Come Home! St. John’s Cultural Embrace

August 16, 2025|Rick Juliusson

“Is ye a Newfoundlander?” Skipper Lukey asks/challenges.

“Indeed I is, me ol’ cock, and long may your big jib draw!” my son and his partner boisterously shout back at the completion of their “Screeching-in” ceremony at Christian’s Pub. They’ve downed a disgusting rum shot (so bad it’ll make you screech) and kissed a frozen cod to earn this badge of honour. No human toe at the bottom of the bottle, like they’d get at a similar initiation rite in the Yukon, but enough to feel they’re part of something special.

“Something Special” could well be Newfoundland’s answer to BC’s “Super, Natural” tagline, though I rather like their “Come Home” license plates. We feel very much at home and at ease here, even without kissing a fish, and the number of everyday Special Events we have entered into speaks to the rich Welcome! of this culture and people.

I say “entered into” because we’re made to feel part of things, not just spectators. As volunteer greeters at the 49th annual FolkFest we meet literally everyone entering the event. At subsequent Wednesday Folk Nights at The Ship Pub we then recognize performers, attendees and even songs (wouldn’t take long to know some of the core local standards that everyone heartily sings along with). During breaks we’re told about several choirs we could join if we lived here.

Some of those same folx are at the monthly Song Circle at The Officer’s Club (an odd 3rd floor clubhouse for marine personnel that has a German UBoat periscope in the corner), and they encourage me to share a tune (The Prince’s Panties by Mason Williams draws an appreciative laugh). The local couple who join us at our table tell us about the latin band playing at the free Friday concerts at Harbourside Park, and are visibly thrilled when I do show up and plop down beside them on the park bench (and are disappointed when we're unable to join them for drinks at their house the week later).

Not a bad backdrop for a free outdoor concert

This week's latin band inspired dancing (below and top right)

For us itinerant travellers, it is a rare and special thing to be invited out by someone like that. But it’s not the only time in this brief 7-week stay. We meet at a tiny Ethiopian restaurant with a new friend from the Quaker meeting. Share a meal in the home of a couple from our twice-weekly hiking group. Enjoy a potluck meal with the Killick Ecovillage cohousing group (with whom we are so smitten we subsequently join as “Explorer Members”). March in the Pride Parade with a small-worlds-overlapping combination of Quakers and Ecovillagers. I’m even offered a mountain bike during a ride around Bell Island with the Over-55 Cycling Group.

After sharing a story at the monthly storytellers’ circle I am awarded a society t-shirt (because, they explain, “We’ve never heard a story about raising water buffalo”) and am asked to give them notice next visit so they can organize a story-sharing time with me. Plus invitations to their annual October festival and their writers’ groups. We are equally welcomed into the monthly poetry night at the Battery Café, where both Sarah and I amaze our son and his partner by getting up to share poetry.

Sensing a theme here? Community, creativity, inclusion. All infused with a unique easternmost-island tradition and culture that makes even a venerable and usually predictable FolkFest fresh and different (no tie-dye, and so small there’s only 21 outhouses!) For 7 weeks we “Come From Away” mainlanders are happily heeding the local advice - and invitation - to “Fill yer boots!” And St. John’s has clearly joined - and is perhaps topping - the list of places tugging at our hearts to eventually maybe Come Home to.

The Royal St. John’s Regatta is the oldest organized sporting event in North America. It has been a part of Newfoundland history for over 200 years. The first record of an organized event was in 1816, but rowing matches were common among ships crews in St. John’s Harbour since at least the 1700s. These days, the Regatta draws crowds of up to 50,000 people annually to the shores of Quidi Vidi Lake. It is widely known as “The Largest Garden Party in the World” because it has been about socializing as much as amateur sport. Concession stands, wheels of fortune, games of chance, and food & drink are just as much part of the Regatta’s history as the races.

Two of these historic Quidi Vidi fishing stages burned down while we were here.

Proud local products - Newfoundlander and Labrador dogs. These are the only ones we saw in 7 weeks.

Quidi Vidi fishing cove

Folkfest volunteering

These "Purity" biscuits are so beloved that when a Mainland company threatened to buy them, the Newfoundland government stepped in to support the company to stay local.