Skipper

She's a dory, not a taxi.

Where do you want to go.

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A shared trip

Games

Come in. Pull up a chair.

Trivia

The Board

Them days you sent a youngster up the road to say there was a game on. Now you send the code, and if a chair's still empty when you deal, one of the regulars takes it.

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Down the road

Well, Sunday after Mass we'd walk it. Start at the gate and go down, and every house along here I'll tell you who's in it.

Kitchen Parties Newfoundland

The kitchen party is one of the most important social institutions in Newfoundland culture, and understanding it is essential to understanding Newfoundlanders. A kitchen party is an informal, spontaneous or loosely planned gathering at someone's home — typically in the kitchen, historically the warmest room in the house — where music, singing, storytelling, and conversation happen organically. Any

The kitchen party is one of the most important social institutions in Newfoundland culture, and understanding it is essential to understanding Newfoundlanders. A kitchen party is an informal, spontaneous or loosely planned gathering at someone's home — typically in the kitchen, historically the warmest room in the house — where music, singing, storytelling, and conversation happen organically. Anyone who can play an instrument brings it. Fiddles, guitars, accordions, button accordions, tin whistles, and bones are all common. Participants take turns performing — a song, a tune, a recitation — while others listen, clap, tap feet, and join in on choruses they know. No formal program exists. The host provides food and drink, often including screech rum, beer, salt fish appetizers, and baked goods. Kitchen parties emerged from outport culture where communities were isolated, commercial entertainment was scarce, and people made their own fun. They were the social glue of community life, the venue where courtship happened, where local news was shared, where grief was processed after a funeral, and where community identity was reinforced. Though the tradition has evolved — modern kitchen parties may happen in living rooms with better furniture — the spirit remains the same: informal, participatory, rooted in music and talk, with no audience-performer divide. Kitchen parties are how traditional Newfoundland music has been preserved and transmitted across generations without formal instruction.

Fact

On the go

Them days the garden party was the whole summer. Here's what's on the go now, and when.

The kitchen

Well, Sunday the pot was on before Mass and the smell of it met you at the gate. Here's what was in it, and how it's done.

The hall

Them days the hall had a dance Saturday and the kitchen had music the rest of the week. It's still playing. Come in and listen.

The yarns

He said, you know the one about the light on the water. I said, I do. That's a story, mind, and I'll tell you which parts.

Not the house

No, I said, that's not the house. It was down just below there. Go back up the road.

Back up the road