9 bedroom and 9 bathroom (4 are Ensuites). Year-round access country living. Includes 3 garages, wharf, direct access to groomed trails, fishing, boating and hunting. Call 709-649-7322 138

July 2021

FOXTRAP ACC

1.35 ACRE

ESS ROAD

FOR SALE

Foxtrap Access Rd, Civic #28 Conception Bay South, NL Level Land. Mature Trees.

5 min. from three saltwater marinas and shopping.

15 min. from St. John’s and Mount Pearl. Asking: $239,000 Contact Paul: 709-682-9142 paulbdawe@hotmail.com

$575,000 Property Guys #94738

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2107Mktplace_0609 Marketplace.qxd 5/27/21 4:12 PM Page 139

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July 2021

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CHRISTMAS IN JULY

The Mists of Morne: An Owens Odyssey - Justin B. Hodder

#80111| $19.95

My Indian

East Coast Counting -

#80112 | $16.95

#80106 | $14.95

- Chief Mi'sel Joe and Sheila O'Neill

Dawn Baker

Sale!

The Land Puffin - Lori Doody

#80113 | $12.95

Christmas in Newfoundland:

A Sgt. Windflower Book - Mike Martin

#77993 | $16.95

A Newfoundland and Labrador Christmas Wish

A Puffin Playing

By The Sea

#79611 | $16.95 $6.00

#53792 | $16.95

The House of Wooden Santas:

Rock Recipes Christmas:

- Kevin Major

Your Complete Guide To A Delicious Holiday Season - Barry C. Parsons

- Necie

#3945 | $24.95

- Gina Noordhof

#60474 | $22.95

Prices listed do not include tax and shipping

2107_MailOrder_Mail order.qxd 5/27/21 2:43 PM Page 141

MORE SELECTION ONLINE www.shopdownhome.com

CHRISTMAS IN JULY Mummers on Signal Hill Gift Bags Small #79612 $1.00 Medium #79613 $1.50 Large #79614 $1.80

NL Saying Light Up Christmas Ornamnet #79532 | $5.99

Metal NL Map with Heart Ornament #76216 | $8.99

Mummering in Dildo Mug #79615 | $7.99

Metal NL Map Home Ornament #79609 | $8.99

TO ORDER CALL: 1-888-588-6353

Mummers on Signal Hill Mug #79618 | $7.99

Musical Instruments Ornaments - 4 pack #65026 | $9.99

2107_MailOrder_Mail order.qxd 5/27/21 4:57 PM Page 142

GREAT GIFT IDEAS!

Mummering in Elliston Cushion Cover #79554 | $10.99

Mummering in Dildo Cushion Cover #79556 | $10.99

Mummers on Signal Hill Cushion Cover #79555 | $10.99

CHRISTMAS IN JULY

Mummering in Elliston Cloth Placemat #79621 | $4.99

Mummering in Dildo Cloth Placemat #79620 | $4.99

Mummers on Signal Hill Cloth Placemat #79619 | $4.99

Mummering in Elliston 8 Piece Coaster and Paper Placemat Set #79537 | $4.99

Mummering in Dildo 8 Piece Coaster and Paper Placemat Set #79539 | $4.99

Mummers on Signal Hill 8 Piece Coaster and Paper Placemat Set #79538 | $4.99

Prices listed do not include tax and shipping

2107_MailOrder_Mail order.qxd 5/25/21 2:57 PM Page 143

MORE SELECTION ONLINE www.shopdownhome.com

NL Tartan Kids’ Kilt

NL Tartan Infant Onesie

Sizes 2,4,6

Sizes 3-6 mo, 6-12 mo, 12-18 mo

#58513 | $28.99

NL Coin Kids’ T-Shirt - Mauve Sizes 2,4,6,8

#79280 | $13.99

Experimenting with Seaweed Adult T-Shirt Sizes S-2XL

#76530 | $19.99

#79403 | $23.99

NL Coin Kids’ T-Shirt - Blue Sizes 2,4,6,8

#79275 | $13.99

NL Letter Map Adult T-Shirt Sizes S-2XL

#58803 | $19.99

TO ORDER CALL: 1-888-588-6353

One Moose, Two Moose Kids’ T-Shirt Sizes 2,4,6

#61382 | $16.99

Earthquake Moose Youth T-Shirt Sizes S-L

#79036 | $15.99

Pot Head Adult T-Shirt Sizes S-3XL

#62428 | $19.99

2107_photo Finish_0609 Photo Finish 5/26/21 2:00 PM Page 144

photo finish

One

for the

Basket

His buddy caught the fish, but Wayne Stacey bagged this amazing photo. This was taken along Bald Mountain Road, off the Trans-Canada Highway in western Newfoundland. “Just one after the other till his limit,” Wayne writes about this fish his buddy caught. “That was a morning to remember, for sure.

Not a fly that morning and windy.”

Wayne Stacey Channel-Port aux Basques, NL

Do you have an amazing or funny photo to share?

Turn to page 9 to find out how to submit.

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