♪ bouncy mandolin ♪ add bass [Brandy Yanchyk] I'm a journalist and I am traveling across my home country Canada.

On this journey I'll be visiting some iconic Canadian experiences.

My next journey begins in the most easterly province of Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador.

♪ (and water splashing) ♪ I'm here in Central Newfoundland.

I've come to do some island hopping and to explore traditions that make this place so special.

Today tourism is helping to keep these communities thriving.

Cod fishing used to employ thirty thousand people in rural Newfoundland until 1992 when the Canadian government shut down the fisheries in order for the cod stocks to rebuild.

Today the travel tourism industry is worth a billion dollars.

I'm here on Fogo Island in Newfoundland and Labrador and this tiny fishing community has become very popular, lots of tourists are coming here.

They're coming to see the Fogo Island Inn in the beautiful surroundings around us and the artists' residences.

I'm with Al Dwyer.

He's a local guide here.

Al, tell me about this change here in Fogo Island.

What happened?

Well... Zita Cobb who grew up in Joe Batt's Arm where the Fogo Island Inn is located, grew up in a fishing family and she became a very successful business lady.

When her stint in business was over, she retired, she came back and decided that she would do something very unusual, something creative and something that we had never seen before and unique to Newfoundland and maybe to the country to a certain extent and that she built a resort, an inn where people from all over the world come and enjoy, very much enjoy what we have.

[Brandy] And artists also come here to go to the residences right?

[Al] That's true.

While they were building the Fogo Island Inn, the Foundation built four artists' studios; one like the one behind us and artists come from all over the world and they spend a certain amount of time there and create.

And usually they give an exhibition of their work.

[Brandy] What's so special about the Fogo Island Inn?

Why do you think people are coming here?

[Al] Touring with the people and talking to them.

They sort of open my mind as to what we have here.

We don't have great restaurants or our theaters or amusement parks, but we have the ocean, the scenery, the clean air and they've experienced the... everything else but they didn't experience this and they love it.

So your beautiful Newfoundlander accent - what do all these tourists think about that?

They love it.

They just just love the variety and the dialect stuff even just around this island alone.

And you know notwithstanding the whole island of Newfoundland which you got, you've got a quite a variety of different different dialects.

Where did the accent come from?

Well the people who settled this island began in the early seventeen hundreds.

They either came from England or Ireland and of course they brought with them their dialects and so it's still surviving.

♪ fiddle and guitar Wow...

This gravestone is so old.

It says... Eighteen-fifty six.

That's right.

So historians, they claim that this is one of the oldest complete Irish cemeteries in North America.

This particular stone here is of interest to me because resting here is my great great grandfather Mickey Greene.

♪ If you go straight across the water, the ocean... there's Ireland.

So maybe they want to be as close to the old sod as they could get and that's why they believe that they picked this spot here because looking around you can see it's certainly not conducive to a graveyard with the rocks.

It could have been a lot better places that they could have selected but they picked this place here right on the edge of the ocean.

♪ uptempo fiddle I spent the rest of the afternoon learning about the history of the cod industry in Newfoundland and Labrador.

[Brandy] Wow...

Brandy, this is a traditional fishing stage, at one time every family in Tilting had and that was in the days of the salt cod.

So when you go out fishing in the morning they come to the stage shed there and load their cod.

Once the cod was thrown in here, the cod was cut and gutted and split on this table.

We called the splitting table.

OK, so you got a big piece of cod here and it's on this salt.

Yeah.

It's on the salt.

And this is, this is how big the cod are?

Yeah, they are like that.

Some are big, but that would be a large cod.

This would be a medium-sized cod.

So what's the story now with what you're allowed to fish?

The cod fishery was closed for approximately 20 years but now that they have reopened it because the scientists claim that the cod is coming back and - but they're very cautious.

They have it open on a small scale.

[Brandy] So today how much fish can you actually catch?

We can catch five, five fish.

Anyone that go out, it's called a recreational fishery.

It's for our own use, for our own consumption.

We're allowed to catch five a day.

For as long as it's open, it's open every weekend throughout the summer.

Wow.

And how much cod do you eat a week?

Roughly at least twice, sometimes three times and in a variety of ways.

(chuckles) Fantastic!

♪ ♪ strummed acoustic guitar Next I traveled on the ferry to Change Islands.

It's an out-port community and only around three hundred people live here.

Change Islands includes three small islands of the same name.

