Blogs

The St. John’s International Women’s Film Festival is celebrating its 23-year anniversary by focusing on long-form feature length films.

I woke up early, determined to get a fresh start on the day and take in as much of the beautiful coastline as possible. It was a gorgeous morning, and I was quite content to sit on a cozy rock and watch the sun scatter its rays across the water. And that’s just what I did – until it was time for the main event: the food hike; the reason people flock from all over the world to the Roots, Rants and Roars festival.

Tonight I spent a magical evening amongst the subtle glow of lanterns at the annual St. John’s Lantern Festival. The festival is a fundraiser for Victoria Park in St. John’s historic west end and runs for one day on the last full weekend of July every year.

We are big fans of traditional Newfoundland music whether it be “I’se the Bye” or a song from the Northern Peninsula that we might never have previously heard. Neddy Norris Night is Theatre Newfoundland Labrador’s popular musical night and it takes on a different flavour depending on who is the musical director that year.

Theatre Newfoundland Labrador (TNL) is back in Cow Head and they are performing several new plays for the summer 2012 season. We recently saw “The Fly Fisher’s Companion” and would recommend this play to anyone since although it deals with salmon fishing, its main theme is the changing face of friendship. The play follows Wes (played by Michael Chaisson) and Don (performed by John Dartt) as they gear up to go salmon fishing from a cabin they built together many years ago.

Newfoundland and Labrador has an enduring Irish culture, which is why we go all out celebrating St. Patrick's day, but some of our Irish history is really quite mysterious, stretching back thousands of years...

The first time I saw folk trio The Once, I was sitting in The LSPU Hall – the historic downtown theatre in St. John's – watching Feast of Cohen, an annual concert where local artists gather to perform their own versions of Leonard Cohen songs.

We took a short trip with friends to Newfoundland this week and had the sort of memorable time that everyone talks about whenever they return to Moncton from a visit to St. John's, a city like no other in Canada.

I recently returned from a visit to St. John's, Newfoundland, North America's oldest and most easterly city. St. John's is known to be saturated with Irish traditional and Celtic rock music, but for a smallish city on a fairly remote island, I was surprised by its many other live music offerings.

Four days with Writers at Woody Point, and I’m more inspired than I’ve been my whole life. As Canadian travel journalist Lucy Izon said one evening while taking the water taxi to Woody Point, there’s a sense of community here. Like Banff, I’m so awed by the overwhelming hospitality from everyone...

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, is in its annual prime. The city is on creative wheels. There are so many events, festivals and theatrics going on it’s quite a panic trying to figure out what things you can possibly bear to miss in order to see the things you absolutely can’t.