Travel Tips for Newfoundland: Don’t kiss yer codfish dere b’y - and more

I just finished the book Beauty Tips From Moose Jaw by yer Will Ferguson. As a result, I want to visit Moose Jaw someday, see all their underground tunnels, and also travel to most of the other places Mr. Ferguson mentions inside his ten enlightening, amusing and at times rowdy chapters.

Since I may motorcycle to Halifax this summer and a friend has offered me free accommodation on The Rock (Nfld.) I just might get to St. John’s and Signal Hill and Quidi Vidi ((pronounced “Kiddy Viddy”), one of the prettiest coves in Canada, and buy several cheap souvenir postcards. But I won’t get “screeched in” or kiss the codfish.

About getting “screeched in” Mr. Ferguson writes:

"This is a ritual - a completely bogus ritual - staged mainly to amuse the locals, wherein gullible tourists are forced to recite some folklore gibberish and drink a kick of rum (the infamous screech) and then kiss a cod, all in the mistaken belief that they are ingratiating themselves with their hosts. They aren’t."


"I suspect being screeched in began as idle talk over a kitchen table. “Why, these Mainlanders are so thick, I bet we could make them kiss a smelly old codfish. I bet we could make them kiss its arse - long as we tell them it’s part of our heritage.”

Thanks for the heads-up, Will.

So, yer won’t catch me wit me lips up close to no codfish, b’y.