People only live on two of them.

It is also the home of the Newfoundland Ponies Sanctuary, which is what drew me here.

I'm here on Change Islands and I'm with Netta LeDrew.

She's been working for years to keep the Newfoundland pony alive.

Tell me what you do here at the sanctuary?

We care for the Newfoundland pony - it's very precious to us.

The numbers are down and we want to bring the numbers up.

I mean they helped build Newfoundland and I just want to do my part.

[Brandy] And these ponies right now, how many do you think are in the world?

The numbers I think are somewhere around four hundred.

Somewhere between 200 and 250, I think, in Newfoundland.

They tell me I have the biggest herd in Newfoundland.

[Brandy] Okay.

And how many do you have?

[Netta] We have twelve.

[Brandy] Tell me a little bit about how you would describe these ponies?

[Netta] Very friendly personality, really good to work with, good with kids and they're very strong.

They're an all-around perfect pony.

[Brandy] And how big do they get?

[Netta] They don't go over 800 pound I think, the Newfoundland.

[Brandy] And when you think about the history of the Newfoundland pony how did they help the people here?

They... hauled the firewood to keep 'em warm in the winter.

They plowed their fields, they hauled the capelin from the fishing stages to the vegetable gardens.

They worked in the mines.

They was a means of transportation in the winter.

And you had to let 'em go in the summer because we kept our grass to cut to make hay, right?

So we let 'em roam Change Islands in the summer.

So what happened?

How come these ponies started to disappear?

The introduction of the snowmobile back in the late '60s, early '70s and the government brought in an anti-roaming laws where we weren't allowed to roam anymore.

It was a shame.

And the meat trucks, the meat trucks came and they just went out and what they didn't take they were just shot, which was heartbreaking.

So back in the early '80s, two or three men got together and went around Newfoundland Island and searched for some breedable mares.

So when we started in 2005 I don't, I think it was something like about a hundred around then.

I'd like to see it go up to a thousand again.

[Brandy] And why do you care so much about these ponies?

[Netta] I love 'em.

They're part of our heritage.

They're good to work with.

And it gives me the opportunity to work with horses, our ponies because I love 'em, so.

♪ [Netta] Hi Coby.

Hi Coby.

Close the gate.

Hi Jigger.

Hi m' boy.

C'mere sweetheart.

Come here sweetheart.

[Brandy] Hi Jigger.

Wow what a beautiful, beautiful Newfoundland pony.

And this, he was coal black when he was born.

Really!?

He was coal black.

And time he was a year old we didn't know what colour he was going to be.

As he's grown older, he'll be eleven years old now the ninety-ninth of September, a late foal, right?

Wow.

Got an itch, now.

Yeah.

A little scratch there.

I wanted to get a feel for what it takes to look after these ponies.

Todd Hoffe who works at the Newfoundland Ponies Sanctuary takes me to the barn to get started.

[Todd] Netta don't like to put the horses in a dirty stall.

No, who would?

That's a lot.

You got a big... handful there.

This is Charlie's beautiful breakfast... he'll be thrilled.

A little bit more?

Yeah.

So how old is Charlie?

Seven.

Seven.

Your time to eat.

(whinnying) Breakfast is comin'!

Wonderful.

♪ (galloping hoofs) My next adventure takes me to the town of Twillingate.

It's located off the northwestern shore of the island of Newfoundland.

My first visit is with Captain Dave Boyd.

He has created his own museum and enjoys taking tourists out on the ocean.

[Dave] Powerin' up for takeoff!

♪ Got it!

Ohhh!

(laughter) [Brandy] Wow, it breached right there.

Wow.

So seeing that humpback whale breach that was the first time in my life.

How about for you?

Man oh man.

Now that was like four times for me in sixty years.

Amazing, in sixty years?

The thing is it's like that's what everybody wants when they go whale watching.

You wait for that and then, you know unfortunately what happens to me is everyone goes: Did you just see the whale breach?

And I was looking the other way.

So it was wonderful to actually see it once.

And not only that, we got it twice.

It's a right place, right time.

Beautiful.

You want to catch a cod?

Yes, please.

Yes, please.

OK.

Here you go... OK.

So what am I doing now?

Pull it in!

You got one on?

Okay!

Pull, pull, pull, pull!

Hand over hand.

Okay!

Hand over hand.

Oh my Gosh it's heavy!

