De-Code Our Trail!

I am told that the little gravel road winding down to the sea is now overgrown with grass. I suppose that in another decade or two, folks will stroll down this old road, will notice the indications that people once lived there and will wonder how and what kind of people lived there.     

– John Morgan, former resident¹

Part of a project with the Cupids Trails Committee, this website was created to host historical, folkloric, and geological information about the abandoned communities that once existed along the Burnt Head and Spectacle Head trails in Cupids, Newfoundland and Labrador.

Each entry ("Next stop") directly relates to a specific trail sign and offers an opportunity to learn more about the communities, what they were like when they thrived, the reasons they were eventually abandoned, and their natural environment. You will be introduced to some of the families who lived in the area, and hear their stories and learn about their lives. 

We hope this website will evolve—that it will be added to as we learn more stories to include. If you cannot get out to the trails, you can navigate this site as if you were walking along them. 

The stories are in three general categories, which are indicated by one of these icons:

¹ Recollections of Burnt Head, John Morgan, n.d., Collection of Yvonne Akerman Reid.

Land Acknowledgement

The Cupids Trails Committee respectfully acknowledges the territory in which we live as the ancestral homelands of the Beothuk, and the island of Newfoundland as the ancestral homelands of the Mi'kmaq and Beothuk. We also acknowledge the Inuit of Nunatsiavut and NunatuKavut, as well as the Innu of Nitassinan, and their ancestors, as the original peoples of Labrador. We acknowledge with respect the diverse histories and cultures of the Indigenous People in Newfoundland and Labrador, and strive for respectful relationships with all the peoples of this province.

First Stop: Burnt Head – The Heart of a Community

Burnt Head – The Heart of a Community

 

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St. Augustine's Church and nearby Church of England school were the heart of the communities along the Burnt Head Trail, offering a place for neighbours to gather and share stories together weekly.

St. Augustine's Church, Burnt Head, Cupids, ca. 1986.

Photo courtesy of Decks Awash, Vol. 15, no. 2, March–April 1986.

Many of the families who lived nearby were Anglican, and attended St. Augustine's Church in Burnt Head on Sundays. St. Augustine's was one of several Anglican churches built at Burnt Head. The first was started in the 1700s and was located where the cemetery is today.¹ The church was moved to accommodate the need for more space in the cemetery, and a larger building was constructed for a growing congregation.

An unidentified man in front of St. Augustine's Church, date unknown.

Photo courtesy of Fanny Bussey, Cupids Historical Society Collection, Cupids Legacy Centre.

The building you see today was constructed in 1911. It replaced an earlier church that was destroyed by fire in 1910. The new church could seat about 400 people and was often filled to capacity.² According to Cupids resident Bob Bishop, more people lived in the communities near the shores of Burnt Head than further inland. St. Augustine's was built in a location to be equally convenient to all its congregants. 

Building the 1911 church was a community effort. George Morgan and his son Fred reportedly hauled more than 400 cartloads of rock from a quarry at Deep Gulch to build the foundation of the church.³

A handful of Roman Catholic families were living in the communities along the Burnt Head Trail, but there was no Roman Catholic church. It is believed that the Roman Catholic families worshipped in the local Roman Catholic school or made their way over the hills to nearby Brigus to attend the Roman Catholic church there.⁴

St. Augustine's church was a place of socialization as much as a place of worship for the people of Burnt Head. It hosted many organizations that helped strengthen the community, such as the Church of England Women's Association and the Sunday School. Listen to Bob Bishop reminisce about how the church was the heart of the community.

Cupids Trails Committee · Bob Bishop - Centre of the Community

It was the centre of the community. I mean, I can remember when we would go to church, all the elder gentlemen in the community would be outside by the gates with their hats on and their full dress and their pipes going. That's where all the news got told. And then when the bell would ring, the church bell meaning that it was time to go in for service, they'd all go in through the gate and knock the ashes out of their pipe on the gate. I can see them doing it now, right. So, it was the centre of the community.     

