Strange Truths and Tall Tales: Product of Newfoundland

Part One: Mildred Baxter

Legend has it that folk-hero Mildred Baxter came to Harbour Breton in the mid-1840s to settle a score with her cheating fiance.

In order to make the trip from her home in England, she adopted a secret identity. She disguised herself as a man and took up life in Harbour Breton alongside her fiance and his new bride.

It’s a fascinating tale of love, lies and revenge that stretches the limits of credibility.

Read: ⁠The Love and Lies of Mildred Baxter and Paul Langstone⁠

Part Two: Rosemary Lawton Talks Jackets and Trousers

Rosemary Lawton is an award-winning singer-songwriter with a keen interest in Newfoundland music. She is a classically trained violinist, educator and writer. She has recorded traditional Newfoundland music (Fierce and Untamed), original compositions (Canvas) and published the book, Resilience: A Collection of Empowering Songs of Newfoundland and Labrador Women.

Rosemary joins me on Strange Truths and Tall Tales to discuss Mildred Taylor, the tradition of ‘Jacket and Trouser’ songs, and her own songwriting.

Hear Rosemary Lawton at the following links:

Part Three: Kyle Callahan’s Monsters

Kyle Callahan is a visual artist from Mount Pearl, NL. He’s sometimes called ‘The Godzilla Guy’ owing to his popular artwork featuring classic movie monsters (like Godzilla) exploring Newfoundland. His artwork has recently been featured in the new Engen publication The Fairies of Foggy Island.

Kyle discusses his work and explains how Godzilla discovered St. John’s harbour.

See Kyle Callahan’s work:

Part Four: Monstrous Things

The season, I’ve been capping off each episode with a segment I call Monstrous Things. It features tales of a Newfoundland sea monster sightings reported in the mainstream media.

This edition takes us back to 1888 on Newfoundland’s Grand Banks, when an enormous sea monster was seen by fisherman aboard the Schooner Augusta. The sighting was described in the Evening Telegram on August 25th, 1888.

Sources & Further Reading

Part One: Mummers & Murder

Newfoundland has a lot of interesting traditions but few are as celebrated as mummering.

Mummering is a Christmas tradition that dates back hundreds of years. It came to Newfoundland from England and Ireland with the first settlers. In it’s best known form, it involves costumed people visiting house-to-house during the 12 days of Christmas.  Once invited inside, the host tries to guess the mummer's identity. Refreshments are served and fun is had by all.

This sort of mummering is entertainment, but it wasn’t always fun for everyone. For some people, especially children, mummers were scary. They looked odd and behaved strangely. Mostly, the fear was unwaranted.

In the 1800s mummering was altogether different. Mummers used to celebrate outdoors and could be found roaming the streets. There are many instances of mummers taking advantage of their anonymity to settle scores.

In one instance, there was a murder.

In the 1800s mummering was altogether different. Mummers used to celebrate outdoors and could be found roaming the streets. There are many instances of mummers taking advantage of their anonymity to settle scores.

In one instance, there was a murder.

Read: ⁠⁠⁠⁠Mummers, Murder and Mayhem⁠⁠⁠⁠.

Part Two: Twas The Night After Christmas

In this segment we take a look at the lighter side of mummering with the Newfoundland Mummer Story Twas The Night After Christmas.

It tells the story of a grandmother who is *usually* very good at guessing the identity of mummers until one fateful Boxing Day night when she meets her match.

Read the Twas The Night After Christmas

Part Three: A Chat With Carolina East

Carolina East has made a name for herself across the country, not only as as an impressive singer but as talented songwriter. She’s making music inspired by an eclectic tapestry of influences; from soul, to country, to pop.

She competed in the Sirius XM Top of the Country competition as one of eight semi-finalists. In July 2021, Carolina released a full-length album Soaked in Whisky. It’s a polished collection of songs about love, happiness, and loss.

Her songs are honest, vulnerable, and. always relatable.

Carolina joined me to talk about making music, her Christmas album Home for the Holidays, and how covering Journey’s ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ changed her life.

We also talked about her upcoming work with producer Russell Broom (well known for his work with Jann Arden).

Hear Carolina East at the following links:

Message Carolina to get your copy of her Christmas album Home For The Holidays.

You can watch Carolina’s Home for the Holidays Christmas special here and be sure to listen to her latest, Russell Broom-produced single ‘Airport’.

Part Four: Monstrous Things

The season, I’ve been capping off each episode with a segment I call Monstrous Things. It features tales of a Newfoundland sea monster sightings reported in the mainstream media.

This episode offers the story of a ‘monster’ seen in the Codroy Valley area around Christmas, 1951. The sighting was described in the January 5th, 1952 edition of the Evening Telegram under the headline “Report Monster Destroying Nets.”

What do you think it was?

