PARISH EVENTS

In August month there'd be a garden party. Everyone would help to prepare for this big occasion. The women would do the baking, serve the meals and the men would set up the stalls and take care of the fire and games. When I got older, I'd collect the monies from ticket sales from the games. Other people would work at the garden party in the night time. There'd be a concert and a dance. One game they'd play was shooting. There was a buoy anchored off with a flag on it and if you could hit the flag with a .22 you'd get a prize. People used to come from St. John's in busses to attend the garden party. At the end of the day, I'd bring the money to the Presbratory.

In October month we had Caulcanon. My mother made caulcanon which consisted of meat and vegetables in an iron pot. There was a rabbit supper, also made at home and brought to the hall and heated up. In February there'd be a Pancake Night in the Hall. When they mixed the pancakes, they'd put in a nail, money, a rag and a ring. You'd hunt around in the pancake and if you got a nail you were going to be a carpenter, if you got a rag, you'd be a streel(1) – the ring, you'd get married.

ABOUT FISHING

When we were under England, the schooners would come in here to buy their bait (herring) in the Spring. Jack Carroll from Holyrood had an ice house in the Cooling Pound (now Forest Field) where the bait would be stored until the schooners would buy it from him. Fishermen back then would 'bark' their nets and sails. This was a way of colouring and preserving them. They'd boil water in an iron pot for barking nets and sails and wait for it to cool before using it. The Canadian schooners weren't allowed to bring their own bait because we were under British rule. There were a lot of fishing boats in our area. Mr. Dick Nolan had a schooner and my great grandfather, John Marrie built his own boats. He came from France originally as a stow away on a ship to St. Pierre. His mother had died and his father remarried. It was Andrew Nolan, a relative of my father, who brought him here to Mt. Carmel. Mike Nolan was getting married to Alice Meaney and he asked John Marrie to stand up for him. When the ceremony was over, John turned to Kate (Catherine Meaney) and said "What about us getting the knot tied?" That's how the Nolans and Marries got together.

We used to go in the woods by way of the Fall Path, (where the Wilds Golf Course is now) which took us down to the Salmonier River to cut the wood. We'd start off on Monday morning in the winter time. We'd take our supplies, also hay and oats for the horses. We'd build camps and stay until Saturday evening when we'd come home and get ready for the next week. In the Spring when the ice broke up, we'd drive the logs down the river and the motor boats would tow the booms down from Hurley's Pond to Gough's Mill which was near our Church in Mt. Carmel. It was near Austin Dinn's and was called 'Lumber Grass Point'. It operated in the 30s but when the war started in '41 some men went overseas to work in the Forestry and some men went to the Naval Base in Argentia and as a result the mill was closed.