– Bob Bishop

The schools were also important places for community gatherings. The Church of England school taught not only the Anglican children of the Burnt Head Trail area but some of the Roman Catholic children, as well. The Walshes were a Roman Catholic family in Deep Gulch, and they sent their children, for a while, to the Church of England school. It is likely this was due to convenience—it was much closer to walk to than the Roman Catholic school in Burnt Head.

The schools were the scene of events such as dances, Christmas concerts, church suppers, and "Sales of Work." People would break out their fiddles and their accordions for the dances and, reportedly, play and dance into the wee hours of the morning. In the Roman Catholic school in Burnt Head, kerosene lamps would be lit and the desks pushed to the sides of the room in order to make space for dancing.⁵ 

The styles of dance were the Newfoundland square dance and reels. Former resident Martha LeDrew says that her father forbade her from attending the dances at the Roman Catholic school because people were allowed to drink alcohol (unlike at the Church of England events).⁶ The Church of England dances were sometimes held in the Fisherman's Union Hall, since it had more space.

At Sales of Work, people would auction goods they had made, grown, or acquired, to raise money for the church and schools. Vegetables or dry goods might be on offer, or crafts such as knitted goods. These events were often followed by a supper of pork and cabbage—and tea.

¹ Interview with Bob Bishop by Katie Crane, June 4, 2021.
² Daily News, August 18, 1962.
² Daily News, August 18, 1962.
³ Interview with Cecil Morgan by Kelly Butler, August 20, 1997, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.
⁴ Renelle Bishop, "The Abandoned Communities: Greenland, Noder Cove and Deep Gulch," August 6, 2000, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.
⁵ Interview with John Fowler by Kelly Butler, August 6, 1997, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.
⁶ Interview with Martha LeDrew by Kelly Butler, August 8, 1997, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.

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Read the Rocks

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The rugged landscape of Cupids that you see today is ancient. It was shaped by the erosive action of glacial ice sheets as they moved across the Avalon peninsula for hundreds of thousands of years—during the Pleistocene glaciation between 2.5 million and 12,000 years ago. It is the most recent glacial period experienced in this region.

At the beginning of the Burnt Head Trail, just as you leave behind the fencing around the old Anglican cemetery, you will walk across a wide area of 575 million year old dark grey bedrock of the Drook Formation — it is the foundation of the Burnt Head area. The smooth surface is the result of thousands of years of grinding and polishing by the Pleistocene ice sheets.

Look closely and you can see dozens of parallel scratches and grooves on the smooth surface of the rock. These were gouged by pebbles and gravel as they were dragged over the rock, trapped under enormous pressure beneath thick glacial ice. The scratches here were probably made at the very end of the glaciation, between 10,000 and 20,000 years ago.

Scratches were made by pebbles and gravel dragged over the bedrock beneath glacial ice.

These can be seen next to the cemetery fence.

These etchings can tell us a little bit about how the glaciers moved. Their orientation lets us know that the glaciers were moving to the northeast, toward Conception Bay. There, far beyond the modern shoreline of Burnt Head Point, the ice sheets calved icebergs into the North Atlantic, much like Greenland glaciers do today. This area of glacially smoothed bedrock was known as "Bald Rock" by local residents because little grass would grow here.

Other areas of exposed bedrock can be found along the trail. One such area — between houses in Noder Cove — was used as a cart path because of its natural smoothness. It was even kept washed clean by the women of the community.¹

¹ Renelle Bishop, "The Abandoned Communities: Greenland, Noder Cove and Deep Gulch," August 6, 2000, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.

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If the Land Could Talk ...

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I was much struck with the beauty of the little valley we had visited, its sheltered situation between two bold rocky ridges, and the apparent superiority of the soil on the banks of the pond and brook, as evinced by the larger size of the trees, and the little patches of natural grass or turf which were to be seen.  

