NewfoundPod - a bite sized podcast about Newfoundland

Hi everyone. Long time no talk. I hope wherever you are, you  are doing well and staying safe. I'm hunkered down here at home, trying  to get used to all of this. The reason I'm back today is to tell  you about an online event you can attend. It is called the St John's  Story Telling Circle. Normally, this story circle, an open mic for  storytellers, is held at a pub. Since that isn't possible now, they are  holding them online via Zoom. Two weeks ago, I attended the first  session and it was so much fun! On total there were 10 storytellers.  Listeners checked in from around Newfoundland Labrador, the rest of  Canada, the United States and even Australia! The administrator was  Kailey, and they welcomed us all and introduced the host, Gary Green. I'll give you Gary's bio from the organizers: GARY  GREEN is a storyteller and author who has performed both inside and  outside the province for a variety of groups ranging from youth camps to  international conferences. Among the groups for which he has performed  are the Gros Morne Fall Fest, Cape St. Mary’s Performance Series, Battle  Harbour Historic Trust, Canadian National Storytelling Conference,  Admiralty House Museum, Labrador Creative Arts Festival, St. John’s Folk  Festival and Trails, Tales and Tunes. Gary has performed on television  as part of the series “Legends and Lore of the North Atlantic” and on  several radio stations. He has performed in the international award  winning productions “Inside Outside Battery” and “Foghorns and  Heartbreak”. Gary has been a consultant for the use of storytelling in  the interpretation of the Battle Harbour National Historic Site, the  Point Amour Lighthouse Provincial Historic Site and is very active in  developing and delivering a story-based interpretation of The Crow’s  Nest Officers’ Club National Historic Site. He has been a board member  of the St. John’s Storytelling Festival, and a founding board member of  the Soundbone Traditional Arts Foundation. Gary teaches storytelling at  the annual Vinland Music Camp. The other storytellers were Alex Mason, Harry Ingram, Gaurav Madan, Jeanene Walsh, Christie Keegan, Karen Carroll, Ken Parsons, Dave Paddon, and Sage Tyrtle. There  was such an incredible and unique collection of stories, there were  costumes, it had everything but the cold beer. Next time I'll be sure to  sip on one to get the total experience. Speaking of next time.  They are holding their next session on May 13th at 8PM NT. Don't be late  as the doors are locked once the show begins.  You can go to their  website at www.storytellingstjohns.ca and sign up for their newsletter, and you will get a link to register  for the next circle. Are you a storyteller yourself? You can let them  know you'd be interested in sharing. If you are new to Zoom, you can  download it for computer or mobile device at Zoom.US. If you get to the  show early, there is a quick Zoom lesson for you. I will be there, and I  hope to see you too! That's it for me this week, I will be back  soon with a regular episode on a historic topic. If you have any  suggestions, email me at newfoundpod@gmail.com Thanks and take care of yourselves, and each other. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

 Today I'm going to talk about Amelia Earhart. Here in Newfoundland, we love when we can make a connection to a famous person or event. We have a couple of connections to aviation pioneer and one of my personal heroes, Amelia Earhart.      More episodes, transcripts and show notes at http://NewfoundPod.com Links: https://www.thehenryford.org/collections-and-research/digital-collections/expert-sets/101269/   https://www.downhomelife.com/article.php?id=1947  http://patreon.com/newfoundpod --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

With the weather finally warming up here on the Avalon, I decided to talk to you today about the history of Bowring Park.    More episodes, transcripts and show notes at http://NewfoundPod.com Links: http://www.nfld.com/tourism/bowring/history.htm  http://bowringpark.com Theme music: Club Seamus Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ http://patreon.com/newfoundpod --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

There's some construction going on in downtown St. John's right now, but the store owners want you to know, they are open for business. This got me to thinking about the stores that have been downtown for quite a while, and one of those stores is NONIA. You may know NONIA as just a store  that sells beautiful handmade sweaters, but there's actually a rich history behind it.    More episodes, transcripts and show notes at http://NewfoundPod.com THeme music: Club Seamus Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

