Apologies to correspondents

Hello all,

As it seems to have become a pattern, it should come as no surprise --- the blog has had another relatively fallow period. These seem to happen when I reach a busy patch in my own life, which gets me out of the habit of regular posting, which in turn means when I do have free time the Placentia Blog always gets put to the backburner.

I must apologize to correspondents, though, who have been sending along wonderful pictures and tidbits of information since about this time last month, almost all of which have gone unacknowledged, unposted. Placentiablog@gmail.com is not my personal address, but that is a poor excuse. I do humbly apologize.

Over the next few days, I will work through the built-up postings and put them here. Thankfully, most of them are not time-sensitive, and are as pertinent and interesting now as they were several weeks ago.

John C. Ralph, from Oshawa Ontario, has been sending along many wonderful things, including many excellent pictures, particularly of the Cape Shore, a regional the whole province knows and treasures (well, they should treasure it).

Spring finally seems to be upon us, and soon enough all that yellow dead grass will be replaced with the kind of stuff we see in this photo, sent to us by John.

As always, click on a photo to view a larger version.

Joy Norman on CBC tonight!

Tonight, 7:30 pm, on CBC Television, Joy Norman will be featured on the program A Tradition of Song. It was taped in Quidi Vidi late in 2007. The show will run for the next 6 weeks, and Joy may be on other episodes, as well!

Joy Norman's official website.

Placentia Twice on tomorrow's Weekend Arts Magazine

Weekend Arts Magazine Saturday and Sunday from 6-9:30 am.

This week on WAM, host Angela Antle talks to Winterset Award nominees: Paul Rowe, Kathleen Winter and George A. Rose about their books and what the nomination means to them as authors. As well Russell Wangersky, the award winning writer and Telelgram editor has just written a book chronicling his love of fighting fires and the emotional toll it has taken on his life. And Placentia's Bill Hogan talks up the cultural revitalization of his town.

Also, many congratulations to Paul Rowe for his Winterset nomination! That is major news, and it's sure to bring more attention to Paul's excellent book, The Silent Time.

Lears Cove

Mr. John C. Ralph has been forwarding lovely pictures to The Placentia Blog for a few weeks now, but a combination of technical issues and the maintainer's busy schedule conspired to keep them unposted. Over the next week or so I hope to share them all with you, as they are well worth seeing.As always, click the image to view a larger version of it.

I think this is an excellent shot of Lear's Cove, south of St. Bride's. It really shows how verdant the Cape Shore can be --- quite in contrast to the stereotypical image of Newfoundland as nothing more than a barren rocky isle.

In the 1935 census, Lear's Cove is reported as having 14 residents, with another 11 "reported with Lear's Cove but residing elsewhere" (as to what that means, your guess is as good as mine). Fatima Academy's website also has a page about Lear's Cove. They say the final resident moved out in 1961.

21 Reasons to Move to Branch - Addendum

We've had a surprising number of visits yesterday and today from people who have done a google search for some variation of "21 Reasons" and Branch, Newfoundland. I'm sure this is in response to the national CBC piece that aired yesterday (see previous entry).

We may have missed the crest of the wave, but I wanted to offer these searchers a little more help.

If you want to know more about Branch, there is a short wikipedia article on the town, although the longer article on the Cape Shore (the region which Branch is part of) may be more informative to you. There's a good account of life in Branch in pre-Confederation NFLD here.

If you would like to contact Branch's mayor, who was featured in the documentary "21 Reasons," please email the blog and we will pass you along to her.

Unfortunately, I have no pictures of Branch to hand, but here are two that were posted to public Facebook groups, so hopefully the owners won't mind a tiny bit of friendly piracy (this blog does not generate any income, FYI), so the sudden influx of visitors gets an idea of what the place looks like. Permission is pending from the people who uploaded these photos to facebook, but in the meantime, if you own either image and want it taken down, please let us know and we will comply ASAP.














The third photo is of the cliffs at Cape St. Mary's, very near to Branch, and was taken by the Placentia Blog's maintainer, Michael Collins.

Branch on National CBC Radio

Sorry for the short notice, but I had no idea of this until a few seconds ago. And it's on in a few minutes!

Sometime between 10:30 and 11:30 this Sunday (the 9th), The Sunday Edition (a nationally broadcast CBC radio program) will feature a documentary about Branch and its mayor, Priscilla Corcoran Mooney. 21 reasons to move to Branch, heard from Victoria to Iqaluit to St. John's!

If you miss this, don't despair. You can listen again on CBC's website. I'll post a link once they upload today's show (usually it happens a few hours after it airs).

EDIT: It hasn't appeared on cbc.ca yet, and, looking at The Sunday Edition's main page, it seems not all segments of past shows are available to listen to again. We'll have to wait and see if "21 Reasons" (the documentary on Branch) is put up for internet listening.

In the meantime, here's how it's described on the site:

Branch, Newfoundland is the kind of small fishing outport that is considered an endangered species. Twenty years ago, Branch - and hundreds of villages like it - were prosperous fishing communities. But since the collapse of the cod stocks fifteen years ago, the citizenry of Branch has shrunk from about six hundred to just half that. People have been fleeing outport Newfoundland and Labrador as quickly as water running down a drain. On top of that, the entire province is in a population crisis. It's people are aging more quickly, and its birthrate is falling faster, than any province or state in North America.

But Branch has a secret weapon: it's mayor - Priscilla Corcoran Mooney. She's a 31 year old social worker, business owner and probably the youngest municipal leader in Newfoundland and Labrador. And Priscilla has a radical plan.

She's determined - government demographers be damned - to increase the population of Branch to five hundred people. Heather Barrett went to Branch to find out how. Her documentary is called "21 Reasons".

The Irish Rebellion!

In today's Telegram, on the op-ed pages, there's a large headline that's impossible to miss:

THE IRISH REBELLION

There are 3 letters underneath it, all in response to an editorial The Telegram published last week, which claimed the connections between Ireland and Newfoundland were widely over-stated and were being emphasized in recent years for mercenary reasons (i.e., we're hoping to cash in on the near-miraculous and sustained boom of the Irish economy).

Sadly, none of them are on The Telegram's website, so you'll have to go out and get a copy of today's (Saturday December 1's) paper to read them.

One letter is from an Irishman who is partially in support of the editorial (he seems to have missed the point, for he largely suggests physical differences between Newfoundland and Ireland. While the countryside around St. Bride's and Point Lance comes close, for the most part no one has ever tried to say our rocky isle in the ocean looks like the old Emerald Isle --- our connection is with the people, the culture!)

The other two letters, though, strongly rebut The Telegram's editorial, and they both originate from here, Placentia. We are ground zero and central headquarters for this 'Irish Rebellion,' as The Telegram puts it.

We've always billed ourselves as the French Capital of Newfoundland. Maybe the time has come to claim Irish Capital of Newfoundland as well?

An unusual angle

Cape St. Mary's is probably one of my favourite places in the world, and I've traveled a bit. It's a real gem. The shot of the Bird Rock from the other side of the cove is pretty ubiquitous, almost as common as the shot of Placentia from Castle Hill.

But if you continue on the trail a little and follow it around, you get a really unusual angle that helps us see this natural wonder with fresh eyes.

(Photo submitted by Michael Collins)