– J. Beete Jukes, 1842¹

The families who once lived along the coastline in this area were largely self-sufficient. They grew their own vegetables, raised their own livestock, and hunted, fished, and foraged for their food. The closest shops were located in what is known as Burnt Head, and in Cupids, or over the hill in nearby Brigus.²

Most families had small kitchen gardens near their houses. They grew vegetables such as cabbages, carrots, potatoes, beets, turnips, and other root vegetables. Seeds were collected and saved for the next season — the shops in Brigus or Cupids could supply seeds for crops whose seeds were too difficult to collect (such as carrots and turnips).³

Three men and a child pose with their long-bladed scythes, date unknown.
Photo courtesy of Ed Taylor, Cupids Historical Society Collection, Cupids Legacy Centre.

They also needed larger pastures to grow hay, to feed horses and cows, which would be harvested using scythes. Hay from the summer crop was dried and kept in the stable. Where now there are trees, families would tend several garden plots. Rock walls served as permanent boundaries that indicated to successive generations where their family land was located. These gardens and pastures are gone now, but you can still see the remains of rock walls and old fences that formed the pasture boundaries.

Early settlers from England and Ireland brought their dry stone wall traditions with them. Dry stone walls are built without mortar.⁴ Sometimes the stone was quarried, but rocks removed to make land more tillable were mostly used. Sometimes known as "diter" walls, they were built or repaired after the fishing season was over and fishermen returned from Labrador.⁵

The stones were stacked, piled or even thrown together to form boundaries⁶, some more loose piles than sturdy walls. They protected crops from horses, cows, goats, and sheep, which were generally left to roam during the summer. In winter time the animals were kept stabled to protect them from the harsh Newfoundland weather. Households also kept hens and sometimes ducks.

In the summer, caplin was collected.⁷ This little fish was very important to Newfoundland life. In addition to being pan fried and eaten for lunch, caplin was also used as fertilizer for the gardens and fed to the dogs.

¹ J. Beete Jukes, Excursions In and About Newfoundland During the Years 1839 and 1840, Volume 1, London: John Murray, 1842.
² Renelle Bishop, "The Abandoned Communities: Greenland, Noder Cove and Deep Gulch," August 6, 2000, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.
³ Graham Newell, interview with Kelly Butler, July 14, 1997, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.
⁴ Dan Snow and Dale Jarvis, "Dry Stone Wall Building and Its Place in Newfoundland's Heritage," Living Heritage Podcast episode 204, April 9, 2021.
⁵ "Diter," Dictionary of Newfoundland English, edited by George Story, W.J. Kirwin, J.D.A. Widdowson, and Rex Murphy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990.
⁶ Alexander Robertson, The Walled Landscape of Grates Cove, National Historic Site, http://lib-lespaul.library.mun.ca/PDFs/cns/GratesCoveStoneWalls.pdf.
⁷ Vernon Taylor, interview with Tammy Mason, June 15, 1998, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.

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Greenland – Cove to Cove Connections

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A small village of such houses presented a comfortable looking sight, and housed probably happier families than they would had they been marble halls.

                                    – John Morgan, former resident of Burnt Head¹

Houses in Greenland once hugged the shoreline. Many had small kitchen gardens nearby, in which the vegetables that would sustain families throughout the year were grown. Family names included Newell, Dawe, Hussey, and Whelan. Residents had close ties to nearby Brigus and there were paths over the hills connecting the two communities. One of the roads leading to Brigus was called Barren's Road.²

You can make a short cut and go from here to Brigus, you know the road is not any good anymore but it was then. Walk over in about twenty minutes, you could go from here to Brigus.   

– James Bishop Dawe, former resident of Greenland²

The nearest doctor, a Doctor Gill, lived in Brigus and Greenland residents had to walk over the hills if they needed medical advice. As well, there were a few merchants in Brigus who would outfit men for the Labrador fishery. Some men would sign on with a Mr. Greenland or a Mr. Hiscock, both Brigus merchants, and get necessary supplies for the Labrador fishing season from them.

