The Outer Cove Air

Today is #CleanAirDay in Canada, a day to highlight how important good air quality is for our health and our environment. We may be biased but we believe that, here in Newfoundland, we have some of the freshest air in all of Canada.

Outer Cove Beach, 2017. Photo credit: Lisa Daly

And, if we may be so bold, perhaps Outer Cove has some of the nicest air in all of Newfoundland! Some people from St. John's certainly thought so, according to stories from Mary Boland of Outer Cove about her mother and the laundry from St. John's. Mary was born and lived in the Rocky Hills area of Outer Cove in 1920, and during an oral history interview in 2000 conducted by her son, Martin Boland, she shared the following story.

When Mary was in grade 7, which was likely around 1932, her mother Catherine Hickey (nee Dyer) broke her arm, so Mary left school to help her mother out at home. Her mother took in the laundry for several affluent families from the St. John's area. At the time, St. John's would have had coal-burning stoves in almost all the houses to keep the house heated. Coal smoke would have hung thick over the houses of St. John's. Meanwhile, Outer Cove would have been mostly wood-burning stoves, and with a much smaller and more spread out population, the air in the area would have been just as fresh as it is today.

Newfoundland Clothesline. Photo credit: K. Bruce Lane Photography

via: lanephotography.com

One day, the family goat got loose and ate the clothes off the line that Mary's mother had recently hung. The clothes belonged to a Mrs. Anderson, who Mary recalls was a Scottish nurse married to a Dr. Thomas Anderson of St. John's. When Mary's mother apologised to Mrs. Anderson about the state of her laundry, she said didn't care if the goat ate her clothes so long as they were dried outside.

In fact, Mrs. Anderson was so adamant that her clothes be dried outside in the air of Outer Cove, that she didn't care what sort of weather they were dried in! Mary recalls one time when a tablecloth and a sheet blew off the line and were later found up by the bog. They weren't found until spring!

When the clothes were found, "Mom said: 'She'll eat me now.' Mom told her and she said: 'My child, don't worry about that. Get that when the snow goes. That shows you have them dried out.' That's all she made of it."

Outer Cove Beach. Photo Credit: Claxton Ray [Public domain]

via Wikimedia Commons

Mrs. Anderson must have loved Outer Cove a great deal, because Mary remembers that her and the Doctor would drive out to the Point, where the Outer Cove lookout is now, every day and just watch the water. One evening in October, Mary remembers the car stopping outside their house and Mrs. Anderson asked if she could come in and warm herself by the fire while Mary and her mother were ironing.

Warming herself in front of the fire, Mrs. Anderson told Mary's mother, "'Well, Mrs. Hickey, anyone that have this should never be sick down here because this is the most beautiful place in the world.' Mom said, 'Well ma'am, if you were down here in the middle of winter you wouldn't say that. And trying to dry clothes...' 'Well', she said, 'I'm telling you, I know you must dry them outside because I often gets the clothes in the wintertime and the air'd be strong with the frost in it. I used to sniff them for hours!'"

In addition to her love of the smell of the fresh air on her clothes, Mrs. Anderson also believed the fresh air of Outer Cove was beneficial to a person's health. "She said that anyone that had anyway good health at all should never be sick, have TB or anything here, because the fresh air is priceless."

Until the snow came, the Andersons would be down every day for a drive to watch the water and to breathe the air. Mrs. Anderson said to Mary once, "it was so beautiful to see the water blowing up against the cliff, and the white surf. We'd breathe in the air. You don't realise it because you were born and raised here, but to go out of the city, and go down there and breathe that, you'd have to be healthy".

We agree with Mrs. Anderson. The waves at Outer Cove beach are absolutely stunning, and the air is lovely and crisp and fresh. Come see for yourselves sometime!

Katie (Museum Coordinator)

Sources: Oral History Interview with Mary Boland, LBMCOC Museum Archives.