Among the treasures of the Newfoundland wildflowers are Gentians and Orchids.
It is at this time, when the berries are ripe, that the villagers turn out in family groups to pick bake-apples and Fox-berries to make jam. Bake-apples are a fruit peculiar to Newfoundland and Labrador. And Bake-apple jam is a dish of almost national magnitude. To express interest in the bake-apples and their picking is an open sesame to outport hearts. And no end of invitations and jaunts are assured you, if you become an ardent berry-picker. At this time human figures are everywhere to be seen. Children with a motley collection of pails are everywhere on the nearby hills. The best blueberries of all grow in the cracks and scarpings of the cliffs where one would not suppose a thimbleful of earth could cling. At Saint John, Cabot Head, gray and bluff, is a happy hunting-ground of the berry-picker. Many a morning have we spent there, hunting blueberries behind the lighthouse of this grim old Cape. Many a morning, too, have they been the goal of a scramble over the cliffs of Big Wild Cove and Little Wild Cove. And what is more romantic than tea with the lighthouse-keeper’s little family at Twillingate, where one sits at a spotless table and is served with a heaping dish of delectable homemade Partridge-berry jam smothered in thick Island cream?
In the Newfoundland Outports, two days’ work is crowded into one, of a Saturday. For the Newfoundlanders are very strict in the observation of the Sabbath Day, to do no work therein. Neither dories nor “Bankers” fish on Sundays. And Saturday night sees all the schooners which can possibly get there, in port; the drying fishnet hanging in festoons from the masthead being about the only concession to business.
Ashore, the women will not even draw water from the well on Sunday, unless under the stress of some dire necessity. On Saturday, therefore, a double supply of water must be drawn, and laid in for use over Sunday. The Outport well is usually situated at one end of the village and sometimes at a distance from it. And so, on Saturday afternoons, a stream of women, each carrying two buckets of water, flows along the undulating, rocky highway that is the village main street. A large hoop, in the midst of which the water-carrier steps, helps to relieve the weight and keep the water from spilling as the woman steps briskly along. This method of carrying water seems to be the Newfoundlander’s own invention. The Water-Hoop is here one of the furnishings of every household.
Saturday is the day of the week for getting wood. And wood-getting in the outports involves a longer or shorter trip to the cliffs and hills where the low spruce-scrub affords many a scraggly bough for fuel. Along the footpaths, worn by centuries of wood-gatherers, and by the road into the village, one happens on many a figure carrying bundles of boughs on their backs and making pictures no less distinctive from a genre viewpoint than the water-carriers, with their picturesque hoops. Other figures of the road are the women and children carrying hay over their shoulders, tied-up in a piece of old net or the family pieced bed-quilt.
Owing to the rocky nature of the cliffs, hay is a scarce article. Some of the best is undoubtedly afforded by the little churchyard cemeteries, on the principle that “never blooms so red the rose, as where some buried Caesar lies”.
Goats with curious wooden yokes around their necks, and the family cow, are well-known characters of these cliff, by-shore, village-highways.
Against the incursions of these roaming pirates-of-green, are set up the curious rodded-fences of the irregular-shaped little potato and turnip gardens. In summer the gipsying cow can forage for herself, but in winter there is nothing for her to do but fall back upon the little wisps of hay her owner garnered in the quilt against just such days as these. But the cow is grateful. Never anywhere does cow produce richer cream to go with the raspberries, the Bake-apple and Fox-berry jam, than these same seacoast cows of Newfoundland.
Considering the wholesome out-of-door life called for by the industries of the Newfoundland outports, it is not surprising that hand-weaving in the homes is rare. Another reason may be the scarcity of pasturage for sheep in the sea-going villages and their vicinity. Inland Newfoundland affords fine opportunities for agriculture, and sheep of a fine type yield splendid fleeces in the Codroy Valley, around Doucets and Little River.
Although the loom is rare, the spinning-wheel is not infrequently happened upon, yielding hand-laid yarn to supply the needs of the home-knitter. And her needs are many, for no one seems to wear out socks like a fisherman.