Don't ever tell 'em you like screech

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Joe Gibbons / the canadian press archives Water Street has 26 stops where you can learn about the history of St.John�s.

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. -- Ask a local what St. John's is like when the Junos aren't in town and he or she will tell you it's the same b'y.

It's just as busy and bustling in this party-mad city even when nothing special is going on.

Of course, those are the locals you can understand. Some people have such a thick accent you really have no idea what they are talking about. I had a 10-minute conversation with a cab driver Saturday and I didn't understand most of what he said, and asking for local beers at one pub resulted in me ordering the red one.

It's all part of the charm of St. John's, a city of just over 100,000 people, which definitely doesn't feel like any other city in Canada. It's the oldest North American settlement, yet it only became an official part of Canada in 1949. You can learn these facts on placards located throughout the city or at 26 different spots along on Water Street, which runs parallel to the harbour, a non-stop hive of activity filled with huge barges, cargo ships, smaller fishing boats and always, the sound of countless gulls. The ships enter the harbour through the Narrows, which is visible from our hotel room. My girlfriend, Jennifer Wilson, couldn't stop looking out of the window.

Everywhere you look there is something to see. The most striking aspect, and the image captured on every souvenir item imaginable, is Jelly Bean Row, a series of brightly coloured three-storey Victorian row houses located throughout downtown. One cab driver I could understand said the tradition of painting every house a different colour was started when people painted their homes with the leftover paint they used for their boats.

The entertainment epicentre is George Street, a two-block strip filled with bars, clubs and pubs with music blasting out of all of them until service stopped at 4 a.m. Estimates of the numbers of bars -- or bears in Newfoundland speak -- ranged from 54 to 134, depending on who you asked, but based on the way I felt Saturday morning, I'm going with the latter number.

It was on George Street where I got screeched-in. Getting screeched-in is a 15-minute ceremony where participants must repeat some impossible-to-understand saying in the regional dialect, take a shot of the local rum, screech, and kiss a stuffed Atlantic puffin (it used to be a salted cod), the province's official bird.

It's actually a decent drink if you enjoy dark rum, but having screech immediately brands you as an out-of-towner, said Trapper John's bartender Ryan Foley.

"Don't tell 'em you like screech, nobody drinks that s--t here," he said.

Most of the Manitobans who attended the Junos did, though, and some of us also tried breaded cod tongue, a local delicacy. There were more than a dozen Winnipeggers in St. John's on the weekend including Juno-nominated roots artist Romi Mayes and her band, Juno-nominated Christian singer-songwriter Steve Bell, Eagle and Hawk's Jay Bodner (who scored a goal in the Juno Cup hockey game), Times Change(d) High & Lonesome Club owner John Scoles, and representatives from Manitoba Music, Manitoba Lotteries Corp. (artistic director Kelly Berehulka, who when asked by a local if he was a tourist replied, "No, I'm a Sagittarius."), Manitoba Homecoming 2010 and Paquin Entertainment.

Mayes got screeched-in during her adventures with local musicians following her Friday night showcase, which she arrived at with just eight minutes to spare after her flight was delayed due to thick fog.

"I've been screeched hard. I think I've been married and divorced three times in Newfoundland already. On Friday, I stayed up until 8 a.m. with the locals," she said about her adventures in the city, which included accidently crashing a wedding with her guitarist Jason Nowicki and standing with the bridesmaids to catch the bouquet.

That sums up St. John's in a nutshell: There was something going on everywhere on the weekend and you were invited, no invitation required (except for some of the industry parties Sunday night following the awards).

Then again, they say it's like that every weekend.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition April 19, 2010 D2