Family and friends crowded into a small boat offshore from the community of Greenland, in the background.
Photo courtesy of Ira Butler.

In 1935, 23 people lived in Greenland. Not long after, people began moving away from the community to begin new lives elsewhere. Several reasons have been given for the slow abandonment of Greenland (and the other communities along the Burnt Head Trail: Morgan's Cove, Noder Cove, and Deep Gulch³). Former residents indicate that the opening of the American naval base in Argentia (1941) offered some men regular employment and they moved their families to be closer to their work. 

Similarly, the Labrador fishery drew men seasonally to the waters of Domino Run (near Spotted Island, Labrador). Eventually it seemed more feasible to move closer to the fishing grounds and avoid the long trips and the time away from family. 

There has also been speculation that nearby Cupids, which had been connected to electric power, appealed to residents wishing for modern conveniences⁴. By the end of the 1940s, all Greenland residents had left.

¹ John Morgan, "Recollections of Burnt Head," n.d., Collection of Yvonne Akerman Reid.

² Renelle Bishop, "The Abandoned Communities: Greenland, Noder Cove and Deep Gulch," August 6, 2000, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.³ James Bishop Dawe, interview with Victor DuPree, August 27, 1967, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive. 

³ Renelle Bishop, "The Abandoned Communities: Greenland, Noder Cove and Deep Gulch," August 6, 2000, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.
⁴ Tammy Mason, "Life in the Abandoned Settlements of Cupids," August 31, 1998, Cupids Historical Society, Cupids Legacy Centre.

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Greenland – A Poet's Inspiration

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Teacher, poet, activist, and political delegate, Isaac Newell was born in Greenland to Edward and Lilly Newell on January 1, 1917.¹ He graduated from the Church of England school in Burnt Head and in 1935 began working toward his teaching diploma at the Memorial University College (1925–1949). He was the recipient of the Old Memorials Association scholarship as a promising first-year student.² He graduated with his diploma in 1937.³

The young Isaac Newell, ca. 1940.
Photo courtesy of Archives and Special Collections (Isaac Newell Collection, Coll-090),
Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Newell went on to teach for two years in Corner Brook before becoming a co-operative fieldworker for the International Grenfell Association (IGA) at St. Anthony, where he saw firsthand the hardships faced by those living in northern Newfoundland. He committed five years to the IGA, to help them set up co-operative workshops that could improve residents' standard of living.

In 1946, Newell ran for election (in the White Bay district) to the National Convention, the mechanism that had been established to determine Newfoundland and Labrador's political future. Once a Dominion, it had been governed by a non-elected Commission of Government since 1934. Newell was considered to be one of the more open-minded delegates. He supported the inclusion of the option of Confederation with Canada in the general referendum that was eventually held.

Politics was not Newell's passion, however, and after Newfoundland (as the province was initially named) joined Confederation in 1949, he enrolled at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario. After earning his Bachelor's degree in Education there, he went on to Duke University in North Carolina, receiving a Master of Arts, then Oxford University in England, where he received a Bachelor of Literature. He went back to Queen's in 1957, where he taught English Literature until shortly before his death on May 26, 1977.

Isaac Newell was an accomplished poet. Much of his poetry was inspired by his life in Newfoundland and Labrador, and especially by his childhood in Greenland. Ten years after his death, his widow, Jean Nast, gave a large collection of his writing, much of it unpublished, to the Special Collections and Archives at Memorial University. She also donated his collection of rare books, which included several important works by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.

Walking along the trail at Burnt Head, we have been inspired by this poem by Isaac Newell. We encourage you to think about the people who lived in these communities that once thrived here, when you walk in their footsteps.