I'm going to show you the right way to pull.

There are tricks in all trades, even pullin' in a fish.

Let me show you right way.

Look!

OK. Look.

Just just drop yer line.

Yup.

Keep the palms of your hands up, 'and over hand, the line comes out of yer hand, falls onto the bottom of the boat.

Your hands are palm up like that.

'And over 'and.

Hand over hand.

Like this?

Keep your palms up.

That's it.

'And over hand.

You got 'er.

Hand over hand.

Hand over hand.

Hand over hand.

Oh oh!, I see something glistening in the water there.

It's big!

Oh, okay... Whoa!

That's huge!

Just a minute now, let me... Oh my goodness!

Okay.

Here you go.

Here's your fish.

Oh my God.

Look how big it is!

It's bigger than me!

(laughter) What an amazing...

I gotta kiss it, right?

Oh, ya better... (shrieking) Okay so why do we kiss the cod?

Well it's just a foolish thing right?

That's a foolish thing.

It's like, you kiss the cod, drink your screech and become a honorary Newfoundlander, right?

"Long may your big jib draw!"

Right?

C'mon.

Give it a kiss!

Come on hurry up!

(screams) I feel like I'm on a date here!

It likes you, okay?

It likes you.

Oh!

Ho!

Ho!

Ho!

And now I'm a true Newfoundlander.

A true Newfoundlander, right on.

OK. That was amazing, wonderful.

Thank you Captain Dave.

Being out on the water sure gave me an appetite.

I decided to meet up with Crystal Anstey who offers culinary experiences by the ocean.

♪ So our first course of the evening is going to be cod tongues and cod cheeks.

And that's something I grew up eating and most Newfoundlanders did and it was the parts of the fish that we couldn't bring to market.

So these are the cod cheeks.

Mm, wow.

They are considered to be a delicacy even more so than the cod tongues.

And there's the cod tongues of course.

Cod tongues.

Scrumchins...

So these are rendered out already.

We're going to reheat those in the pan.

Mm, let's look at these.

So these are the Scrunchions and these are, what is it again?

That's pork fat, fat back pork.

Very similar flavor profile is bacon.

OK, so here I have just a mixture of flour and a little bit of paprika.

That's something my grandmother would add to the flour just a little bit of flavor there.

So these are the cod tongues.

You are putting that in white flour and paprika?

Yes.

So it's just lightly flouring them.

Brandy, if you want to take this.

OK.

I'll take the tongues and the cheeks.

So this cast iron pan should be really hot right now and ready to take this fat.

(clang) Fire is an ingredient here as well so some of the flavor profiles from that smoke and some of the embers may flicker into the pan.

That's actually going to season the fish as well.

I believe it.

And now I'm going to throw some of these beautiful cod cheeks in here.

Cod cheeks, I've been told by a lot of people that they are similar in flavor and texture to a scallop.

Really!?

And shortly we'll add the Scrunchions.

All right.

You came all the way here so you're gettin' a jar of Scrunchions, girl.

Okay, that looks good.

Lots of times in Newfoundland we'd call this a 'scoff'.

Okay.

So it's a later meal in the evening, we're going to have a scoff now.

Some people call this a 'boil up'.

[Crystal] Have you tried cod tongue before?

[Brandy] Never!

This is totally new for me.

I have to admit the idea of eating a cod's tongue kind of grosses me out but I'm open to anything.

Well the thing is when you're visiting other people's cultures you have to be adventurous and at least give it a try.

And we're gonna... we're gonna add some rhubarb relish to the side of that and garnish it with beautiful flowers so you might forget all about the actual name of it and just enjoy it as fresh fish.

Alright, so let's find you a cod tongue.

Okay and some Scrunchions, gorgeous.

Now of course you can't have fish in Newfoundland without trying rhubarb relish.

Okay, right here you're adding a little bit of fireweed, rhubarb relish, gorgeous.

Those Scrunchions are incredible.

I really like the tongue.

I like it all.

So this is your first time trying?

Okay, you're takin' another mouthful so you must like it.

Oh m'goodness!

That's really good.

Last piece of the cod tongue.

I'm proud of you!

I'm impressed.

Oh, are you kidding me?

I might eat everything.

MMMMM... That's why you came here!

(chuckling) ♪ My next journey takes me 3,000 miles across the country to Yukon.

The Territory of Yukon is located in northwestern Canada, next to Alaska.