 This week, Newfoundlanders go to the polls in another provincial election. If you watch the news, have social media or just talk to people, there's always something going on that makes people angry with whoever is in charge. Sometimes it's justified, sometimes it's not. Back in 1932, people had had enough and a demonstration turned into a riot that threatened the life of the Prime Minister.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Hello and welcome back to Newfoundpod, a bite sized podcast about Newfoundland. I'm your host, Debbie Wiseman and in today's mini episode, I'm going to tell you about Lady Helena Squires.  Helena Squires was born Helena Strong in 1879 in Little Bay Islands. She attended the Methodist College in St. John's, Mount Allison University in New Brunswick, Emerson College and Harvard in Boston. She returned to Newfoundland and married Richard Squires in 1905. They settled in St. John's where Richard set up his law practice. He also spent 23 years in the House of Assembly. Part of his time in the House was spent blocking the efforts of the suffragettes to get women the right to vote. It's kind of surprising, then, that his wife would become the first woman to be elected to the House of Assembly.  In 1929, the MHA for Lewisporte died suddenly, and a by-election was held the following year. Helena ran and won by a landslide, receiving 81% of the votes. She ran on a platform of raising the standard of living in Newfoundland, improving child welfare and public health. As you can imagine, some men were not happy having a woman in the House. I can't imagine it was easy for her. Frederick Alderdice, the opposition leader said "I know she will take a large part in government affairs, but hope her actions will never be such as to cause us to name the government a petticoat government." I'm sure he thought that was hilarious. Lady Squires, known for her wit, just replied, “Ladies are not wearing them now.”  Lady Squires took her position seriously, though, and spoke up for the people she served. In 1932, Richard Squires was the Prime Minister of Newfoundland. The liberal government was losing public support, and this came to a head in April of that year, when a riot broke out, trapping Richard and Helena in Colonial House. They escaped unscathed, but both lost their respective elections a couple of months later. Of all the candidates, she came closest to being re-elected, losing by only 273 votes.  By the way, I will be doing an episode on this riot very soon.  Helena Squires trained to be a teacher and was considered a social activist at the time. She founded a teachers school and a maternity hospital. She also served as the President of the Grace Hospital Auxiliary and was always active in charity work and in the church. When Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949, she became the first president of the provincial Liberal Association, a position that she held until 1958. She passed away in 1959. On a final note, I noticed in my research that Lady Helena was often not written about in a favourable light, which I feel was due to her husband and his efforts against the women's vote and frankly, his corruption. I think this is unfair. It's assumed because her husband continued to oppose a woman's right to vote, that she did as well. In fact, I read that she was involved in the suffragette movement but when she married and her husband became involved in politics, she stopped participating, but still thought women deserved the right to vote. We have to remember that this was a different time, and for better or worse, she supported her husband. I think her run for the House at least signifies that she thought women belonged in politics and her charity work showed that she believed women deserved better in life.  Sources on the website newfoundpod.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

 Hello, and welcome back to Newfoundpod, a bite-sized podcast about Newfoundland. I'm your host, Debbie Wiseman, and today I'm going to talk to you about the first non-stop transatlantic flight, which originated here in Newfoundland 100 years ago. I'll also tell you about the plans to celebrate the anniversary here locally.  Music: Club Seamus by Kevin Macleod  https://incompetech.com Sources: The Aviation History Online Museum (Site inactive) Wikipedia Century of Flight  One Hundredth Anniversary CBC: The 1st successful transatlantic flight, 100 years ago, set to be celebrated in St. John's Aviation History Newfoundland Labrador Alcock and Brown 100 (Ireland)   Thanks so much for listening today. If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it.  You can follow me on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. The site with all my previous episodes is NewFoundPod.com.  You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month. You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers.    --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