Visit: productofnewfoundland.ca

Episode Guide: Mummers and Music fest. Carolina East

Part One: What is Tibb’s Eve?

For me, and a lot of other Newfoundlanders, the 23rd of December is Tibb’s Eve. It is Christmas Eve Eve and the unofficial start of the holiday season.

For some people, Tibb’s Eve has become synonymous with a good time, full of partying and alcohol. The connection with drinking is so strong that, for some people the day is known as Tipsy (Tip’s) Eve.

In this episode we did into it a little and chat about Tibb’s Eve customs. To help me out, The Duds (Melanie O’Brien and Philip Goodridge) discuss their connection to the day and what lead them to record their holiday track ‘Before the Night (Tibb’s Eve’).

Get more Duds music at the following links:

Part Two: Newfoundland Christmas Slush

I’ve celebrated 40+ Christmases in Newfoundland and, until surprisingly recently, I had no idea ‘Newfoundland Christmas slush’ — a fruity, frozen cocktail — was a thing.

It is though. For a lot of Newfoundlanders the holiday season would not be complete without this batch-made cocktail.

I reached out to food blogger/instagrammer Jeremy Whey (aka @stuffthatinyourgob) to discuss his history with Christmas slush. He shares his recipe and variations he’s tried. From there were drifted to dark/light Christmas cake, moose stew, salt cod and other Newfoundland food traditions.

You can follow Jeremy on Instagram at @stuffthatinyourgob.

Here’s his slush recipe, as shared in the episode:

Jeremy’s Newfoundland Christmas Slush

Boil the water, stir in the sugar. Add the remaining ingredients and freeze. To serve, scoop slush into a glass and top with as much 7-Up or Ginger Ale as you’d like.

You can find some recipes for alternate versions of Christmas slush here.

Jeremy and I confessed that some of our Christmas baking efforts have been less-than-successful. We used the word ‘dunch.’ It occurs to me that non-NL listeners may be less familiar with that word. Here’s a link to the definition in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English.

And here’s the recipe I mentioned for my mother’s dark Christmas fruitcake. I’ve had great success with this one — nothing dunch about it.

Check out the blog post to see, as ‘the murderous mummer’.

Part Three: Monstrous Things

Normally ‘Monstrous Things’ features tales of Newfoundland sea monsters that have been reported in the mainstream media. This episode, is taking a different tack and veering into the realm of full-on legend — with tales of boo-baggers, boo-darbies and a strange Christmas creature called Rockyfoot.

What do they have in common?

Like Krampus and Santa Claus, they’ve all been used to encourage good behaviour in children.

Read more here: Rockyfoot: Newfoundland’s Krampus

Part One: It Came From Outer Space

There's no shortage of Newfoundland and Labrador stories connected to outer space. There are Martian craters named for Gander, Nain and Nutak, local airports were alternate space shuttle landing sites for NASA, and there are plenty of unidentified flying object reports in the province including the much discussed 'Gander Incident' and the Random Island sighting that inspired a stamp from Canada Post.

My favourite Newfoundland space-ish story isn’t any of these.

It happened in October of 1936; a major meteor shower was seen on the southern and eastern portions of the island and it terrified people.

On the podcast we explore it in a story called “The Day The Sky Fell.”

Part Two: With Violet

With Violet is an alt-pop band from St. John’s, NL.

They are winning fans with catchy hooks, nuanced songwriting and an energy has to be heard to be believed.

In 2021 they released their debut album, Long Story Short, which included the popular track “With Money.’ They followed that up with two Christmas singles — ‘December Parade (Bow on Top)‘ and ‘Countdown (New Year’s Song)’— which, if you follow Product of Newfoundland playlists, you’ve definitely heard.

This year, they expanded their canon with two new EPs — Saturday Nights In and Your Sunday Best, the former of which gave us the track ‘Gravity’ and its dancing-astronaut filled video.

Band members Pete and Spencer FitzGerald are my guests on this episode. We chatted about Your Sunday Best and the ‘Gravity’ music video.

We also talked abut Addictions Anonymous (a book of poetry written by Pete and Spencer), and Pete’s solo music including his Halloween track ‘The Ghost Goes Boo’ (which you can hear right now on my Songs for a Spooky Season playlist).

With Violet Links

Part Three: Monstrous Things

In the third instalment of ‘Monstrous Things’ we look at a hungry sea monster reported in Bonne Bay in 1943.

Was it a 'real' monster or a known creature? You decide!

Check out Product of Newfoundland and the episode page here.

Part One: Newfoundland Devils

If you believe the tall tales, the devil has left his mark all over Newfoundland. There are hoof prints in the resettled community of Flat Islands, Bonavista Bay and more in Keels on the Bonavista Peninsula but, perhaps, his most celebrated scar is in Fortune Harbour where a rock supposedly bears his handprint.