It's known for being wild and sparsely populated.

From 1896 to 1899 the Klondike Gold Rush transformed the region around Dawson City and the Yukon River.

Thirty thousand people climbed the golden stairs on the Chilkoot trail on their way to Dawson City, hoping to find gold.

(clattering wheel) Dawson City has a unique feeling about it.

From the minute you arrive and you see the unpaved roads and the gold rush era buildings you feel like you are being transported back to a different time.

♪ dobro and banjo One of the fun things about Dawson City is that there's these old buildings that have been here since the Gold Rush era and I'm with France Richards, she works with Parks Canada.

She's an interpreter and she has the key to let me into some of these heritage buildings.

Let's do it.

Alright, let's go.

(latch click) All right...

So Brandy, this is the British Bank of North America which would have been very important during the gold rush because of how much placer gold was in the area and especially that real fine stuff that had also copper and silver contents.

So miners would walk in through these doors, drop off their gold, which could then be assayed which is melted down to find out exactly the purity of your gold.

It could be 80 percent in one creek, 60 percent in another.

And these bankers had these scales to weigh out exactly how much of that gold was going to be going home with you as your profit.

Wow.

And these little tiny scales... they would have put what inside it?

Ah, gold dust usually now.

A lot of miners carried something that looked a lot like this with them.

Now this is called a gold poke, a little leather satchel and you'd have seen scales like these ones not just at the banks but the saloons as well.

If you wanted to pay for your whiskey you could show up with your gold poke.

Grab a little pinch of that gold dust weigh it out on the scales and that could be your currency.

Wow.

Yeah.

Now what was really interesting is that, if you wanted to be earning a little bit of extra money on the side as a banker or even someone working at one of the bars you just grow your nails a little bit extra long.

So when you grab a pinch of gold dust belonging to that gold miners gold poke you just keep a little bit in your fingernails and then just slide it back into your hair at the end of the day, you wash your hair and there are your tips.

Yeah.

Because the gold is heavy so we'd be at the bottom of the bathtub or wherever you wash your hair.

Exactly.

♪ [France] I'm not too sure if you've seen the Moosehide Slide but it's an iconic way of saying that they've finally arrived in Dawson City and after all those miles of river, the Chilkoot trail, hiking over a ton of goods over that Chilkoot pass, seeing that was saying 'we made it'.

[Brandy] Wow.

It has a bit of a different feel and a kind of historic town walking in wooden boardwalk.

I love it.

Yeah.

So Brandy this is the Third Avenue complex but it's also known as the kissing buildings.

And as you can see because they're leaning pretty heavily towards each other and that has a lot to do with the permafrost.

Yes, a big <kiss> right here.

Yes.

Exactly, yeah, now permafrost is permanently frozen ground and the only trouble with it is that when you build a building right on top of it the heat from that building slowly thaws the ground and then that's when buildings start to get a little bit wonky.

Now as for these buildings this is on Third Avenue, which was once the main stretch in Dawson City.

So that's what you have Billy Biggs' blacksmith shop.

That's we get all your special tools from mining.

You name it.

We've got our horse-shoeing specialty shop.

The Red Feather saloon, the Brown's and harness shop.

[Brandy] So really you don't have to leave the street at all.

You got it all here.

It's your one stop shop - it's exactly everything you need for your first stops into town or the last stop on the way to the gold fields.

Cool.

Why don't we check out the Red Feather Saloon?

Let's do it.

♪ So, welcome to the Red Feather Saloon.

Now, uh... What do you think?

It is so beautiful.

Yeah, isn't it?

And I really feel thirsty.

(laughter) I'm sorry it's a historic building otherwise I'd offer you something.

Yeah, I could drink some dust and maybe look for some gold, right?

Yes!

Exactly.

This is a perfect spot to have found exactly that, tons of gold dust.

Now these saloons were so important and you can imagine being one of those miners like we're talking about in the middle of winter, y'know here in the summer it's the land of the midnight sun but it is dark and it's a cold place in the winter months.

And so for those miners that are walking into that door they're greeted by beautiful colorful wallpaper, curtains, the illusions of privacy, the haze of the cigar smoke, whiskey in a glass and above all camaraderie that the person next to has been through exactly the same amount of hardship as you have if not more.

And so this is a place where you can really keep that isolation at bay.

And that's why the saloons were so important and still are today.

So a lot of gambling did take place in places like these.

