Some calendar customs are shared by people throughout Newfoundland and Labrador. Other dates are known or celebrated only in certain local areas; some customs are celebrated in entirely local ways. It commemorates a day almost two centuries ago when several members of the Coombs family died tragically in a snow storm. Elsewhere in the province it is known as a day to watch for bears' shadows in order to predict the weather.
Candlemas Day is the same date as the American Groundhog Day but retains the old Christian calendar name, which derives from the tradition of blessing the annual supply of church candles on that day, the official end of the liturgical Christmas season. In older European traditions, bears step outside their hibernation caves to check the weather on February 2nd.
If it is fine they will stay out for the remainder of the season. In Newfoundland this belief has remained more or less intact in the rhyme "If Candlemas Day be clear and fine, the rest of winter is left behind; If Candlemas Day be rough and grum, there's more of winter left to come" cf. Hiscock Pancake Night, or Shrove Tuesday, is typical of Newfoundland calendar customs. Derived from widespread customs in European traditions, and shaped as much by religious beliefs as by traditional divinational activities, it is a mixture of traditions, evolving continuously.
Shrove Tuesday named for the religious practice of confessing one's sins and being "shriven" or "shrove" by the priest immediately before Lent began was a time to use up as many as possible of the foods banned during Lent: meat products in particular, including butter and eggs. Pancakes were a simple way to use these foods, and one that could entertain the family. Objects with symbolic value are cooked in the pancakes, and those who eat them, especially children, take part in a divinatory game as part of the meal.
Midsummer's Day can be traced back to European traditions before the advent of Christianity. One of its modern forms is St John's Day, a thoroughly Christianized name. Now merely a municipal holiday in St John's, it was formerly called Discovery Day, one of the national holidays of Newfoundland. Its roots go back through the bonfire celebrations that are still made on the Southern Shore of the Avalon Peninsula as well as some other predominantly Irish-settled communities in Conception Bay.
These fire customs are as old as, or even older than, the Guy Fawkes Night bonfires in early November. In the s the Newfoundland Government instituted a holiday on June 24th to celebrate Newfoundland's history. The day was removed from the calendar by the provincial government in the lates. Memorial Day conflicts with the celebration of Canada Day. It was established soon after the tragically destructive events of July 1st , the opening day of the Battle of the Somme, when hundreds of Newfoundland soldiers lost their lives at the battle of Beaumont-Hamel.
Each year since, commemorative parades and memorial services have been held to honor the fallen. The Orange Order was established a century after the Battle of the Boyne and steadily grew in the 19th century as a patriotic bulwark against what many Protestants saw as treasonous Catholicism.
By the end of the 19th century Orangemen's parades were commonplace in many Newfoundland communities. The parade was one part of a series of events through the day, culminating in a public dinner and dance often called a "Time". However popular Orangemen's Day has been, on the northeast coast mid-July is at the peak of the inshore cod-fishery. A single day parading and dancing might mean a loss of ten percent of a fisherman's annual income. Thus many communities moved their Orange celebrations to the Christmas season, when no work was necessary.
Thus we find Orangemen's Times on St. Hiscock ; Throughout Newfoundland, churches have held Garden Parties to raise funds for local parishes or for special projects. On some designated day, usually a Sunday when fewer people would be working, a day-long party is held outdoors, if the weather is fine, or in the church hall, if not.
With wheels of fortune, and races in the afternoon, meals served at suppertime, and a dance at night, the festivities would continue for hours. In recent years the organization of such community-wide parties has frequently devolved to town councils, and a weekday often in early August has been set aside. In some larger towns the garden party became a regatta - Harbour Grace, Placentia and St John's are three examples.
The St John's Regatta is the largest of these garden-parties-become-regattas; on the first Wednesday in August or the first fine day thereafter , the city stops working and attends the boating races on Quidi Vidi Lake. Upwards of 30, attend every year, with estimates in some years of over 50, people attending the day-long event.
Many of the autumn season's customs are historically related. Today's Thanksgiving Day holiday is one such date. Although there was no government-mandated Thanksgiving Day holiday in Newfoundland at Confederation in , many local groups celebrated it as part of the fall season of Hallowe'en.
It took the form of Harvest celebrations, a little like the garden parties of high summer. The whole season of Hallowe'en is of interest to folklorists. In this province, a half-dozen Hallowe'en-related customs have been reported and described, with dozens of names. Bonne lecture! Videos far, far off the beaten path. Explore our History. Travel Info Travel Form X. Search NewfoundlandLabrador. Annuler Visiter www. For a province known for its wooden boats, quirky ways, and its slower pace of life, Newfoundland and Labrador has been ahead of the rest of the world in a lot of respects.
Throughout its history and even prehistory , the province has been a trend-setter and taste-maker. But these are not the only ways we are ahead of the game. Newfoundland and Labrador has had a front-row seat to history, watching the world change — and then watching the rest of the world catch up!
No, we mean life itself. What does that mean? Europeans were in Newfoundland before anywhere else in North America, by some few hundreds of years, and we have the archaeological site to prove it! While some may debate where he actually ended up, in Newfoundland and Labrador, such debate is spurious. He found the island of Newfoundland, of course, at Bonavista.
Buon Vista! During the reign of Elizabeth I, explorers sailed the world over, beginning what we would eventually know as the British Empire. It would take a little longer for permanent settlement see below , but what was known as St. Cupids, established in , is the oldest continuously inhabited English settlement in Canada.
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