It's iceberg season here in Newfoundland. Just check out Facebook and you will see some great photos being shared. And I completely acknowledge that this is probably just me, but when I hear iceberg, I think of the Titanic. Confession - I am obsessed with the Titanic. I have been for as long as I can remember. Today I am going to tell you about the Newfoundland connection to the disaster. The RMS Titanic set sail from Southampton on April 10, 1912. On her maiden voyage on April 14th, she hit an iceberg and sank in under 3 hours. The accident occured about 600 km south of Newfoundland. Only 710 of the liner's over 2200 passengers and crew were saved. A newfoundland sealing vessel called the Algerine recovered the last body in May of that same year. The distress signal sent out by Titanic was first heard at the lighthouse at Cape Race, Newfoundland. There were three lighthouse keepers there at the time, Walter Gray, Jack Goodwin and Robert Hunston, along with 14 year old Jimmy Myrick, a relative of one of the other lighthouse keepers. They had been receiving messages since Titanic set sail, from people wanting to be among the first to pass messages along to family and friends in the United States while on board her maiden voyage. But that night, the message was different, and much more urgent. A CQD, which stood for Come Quick, Danger was received. Now, there is some controversy as to who received this message. Officially, it was received by Goodwin. However, many years later, Jimmy Myrick confessed that he was actually left alone for a short time at the controls and was the one to receive the distress call. This would have been against protocol and would have cost the men their jobs, so Jimmy was sworn to secrecy and only revealed this later in life after the keepers had passed away. Goodwin was on his way back into the room and he took over. He called for his superior, Mr. Gray, who stayed on with Jack Phillips on board the Titanic and relayed messages to other ships, to officials and to the public, doing his best to help. Following the disaster, a ship was chartered that would act as a permanent weather station of sorts, positioned at the Grand Banks to be on the lookout for icebergs and report any sightings to stations in Newfoundland and Labrador. People assumed the Titanic sank in one piece, and there was always talk of trying to raise her. It wasn't until 1985 that Robert Ballard was able to find the wreckage and it came out that she had actually split in two prior to sinking. The wreckage will probably never be able to brought up from what is now known as Titanic Canyon, but earlier this year, expeditions to the site were announced. Did you know that more people have gone to space than have seen the Titanic wreck in person? I'd love to go, if anyone feels like springing for the $100,000 ticket for me. I hope you all enjoyed this mini, and I'll be back next week with a full episode. Talk to you then! Sources: Wikipedia My obsession with Titanic The Rooms: https://www.exhibits.therooms.ca/titanic Want to dive down to the wreck of the Titanic? It costs only $100K http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/titanic-trips-st-johns-1.4992498 Theme Music: Club Seamus by Kevin MacLeod If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. Instagram is also NewfoundPod. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month.  https://www.patreon.com/newfoundpod You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Hello, and welcome to the very first NewfoundPod mini episode! Today I'm going to tell you about the Ode To Newfoundland. The Ode to Newfoundland is the provincial anthem of Newfoundland and Labrador. The song started as a poem, written by the Governor of Newfoundland at the time, Sir Cavendish Boyle, in 1902. He had reported to Newfoundland from England the year before and wrote many poems dedicated to the rugged island he'd fallen in love with. The first time the poem was performed publicly was by Frances Daisy Foster, at the end of a play called Mamzelle which was performed at the Casino Theatre in St. John's. The song was set to music composed by ER Krippner, who was a German bandmaster, music teacher and music store owner living in St. John's.  The song became so popular that articles in newspapers appealed to the Governor to adopt it as Newfoundland's National Anthem. He agreed, but decided to change up the music, either for a more dignified sound, or to make it appeal to a wider audience, depending on the source. He also bought the rights to the original music. On May 20, 1904, the poem titled Newfoundland was changed to Newfoundland: An Ode and became the official national anthem. It fell out of favour when Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949, but in the 1980's, pride in our province was enjoying a resurgence and the song again became popular enough that it was named the provincial anthem. This was another first for Newfoundland, as we were the first province to adopt an anthem.  The Ode is unique in that it celebrates the natural beauty of the province rather than patriotism.  I hope you enjoyed this very first mini! I'll be back next week with a new episode. Talk to you then! http://NewfoundPod.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