As you can imagine sometimes they were just gambling on whether or not the next person to walk through the door had their hat tilt to the right or to the left.

So they even had huge poker games you can see we even have our little custom-made poker tables and chips would stay right here.

And I really can't blame them.

You know they took a gamble on their lives coming up here, a gamble as to where to sink the shaft.

And by the time they struck it rich I think the idea that gold fever pushed them to just search some more.

Yeah.

And I think that once you get a taste of it it's like contagious you think ah, the next time I'm going to strike it rich - I'm going to be the one who, you know, gets right to the top.

Exactly.

Dream chasers essentially, and a lot of people were lucky enough to find some gold to strike it rich.

Others I think what the real adventure was was enough and that was what spurred people on.

Well thanks France for showing me all these exciting buildings.

Thanks it was a pleasure!

Wonderful.

♪ Searching for gold in Yukon isn't just a thing of the past .

Today you can still try your luck.

[Brandy] Tell me a little bit about the history of this creek.

[Paul] Well, we're on Bonanza Creek which used to be called Rabbit Creek which in 1896 was the site of the discovery of gold that started the last great gold rush that created Dawson City and sparked the imaginations of a hundred thousand people throughout North America and the world.

And so Bonanza Creek, we're at Claim 6, so six claims above the discovery of gold, which was made by George Carmacks, Kate Carmacks, maybe.

Skookum Jim, maybe?

Tagish Charlie and which made some millionaires and also made some men very poor as well.

And so this claim itself has been hand mined, you know we're right close to the discovery site so there was many people that came in here and hand mined it between 1896 and 1901 or so and then they had a dredge come through here -- Dredge Number Four I believe came through this creek and then cat mining which started in the 1970s and that still happens today.

And so for the last fifty years or so people been coming to the Klondike and mining for gold using bulldozers, loaders.

And today there's still about one hundred gold mines in the area.

And so they're pulling out on average around fifty million dollars of gold per year for a hundred mines.

That's pretty good.

I want to see some gold in here for you.

I hope so.

Can we do this?

Of course, so three things you want to do.

You're going to want to put your pan under water and shake it nice and hard loosening everything up.

So what I'm doing when you're shaking it is - the gold's heavy it's gonna go to the bottom, right?

All placer mining.

And so placer gold is what we're looking for placer means 'loose'.

So the gold's loose in the gravel.

And so all the gold rushes in the world before - placer gold.

So when we're shaking it we're just loosening it some more.

Gold is the heaviest thing that we have in there.

It's heavier than this, right?

And it's going to go to the bottom of your pan.

So you just shake it and then you're going to try to get rid of the light material to keep your heavy material in the bottom.

So the second thing you do is you pan it making kind of a wave.

Letting the water pull off your material.

The water does the work.

And as I do this, number one rule: do not be afraid of losing your gold.

OK.

So I'm going to stick it under the water and not be afraid that I'm going to lose all of my gold.

Put it under there flat and shake it hard.

Be good gold, be good!

Shake it hard!

Harder than that!

I have faith in you.

But we'll see.

You know the water is really cold, by the way.

Well, this is... You forgot o mention that.

...runoff from the mountains.

So it's cold year round.

OK.

I'm doing this.

So you did it right and you shook it correctly but now the next thing you want to do.

So just getting a little bit of deeper water here, on an angle, just let the water do the work.

See how it's pulling off the stones, right?

We're not forcing it out.

We're letting the water pull them out.

OK. Once you're down to about that amount...

Yes.

Then you can do the last part.

Oh!

I think I saw something!

(chuckles) Yeah... You can get your little...

I call this the little... final rinse.

OK.

So you got a little bit of a material in the front.

You keep, you know, enough water to cover it and then you just spin it.

There's gold!

There's gold!

Just just give me a second here.

I got excited.

And you can see how the gold will stay at the top.

Yes!

If you wash down the mater- the lighter material.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen... fifteen pieces of gold!

Woo-hoo!

Now you probably want to keep that gold, right?

Yeah...

So I'll give you a vial you can put it in.

Really?

A little keepsake for you when you go back home.

You just want to dry your finger.

OK. And then you touch the gold.

Yep.

You hold up your vial.

You let the water pull it down to the bottom.

Okay.

Like this?

Well this is so wonderful.

I'm happy that I found gold.

Congratulations!

Thank you very much.

Now you can leave here a little richer.

♪