Down to Sally's Cove: Newfoundland Stories by Ella Manuel
“DOWN TO SALLY’S COVE” is a collection of stories about Newfoundland and Labrador by Ella Manuel (1911-1985) and read by me, Antony Berger. I’m the editor of my mother’s writings about the history and rich culture of the places she lived, and the people she knew and loved. New episodes will be uploaded every week until mid-January 2021.
In 1945, after years in England and the USA, Ella returned to Newfoundland to live, a single mother with two small boys. Using her maiden name, she began to write for newspapers and magazines and to read for radio stories about the places and people she met, recapturing some of the forgotten men and women of Newfoundland’s past. Over the next three decades, her voice became known across Canada through her many broadcasts on the CBC. When she died, she left behind a confused mass of undated manuscripts and notes, which I have now arranged and edited. Only a few recordings of her marvellous voice still exist, so I have decided to read her stories myself, notwithstanding the challenge of a male voice substituting for hers.The stories are arranged in five groups. Season 1 is entitled Around Bonne Bay; Season 2 - Friends and Neighbours; Season 3 - Beyond the Bay; Season 4 - Medics, Missionaries and Military Men; Season 5 - Tough Times at Sea; Season 6 - Ghosts and Dirty Tricks
A biography of my mother, together with a selection of her writings and broadcasts, including many of these podcast episodes, has been published under the title “No Place for a Woman. The Life and Newfoundland Stories of Ella Manuel” (Breakwater Books, St. John’s NL, 2020).Episodes
46 episodes
EPISODE 46 - SPARBLES, SAVELOYS AND SCROOPY BOOTS
In this final episode of the "Down to Sally's Cove" podcast, Ella Manuel comments on some of the odd phrases and strange words she came across in her travels around Newfoundland. Most, but not all, are now clearly explained in the m...
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Season 6
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Episode 46
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9:47
EPISODE 45 - BOATS AND BEARS ON ICE
In this episode Ella Manuel recalls ice-boating on Burnt Bay off Lewisporte in the 1920s, and how her friend Nancy met a "bear" while crossing the Bay on the winter ice.
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Season 6
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Episode 45
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16:23
EPISODE 44 - THE LUMBER CAMP TRICKSTER
Ella Manuel tells a story about a young sleeveen from Baker's Brook who was forever causing trouble in the woods camp where he worked.
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Season 6
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Episode 44
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14:27
EPISODE 43 - GRANDFATHER'S FAMOUS GOAT
Many are the stories told around Newfoundland and Labrador about goats and rams possessed of special powers and inclined to mad antics. Here is one that Aunt Jenny, who lived in Bloomfield many years ago, told Ella Manuel abou...
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Season 6
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Episode 43
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9:35
EPISODE 42 - THE GHOST OF DORMAN'S COVE
Uncle John tells the young Ella Manuel a spooky story from the Bay of Exploits.
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Season 6
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Episode 42
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13:20
EPISODE 41 - BONFIRE NIGHT IN BURNT BAY
In this first episode of the final season (“Ghosts and Dirty Tricks") ,Ella Manuel recalls a memorable Guy Fawkes night when she was a young girl in Lewisporte in the 1920 s.
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Season 6
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Episode 41
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15:53
EPISODE 40 - YANKEES IN THE KINGDOM OF COD
Here Ella Manuel recalls a visit to Newfoundland 170 years ago of an American ship loaded with dignitaries come to see what should have been the laying of the first telegraph cable to Nova Scotia.
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Season 5
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Episode 40
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12:58
EPISODE 39 - WHEN SHIPS WERE SHIPS AND NOT TIN POTS
Here Ella recalls an old salt named Will Barnes. Though she never met him in life, his memoir of wild exploits at sea delighted her.
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Season 5
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Episode 39
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14:45
Episode 38 - SIX MONTHS ADRIFT ON THE ICE
During the long history of Arctic exploration, of expeditions that disappeared and of the many attempts to find them, one in particular stands out for its connection with Captain Isaac Bartlett of Brigus. Here is Ella Manuel's re-telling...
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Season 5
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Episode 38
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13:42
Episode 37 - THE SUFFERING OF NEIL DEWAR
This story was first told by Neil Dewar himself, and has been repeated in several recent books. Dewar's experiences remind us of the terrible conditions that faced those who two centuries ago survived shipwreck on the empty coast of nort...
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Season 5
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Episode 37
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15:12
Episode 36- MURDER AT SEA - OR WAS IT?
