Bonfires

Tomorrow is Bonfire Night in the UK. It's a tradition that travelled here to Newfoundland with those livyers / settlers from the southern parts of England.

Bonfire Night was celebrated regularly in St. John's until some got just a little too big. It was subsequently banned within city limits.



They continued to set blasty boughs ablaze in communities 'out around the bay' for many, many years. Still do, in fact. I attended one in the backyard of the some folks living on Little Bay Islands a number of years ago. Exhilarating!

Click here for the locations of Bonfire Night interviews and photographs collected as part of Newfoundland's Intangible Heritage Inventory. And here for another article about the revival of what was a dying tradition.

Maybe you'd like to attend this year's Bonfire Night in Marystown? Or in Holyrood? I'm gonna try and get to this one in Conception Bay South!