 Hey everyone! This is just a quick audio I'm dropping into the feed to let you know about something new with NewfoundPod - minis! On each off-week, I'm going to release a mini episode. When I'm researching topics, I always come across things that I find interesting, and I think you'd find interesting too, but there isn't quite enough for a full episode. So now, I'll be releasing minis on those topics. Each episode will hopefully be under 2 minutes long, and the first one will be released on Monday. I hope you will enjoy them, and I'll talk to you soon!  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Welcome to Season 2 of NewfoundPod. In this episode, I explain my extra long hiatus and talk to you about Al Clouston.  Al Clouston, also known as Uncle Al, was a folklorist, a storyteller and a humourist. He started out as a salesman, and after he retired in the seventies, he released several books and albums of Newfoundland humour that he had been collecting since the age of 17.  Merchandise! Theme Music: Club Seamus by Kevin MacLeod Source: incompetech If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. Instagram is also NewfoundPod. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month. You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers.  --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Hi everyone, welcome back to NewfoundPod. This isn't an episode, but just a quick update in your feeds to let you know that the podcast is on hiatus. It's just a short one, I'll be back in January with regular episodes. In the meantime, you can check out the fogbank at thefogbank.ca for more Newfoundland themed podcasts. If you haven't, you can listen to my older episodes at NewfoundPod.com. Thanks everyone, have a great holiday season, and I'll talk to you in 2019! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Today I tell you about a miracle photo and two ghost stories from Gower Street in St. John's.   Thanks so much for listening today. I hope you all enjoyed it. Links for today's episode: TheFogbank.ca Theme Music: Club Seamus by Kevin MacLeod  If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. Instagram is also NewfoundPod. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month. You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

This time, more spookiness! I tell you (well, Elling Lien tells you) about the Nickel Festival's 48 Hour Horror Film challenge. Then I tell two classic Newfoundland ghost stories. Thanks so much for listening today. I hope you all enjoyed it. Links for today's episode: Nickel Festival's 48 Hour Horror Film challenge TheFogbank.ca TintOfInk.com interview with me! Merchandise! Theme Music: Club Seamus by Kevin MacLeod Source: incompetech If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. Instagram is also NewfoundPod. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month. You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Hello, and welcome back to NewfoundPod, a bite-sized podcast about Newfoundland. I'm your host, Debbie Wiseman, and this is episode 25 – Happy Halloween! Yes, it's my favourite time of year again. Last year, I shared with you some spooky folk tales from Newfoundland. This year, I'll be doing that again, but this week, I wanted to do something a little different. This episode, I am going to read a spooky story written by a Newfoundland author. His name is Keith Daniels and he's written a few short and scary stories. Kids these days call them creepypastas, but I really don't like that word. I just call them scary stories. I'm old. Keith's stories take place in Newfoundland. This one ties into another one I heard being narrated recently, and I will link that telling, along with Keith's website, KeithDanielsAuthor.Wordpress.com, on the blog, and you can read more of his stories there. His work is fantastic and I hope I can do this story justice. Just a warning. This story contains some colourful language. I was going to ask permission from Keith to change it so I could maintain my clean rating, but I don't really feel comfortable asking an author if I can change their words. So I'm leaving it in. I'll be cursing a few times, so if you aren't okay with that, please stop listening and come back next week. But I hope you do stay and give it a chance. I know some of you listen with kids so I wanted to include the warning. Credits: Author Keith Daniels http://KDanielsAuthor.Wordpress.com Echoes of Time v2 by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1300030 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Club Seamus by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Source: http://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/index.html?isrc=USUAN1800012 Artist: http://incompetech.com/ Thanks so much for listening today. I hope you all enjoyed that. It was kind of a different thing for me, but I really had a good time with it. If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. The site with all my previous episodes is NewFoundPod.com. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month. You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers. I'll be back again very soon with more spookiness. And I'll have some news on some exciting things happening with the podcast. Thanks again everyone and I'll talk to you soon! --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

