Second night of the Miramichi 56th Annual Folksong Festival

 The second night to the Festival, Dr. Margaret Steiner from Indiana, USA.  She has been attending the Festival for many many years. (Quite a feat as she is visually impaired).  She launched a new CD tonight.

 One of the Nelson Doyle dancers put on quite a performance!

 Greg Hover (song writer) from Syracuse, New York married a lady from Miramichi, he also attends every year.

 From Belfast Ireland, Gerry Roberts and his wife has a summer home here where they like to spend all their summers, (and why not, such a lovely place to live)....sings lovely ballads.

 A Scots from Scotland, now residing in Miramichi also belongs to a band who call themselves the "How's She Goin' Band, (a popular greeting here on the Miramichi. He composed a song about the tragic deaths of three young fishermen from Tabusintac a couple of months ago.

Dallas MacDonald, son of Wilmot MacDonald who performed at this Festival for many years. 

Stacey Read, an entertaining fiddler has been performing at this festival since she was 4 years old!!!  Great little fiddler.

The 56th Annual Miramichi Folksong Festival August 5-9, 2013

 The Piper is getting ready to lead the procession up to the stage on this evening, August 5, 2013. 

 Thus started the 56th annual Folksong Festival!

 Marshall Button, well known actor originally from Dalhousie, NB now presiding in Moncton, NB opened the Festival on some funny comments.

 Tim Irving on the left received an award for faithfully supplying the sound system (which he does expertly) for the last 30 years!  Congratulations Tim!!

 These are our very own Miramichi Fiddlers, they have been opening for the Festival for years, real good sound.

 Our favorite accordion player, Roger Langteigne from Bathurst, he can surely play that musical instrument.  He also plays at the Acadian Village in Caraquet.

This is Al Parrish (a folksong performer) from Kitchener, Ontario.  (the shirt is a little bright, but I guess he likes it that way) LOL.

Thunder clouds overhead

Now, I am normally scared of thunder, but some of the best photos I have taken was either during or right after a thunderstorm.  In this instance, it was immediately following a thunderstorm Tuesday night.The picture above was taken behind my house.

This picture was of the neighbour's house across the street, but it could have been anywhere in the forest....would make a good Stephen King book cover for one of his eerie stories.....

The Gathering in Miramichi, NB

Well after many months of planning with the organizers, Karl  Wade and Charles Asoyuf, The Gathering took place at the EcoCentre on Cove Road in Miramichi, June 14-16th, 2013.  It was a gathering of like minded people who were mostly members of a Facebook group called Our Miramichi Heritage Photos.  We post pictures of places and people of yesteryear here on the Miramichi River.

It was great to see people we hadn't seen in years come from all over to celebrate this event.  There was a book put out for no less than 180 sponsors who gladly paid their $100 to sponsor a page. Each page contained a picture of bygone days on top half, bottom half was the their business card.  No doubt, in years to come when some of these businesses are no longer in business, they, too, will come part of our Heritage!

Below are some pictures of the Meet and Greet, the many tables of many many pictures, (not counting those that the public brought in to show us), and the banquet on Saturday night

 Meet and Greet on Friday evening of The Gathering, Ronald Doiron provided the music.

 The people kept streaming in, over 1.000 people attended, it was a success!

 Throughout the afternoon on Saturday models in different decades were walking about, it added a touch of nostalgia for sure.

 There was a sold out crowd for the banquet, it was a delicious meals with various guest speakers.

It was a great undertaking for a small committee which I was proud to help out, there's talk we may have one again in 4 or 5 years!  Then, there will be more pictures and more stories to share!!

Tall Ships of bygone days

 Today, Mom and I went to Chatham/Miramichi and Newcastle/Miramichi to see the Tall Ships that had sailed upriver on Friday afternoon.  They sailed back down the river tonight at 6pm.  It was such a pleasure to see them all, along with Theodore the Tugboat who came up from Halifax, Nova Scotia.  He was quite a hit with the children and the young at heart.

 Saw this scene on the opposite side of Miramichi River where the Tall Ships were docked, I thought it was a pretty spot.

What a blow to a small community

 As some of you may have seen the beautiful photo I posted of the boats heading out of Tabusintac this past week, read on, this is such devastating news:    One of the boats belonged to the photographer, Gail Harding's brother.

An exert from the CBC news re: fire that burned five lobster boats in Tabusintac:

A massive boat fire burned five fishermen's boats early Saturday morning in Tabusintac, N.B.
According to the RCMP, a call came in at around 3 a.m. with reports that five lobster boats on fire.
Sgt. Richard Bernard, with District 3 RCMP in Hampton, said the Environment Department will have to assess the environmental impact of the fire.
“For now we're just concerned with assessing how it happened,” he said.
“We've also got an issue with the environment. The Department of Environment has been called to see how they are going to deal with the situation because, with these boat fires, we've had leakages of oil and gasoline into the bay there. So they're going to have to determine how the clean up is going to go with that.”
Sgt. Bernard said the wharf itself was also damaged in the fire. He said the investigation into the cause of the fire continues.

Sepia Saturday for May 4, 2013

When I saw that this week's SepiaSaturday was somewhat about cigarettes, I looked through my family album and was able to only come up with one picture of Dad smoking.  He was a heavy smoker, here he is smoking while making the walkway in 1967.  He passed away 1 1/2 years ago from complications of smoking, he was in his mid eighties.  Mom never smoked, I have 3 brothers, and 2 sisters.  Two brothers and one sister smoked, all of them have stopped years ago.

Vending machines, Black Cat cigarettes and more will greet you at:

http://sepiasaturday.blogspot.com