Visit Product of Newfoundland to see pictures.

This episode presents the story ‘Mr. Kinchler and the Devil,’ a folktale that describes the night the Devil visited Fortune Harbour, tangled with a card prodigy and left his mark in stone.

Mr. Kinchler and the Devil is a Newfoundland variant on a classic folktale.

Not all stories of Newfoundland's devil and demon stories are old — some of them are being created right now.

The Duds are a musical duo comprised of Melanie O’Brien and Philip Goodridge. They have been creating compelling pop music for ten years.

Part Two: The Duds

After touring Atlantic Canada in 2019 they released their debut album, These Words I Can’t Forget. The record, which was produced by award-winning singer-songwriter Ian Foster, combined a folk-tinged roots sound with bright pop beats. The Duds were subsequently nominated for two MusicNL awards including Bell Aliant Pop Artist of the Year.

Separately, Melanie and Philip have each built solo careers in the entertainment industry. O’Brien’s debut solo album Shining in The Blue earned her three MusicNL Award nominations and, as a vocal coach, she holds the 2017 MusicNL Award for Music Educator of the Year. Goodridge is a multi-faceted artist, writer and seasoned professional theatrical performer, who has been thrilling audiences in Newfoundland for over 20 years.

As The Duds they create playful-yet-confessional music with plentiful hooks and big emotion.

On October 1st, 2023 they are turning their attention to Halloween, as they release two brand new spooky tracks. ‘When He Danced With Me’ and “Your Dead Heart’ were written with Halloween in mind and are inspired by dancing with devils and falling for demons!

O’Brien and Goodridge were kind enough to agree to appear on the podcast and discuss their new tracks as well as their current roles in the Terra Bruce musical The Wild Rovers which is running at the newly-renovated Majestic Theatre in St. John’s from September 22nd to October 1st, 2023, and from October 14th to November 4th, 2023 at the Winter Garden Theatre in Toronto.

When he returns from Toronto, Goodridge is set to appear in the latest production of the Ladies Who Lunch Three Tales of Terror VII: The Curiosity Shop. It’s a show designed to transport the audience to the Golden Age of Radio by performing original audio dramas live on the theatrical stage. Philip discusses the show and some of his inspirations when writing his segment. The show hits the stage on November 24th and 25th at the Elks Club Lodge in St. John’s.

Learn more about Philip's and Melanie’s projects at the following links:

Part Three: Monstrous Things

In the second instalment of ‘Monstrous Things’ I present the strange case of a sea monster attack reported in Hawke’s Bay, on Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula, in 1903.

Was it a 'real' monster or a known creature? You decide!

Bell Island, in Newfoundland’s Conception Bay, is full of mystery. Once home to an immense iron ore mine, the community drew people from all over the world.

Over the years its been home to many strange sightings, happenings and unexplained events. It has even been called one of the most haunted islands in North America.

This episode scratches the surface of some of Bell Island’s lore starting with a giant squid attack off the island’s coast, then a conversation with some paranormal investigators — the people behind the new T+E series History’s Most Haunted — who recently visited Bell Island.

History's Most Haunted follows paranormal experts Corine Carey, Leanne Sallenback and Kelly Ireland as they travel across North America meeting with those who have come face-to-face with the unknown. The series features an episode dedicated to Bell Island including dramatizations of eyewitness accounts and local history provided by experts, historians and citizens of the island.

The series debuts on September 8, 2023, 11:30pm NT.

The episode closes with the segment ‘Monstrous Things’ exploring a sea monster sighting off Fortune Harbour in the late 19th century.

Visit the Product of Newfoundland for more details, sources and links.

The story of a horrific lightning and hail storm over Lumsden (and the entire east coast of Newfoundland) in 1930. It resulted in smashed windows, the destruction of property and the death of several people.

Read the blog post here: Frightening Lightning & Horrific Hail in Lumsden

It was June 21st, 1720 and the sun was just rising over Trepassey, Newfoundland. The fishermen listened to the songbirds and gentle surf on the rocks as they readied their boats. Everything indicated a beautiful day ahead.

Then the birds stopped singing.

In the distance, there was a rumble of canon fire. On the breeze came the sound of trumpets and drums. Everthing was about to change…

Black Bart, the dreaded pirate, had come to town.

This episode explores the strange truth and tall tales of pirate Bartholomew Roberts and his time in Newfoundland.

Check out the podcast page: Black Bart in Newfoundland

Read the blog post: When Black Bart Burned Trepassey

This is the strange and semi-true story of a miraculous (?) iceberg that appeared outside the harbour of St. John's, NL in 1905.

Read the blog post: Like A Virgin: NL's Madonna Iceberg

This is the story of a riot at the Colonial Building in St. John's, NL that grabbed headlines around the world.

Read the blog post: Rant, Roar and Riot… Like True Newfoundlanders