I Walked an Old, Worn Road

I walked an old worn road yesterday

And silently out of the past and by my side

You came, and fell in step in the old way—

Birds hushed their song to listen, satisfied

With the magnitude of the dream; you smiled and said,

“Why did you never ask to be forgiven?

To this one moment all my soul has been given

Its yearnings in the houses of the dead.”

And then you vanished leaving me alone

To ponder o’er the riches time had wrought—

Alone, and yet my loneliness undone,

Buried with you forever in the vault.

And that is why I’ll always love to stray

Down an old dusty road of yesterday.⁴

Isaac Newell is not the only poet who has lived in and loved the Burnt Head area. Peter Barnes, a member of the Cupids Trails Committee, also composes poems inspired by the walks he takes along the trail. This one was inspired by his dog, Keely. It was written during one of many walks he took on the trail during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Keely, the Anamcara

We walked the trail, a sunny day;
Beauty, splendour, in full array.

Shoreline vistas, snow-covered path;

Strength in the body, the soul must hath.

Our steps were light, danced along;

Accompanied by the occasional song.

Time did slip and footsteps too;

Ice under snow, tiny tracks, a few.

Words, beauty, enriching life;

Opening space, disappearing strife.

Horizons loom on distant shore;

Snow clad hills, creatures adore.

The piles of rocks, tell tales of past;

When livyers dwelt, their gardens vast.

Storms did brew, blow through in gusts;

Danger loomed, in God they trust.

The snow it hides the common route;

I track to the right no thought about.

Keely knew with different sense;

To go to the left even snow immense.

We tracked my way, thought I knew best;

Stopped at times, to take a spell, a rest.

Only a matter of time, truth revealed;

The shorter route the snow had concealed.

I knew it then to trust the wise;

Keely'd sensed the snow's disguise.

A lesson learned, a gift for sure;

For he's my best friend, who could ask for more.⁵

 

¹ The Gazette, March 23, 1995, www.heritage.nf.ca/articles/arts/isaac-newell-collection.php.

² Memorial University College Newfoundland Calendar 1938-1939, https://collections.mun.ca/digital/collection/cns_tools/id/186801.

³Memorial University College Newfoundland Calendar 1941–42, https://collections.mun.ca/digital/collection/cns_tools/id/186770.

⁴Archives and Special Collections at Memorial University, Isaac Newell Collection, Coll-090, File 25, P 3.

⁵ Peter Barnes, Tuesday, March 21, 2021, at Anamcara, NF, Cupids, NL.

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Fairies Underfoot

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Be careful where you tread as you hike along the trails and through the woods in Newfoundland and Labrador. There are more creatures living in them than just birds and moose and fox. They are also home to wily Newfoundland and Labrador fairies who are known for taking unwitting travellers away to the fairy realm. There are stories from all over the province of people who were "taken by the fairies" and never returned—or who were forever changed by their adventure.

Mrs. Frances Richards, born in Carbonear, married into the Richards family of Cupids when she was 22.¹ She doesn't remember hearing about fairies in Carbonear, but once she moved into Cupids, the old folks had many tales to tell her of the Good People. Crossing marshes or collecting your cattle as dusk was coming on was considered very dangerous—a fairy encounter was all but guaranteed. 

Mrs. Richards reported that wearing a red hat would attract fairies: they are drawn to anything red. In one of her stories, a man from Brigus was often held by the fairies when he would go to collect wood in the hills. Several times when he got to a particular place, his horse would refuse to budge. He would stay all night in the woods, unable to account for the passing of time or say what had happened to him, until the fairies let him go again in the morning.

There were several ways to prevent being led astray. One of them was to keep hard bread in your pocket. Children were especially prone to being taken—to prevent this, a small New Testament Bible would be placed in carriages or cradles.

Peter Laracy, a resident of Cupids, says that his grandfather would warn him of the dangers of fairies before he'd go picking berries on nearby hills.