My regular weekly episode will be out tomorrow! (Tuesday) --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

 Hello and welcome back to NewfoundPod, a bite sized podcast about Newfoundland. I'm your host, Debbie Wiseman and this is another mini episode. I had planned to release an episode about the Colonial Building Riot, but I haven't finished it and rather than rush through it, I thought I'd release this instead. Today I'm going to tell you about a couple of Newfoundland traditions regarding the month of May.  The first saying you may have heard of is a warning against purchasing a broom during the month of May.  It goes “Buy a broom in May, sweep your family away.” Variations also include sweeping your friends, your fortune or even your own life away. You could also sweep the head of household away. Some superstitions even warn against using a broom at all during the month. The origins of this superstition have been lost over time, but it seems to have both English and Irish origins.  In fact the superstition was so strong in Ireland that they even refused to make a broom during the month.     Another tradition revolved around the inevitable snowfall in May here in Newfoundland. While some other places are enjoying the spring weather, we know we will have a few more snowfalls at least. Our Irish ancestors suggested gathering some of that May snow in a bottle, letting it melt and dabbing it on your face to fade freckles. Personally, I like freckles. In my research, I of course consulted the writing of folklorist Larry Dohey, who said “A face without freckles is like a night without stars.” I completely agree.     Another use for that May snow that was collected was to cure ailments, specifically, sore eyes.  Traditionally, the seal hunt ended around this time of the year. Fishermen refused to wear goggles, considering it “unmanly” and as a result, suffered from snow blindness. The May snow was said to soothe the sting from that.  It could also be used to treat a sty and other ailments.     Thanks to Dale Jarvis and Larry Dohey, as always, for their tireless efforts in researching and preserving  Newfoundland folklore. I'll include links to their work in the show notes.     Thanks for listening today, and I'll be back next week with a full episode. Talk to you then!     --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Tuesday will mark the 17th anniversary of the September 11th attacks on the United States. Over 200 planes were diverted from the US to Canada, and over 70 of those planes landed in Newfoundland and Labrador. There was no plan in place for this type of thing. At the time, it just wasn't something people thought could happen. At the airport in St. John's, 27 planes landed, carrying over 4,000 passengers and crew. 38 planes ended up in Gander. Over 6,000 people ended up stranded in the town, which almost doubled its population in one day. This is the story of how the province reacted. ++++ If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. The site with all my previous episodes is NewFoundPod.com. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Mary Dohey isn't a household name in Newfoundland, and it seems like that's the way she wanted it. But Mary, who passed away last year at the age of 83, was an extraordinary person. She was the first living person to receive the Canadian Cross of Valour. That's the highest honour that the country awards for acts of bravery. She helped save the lives of over 100 people after a man took a plane hostage, in what would become known as The Doomsday Flight.  +++ If you can, please leave me a review on Apple podcasts or whatever podcast app you use. I'd really appreciate it. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter, just search NewfoundPod. The site with all my previous episodes is NewFoundPod.com. You can contact me at newfoundpod@gmail.com. Thanks so much to my supporters on Patreon. If you'd like to support me there, you can do so for as little as $1 a month. You can support me for free by sharing episodes with your friends and followers. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message

Today I talk about the cancellation of NightLine, the Mad Catter Cafe and Discovery Day. https://www.facebook.com/madcattercafe/ Twitter: http://twitter.com/newfoundpod Facebook Page: http://facebook.com/newfoundpod  Facebook Group: http://facebook.com/groups/newfoundpod Blog: http://NewfoundPod.com --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/newfoundpod/message