Around 1900, John Pittman of Rocky Harbour disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Here Ella Manuel tells a story of what might have happened to him.
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Season 5
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Episode 36
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11:54
Episode 35 - SHIPWRECKED OFF GREEN GARDENS
Among the early 19th century seamen who wrote of their voyages to Newfoundland and Labrador was British Lieutenant Edward Chappell. In 1818 he published an account of the cruise five years earlier of H.M.S. Rosamond to Newfoundland and Labra...
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Season 5
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Episode 35
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18:06
Episode 34 - MacDERMOTT OF FORTUNE BAY
Another missionary of sorts, this one with a medical wife, was the Rev. Hugh MacDermott who arrived in 1904 not far from where Dr. “Fitz” was working, though the one seems to have written little about the other. Ella Manuel’s story of ...
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Season 4
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Episode 34
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11:35
Episode 33 - DR. FITZ OF "THE ALBATROSS"
About the same time that James Lumsden arrived in Newfoundland, young doctor Conrad Fitz-Gerald landed in Harbour Breton to attend to people who worked along the southeast coast for a company of fish and wine merchants. As Ella Manuel relate...
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Season 4
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Episode 33
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12:10
Episode 32 - JAMES LUMSDEN, THE "SKIPPER-PARSON"
Twenty-five years after Anglican missionary Julian Moreton, the subject of the previous episode, left Newfoundland, along came to the northeastern coast another preacher, whose parishes overlapped Moreton’s. James Lumsden’s assignment was to...
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Season 4
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Episode 32
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13:47
Episode 31 - OUT FROM GREENSPOND WITH JULIAN MORETON
Over the years, Newfoundland and Labrador benefitted from the efforts of dedicated men and women who were sent here to promote one Christian denomination or another. One who fascinated Ella Manuel was Julian Moreton, who pitched up on th...
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Season 4
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Episode 31
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13:06
Episode 30 - McCREA IN FISH-AND-FOG LAND
Throughout the long and complex history of relations with the United States, there came a time when an American invasion was thought to be imminent. In this story, Ella Manuel tells how an officer sent from England to defend Newfou...
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Season 4
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Episode 30
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22:18
Episode 29 - THE 1905 GUIDE TO NEWFOUNDLAND
Here Ella Manuel describes a charming old guide book to Newfoundland, full of information that the tourist and sportsman of the day would need.
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Season 3
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Episode 29
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13:47
Episode 28 - BACK TO EXPLOITS
As a young girl, Ella Manuel often went by boat to visit the lovely island of Exploits in Notre Dame Bay, where her father and his grew up. Many years later she returned, sharing a boat ride with Gail and Gerry Squires, who had made a se...
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Season 3
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Episode 28
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12:52
Episode 27 - THE SKIPPER ON THE BAIE VERTE RUN
In the early 1960s, Ella journeyed around the Northern Peninsula by coastal steamer, then the only public means of moving people and goods from one isolated outport to another. In this account of one trip she made around western Notre Dame B...
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Season 3
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Episode 27
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18:23
Episode 26 - AROUND THE ISLAND FOR 75 CENTS
Here Ella Manuel explains how an old friend from Labrador took a long and completely unwanted voyage in the late 1950s - an unintended prisoner on a coastal steamer.
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Season 3
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Episode 26
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14:17
Episode 25 - THE NEWFOUNDLAND AND LABRADOR PILOT
In this episode Ella Manuel takes a bemused browse through an old copy of the guide to sailors in Newfoundland waters.
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Season 3
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Episode 25
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9:07
Episode 24 - CENTENNIAL ON THE UPPER HUMBER
In the summer of 1967, Ella spends a few days celebrating Canada’s 100th birthday on one of her favourite rivers. And she looks ahead to the world her grandchildren will inherit.
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Season 3
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Episode 24
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10:57
Episode 23 - CHASING THE HERRING
As the Second World War ended, and life began to return to normal, Ella Manuel was keen to learn more about the commercial fishery. Here she tells of her experience on a purse seiner cruising Port-au-Port Bay for herring.
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Season 3
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Episode 23
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14:39
Episode 22 - AMONG THE SCOTS OF THE CODROY
In the mid-1940s, Ella Manuel travelled by train to the Codroy Valley of southwestern Newfoundland. Here she met people whose forefathers had years before settled there, some from Nova Scotia. Their traditional music so fascinated her that s...
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Season 3
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Episode 22
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26:51