My grandfather was ninety when he died. I used to call him Old Daddy. So [when] I was small … if I was going up picking berries, he would generally wave at me like this: "Are you going up picking berries now, my babby?" So “my babby,” it means my baby. That is a term of affection for a grandchild. "Are you going up picking berries now, my babby?" And I’d say, "Yes Old Daddy."

[He’d say,] "Now, you mind me. When you get up there on the hills, if you hear any music, you come down here. You run back home right away, won’t you? Won’t you? Won’t you?" And of course I’d always answer "Yes," because he’d frighten the life out of me. [He would go on,] "Have you got any pockets on you? Have you got any pockets on you? Put your hand out. Put your hand out. Let’s see your hand. Put your hand right down in front of you. I’ve got something for you." And he’d put his hand in his pocket and take hard bread out. 

[He’d tell me,] "Now you put that in your pocket. Put that down in your pocket. Put it right down. Right down at the bottom of your pocket. And I don’t want you to lose that. You won’t lose it, will you? If you hear any music when you’re upon the hills, you reach in your pocket. You take that bread out and you take that and you toss that and then you run home to me as fast as you can, won’t you? Will, ya? Yes, you better I’m telling you right now, you better run home if you hear that music." 

So what he would be passing me is a cake of hard bread. So the reason he would be giving me the hard bread is because he was afraid that if I was up the hill and I was hearing music, it would be music that would be played by the fairies [and he believed the hard bread would protect me from the fairies].²

¹ Frances Richards, interview with with Victor DuPree, August 27, 1967, Memorial University of Newfoundland Folklore and Language Archive.
² Peter Laracy, quoted in Mahdi Khaksar, "Berries and Fairies," in Work in Cupids. Edited by Jillian Gould and Diane Tye, 27–28. St. John's, NL: Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Folklore, 2017.

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Morgan's Cove – Underground Storage

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Root cellars played an important role for generations. They were used to protect and preserve stored vegetables from frost in winter and the heat of the summer. One of the first actions of John Guy's colonists in their 1610 plantation in Cupids was to dig a storage cellar.¹

Families in the Burnt Head area grew their vegetables in their kitchen gardens. Most were eaten fresh, but it was necessary to put some aside for the winter. Vegetables could be bottled, pickled, or salted, and most would be stored in the root cellar.²

Root cellars come in many shapes and sizes. In this region, the "Hatch and Shed" style is common.³ For these, a hole was dug into the earth and lined with rocks to create a foundation. A shed was built above, with a hatch in the wooden floor for accessing the root cellar. The shed and floor helped insulate the cellar and protect the vegetables. Typically, cellars were built between the fields where crops were grown and the house to which the cellar belonged.

A Morgans Cove root cellar.
The mound in the middle distance, beyond the interpretation post, marks the remains of a root cellar. Dwarf juniper grows inside the hollow. Most cellars were lined with neatly laid stone walls, and several still have some of their original stone work.

For storage, harvested vegetables were placed in divided wooden compartments. Potatoes and turnip were stored in these compartments, carrots and parsnip were placed in bins or buckets, and cabbage was stored higher up, sometimes hung from the ceiling. Jams, jellies, pickles, and relishes would also be kept in the root cellar, because of its cool temperature.

The remains of over forty root cellars can be seen along the Burnt Head Trail, although there are perhaps more to be found. It can be difficult to identify them now because the wooden sheds were removed by families when they moved out of the area. Today, all that is left are the rock-lined holes—may of which have been taken over by nature. So be careful where you step!

¹ William Gilbert, Avalon Chronicles, Vol. 8, No. 3, 2003.
² Agricultural Society of Newfoundland and Labrador, The Practice of Gardens in Newfoundland and Labrador
³ Crystal Braye, "Exploring Our Roots: A Heritage Inventory of Newfoundland's Root Cellars," Occasional Paper on Intangible Cultural Heritage, No. 003, April 2013.

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