Down to Sally's Cove: Newfoundland Stories by Ella Manuel

Brief vignettes of some of the colourful older men around Bonne Bay,  whom Ella Manuel called her uncles. 

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Among the first to settle in the outer part of Bonne Bay in Rocky Harbour was the Shears family, well-known for their amazing ingenuity, as Ella Manuel describes in this story. 

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Here Ella Manuel talks about one of the splendid older men she came to know in Bonne Bay. This was “Uncle”  George, well-known in Woody Point many years ago, an argumentative old man who made life difficult for his son by insisting on doing what he wanted to and not what he should. 

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Ella Manuel learns about a well-known Norris Point family and their connections with the late 19th century history of Bonne Bay, including the British naval fleet and that "muscular Christian",  the Rev. Joseph Curling.. 

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Here  Ella Manuel visits an old lady from a long-established family down in the bottom of the South Arm of Bonne Bay, who tells about her life in days of old. A girl's duties -  curing the fish, rug hooking, making sealskin boots, spinning and knitting, preparing Christmas dinners, and enjoying life in general.

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Appearing in many of Ella Manuel’s stories, Em Tapper was one of her closest friends in Bonne Bay.  At home in the woods, on the river or in a boat, she guided for Ella during the Killdevil days. Here is the story of how they first met, and something of Em’s upbringing. 

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With wind and snow every day, Ella Manuel crosses Bonne Bay on the ice, prepares for Christmas, and hosts a New Year’s Eve party.     

 By the way, all across Canada the community with the highest average annual snowfall is none other than Woody Point, where over six meters or nearly 21 feet can drop over a three-month period. 

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Ella Manuel visits the Woody Point clinic, where she hears about jannying, the old yuletide tradition of visiting homes in disguise. She recounts the story of John Charles Roberts’ seed potatoes and their connection with the Scots of Cape Breton. As winter approaches, the weather turns rough. 

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In this second episode of a typical year in mid-century Bonne Bay,  Ella Manuel tells of watching a house being moved, launching her new rodney, entertaining the Rockefellers, and joining a grand party in the old Orange Lodge.

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In the next 4 episodes, Ella Manuel describes the goings on of a typical year in mid-twentieth century Bonne Bay, now the heart of Gros Morne National Park of western Newfoundland. The events she relates might well have taken place in many another outport, for they illustrate something of the traditions and culture of rural Newfoundland and Labrador.

This episode begins as Ella returns to Woody Point after a winter on the Mainland, rants about the protests over the seal fishery, meets old friends again, hears new stories, and samples funnel buns 

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