Seeing things from a Woody Point of View

Bernice Hillier · CBC News

· Posted: Jul 13, 2025 4:30 AM EDT | Last Updated: July 13

A trio of songwriters and musicians successful the Gros Morne, N.L. area is inviting you to spot things from its constituent of presumption this summer, by going to spot a new show.

Woody Point of View is being presented astatine the Merchant Warehouse successful Woody Point astir each Thursday nighttime betwixt present and mid-September.

The amusement is simply a blend of music, aged photos and storytelling, each presented by section musicians in an effort to entertain and enlighten.

The radical down the accumulation person heavy roots successful Bonne Bay South, and they're hoping assemblage members volition travel to admit the country successful the aforesaid mode they do.

"What's antithetic astir it is that it's our section story. We invited radical to the park. They travel with their ain stories," said Michele McCarthy, creator and shaper of the show. 

"We besides invited radical during the writers' festival and the drama festival that bring their stories to us. This is our communicative told by radical who person heavy roots successful the community."

Spotlight connected Bonne Bay South

The people duo, Tuff, made up of Kendra Parsons and Paul Rumbolt, helped co-write immoderate of the songs successful Woody Point of View, and they're the ones performing successful the show.

Parsons is an entrepreneur who grew up successful the area and whose household has been successful the tourism concern determination since 1985.

The amusement takes spot astatine 1 of her family's enterprises, connected the waterfront successful Woody Point.

WATCH | Hometown pridefulness has led to storytelling from section musicians:

Parsons said she's pleased to marque immoderate evening amusement disposable to visitors passim the summertime season, successful a portion of Gros Morne National Park that has typically seen little numbers of tourists than the Rocky Harbour broadside of Bonne Bay.

Parsons's bandmate Paul Rumbolt is simply a distant relative of hers, some having ancestors successful Bonne Bay South with the surname "Tuff."

"There aren't immoderate Tuffs near unluckily here. But that's wherefore we benignant of decided to sanction our duo that, to bring it backmost to beingness again," said Parsons.

Parsons said the set sanction is simply a spot of a play connected words, too.

"It is. We're Tuff by sanction and pugnacious by nature," she said.

Love letter

Rumbolt and Parsons execute unneurotic rather often, but usually sing different people's songs astir different places and events.

In this show, Rumbolt said the lyrics are personal, and the full amusement is similar a emotion missive to his hometown and its people.

"It's a idiosyncratic sharing of what this spot means to us, not conscionable arsenic a spot wherever you grew up and went to schoolhouse oregon thing similar that," said Rumbolt. 

"It's a giving backmost to an acquisition of being from present that is deeper than conscionable being a spot that you came from. It's a spot that has defined us. We are who we are due to the fact that of this place."

Photographs and memories

For her probe successful penning the show, McCarthy credits Tony Berger's book, The Good and Beautiful Bay, and the Bonne Bay Historical Archive arsenic some being immensely helpful.

The online archive includes humanities photos from the Bonne Bay area, immoderate of which McCarthy incorporated arsenic projected images successful the unrecorded show.

"The photos conscionable adhd a existent consciousness of magic. Seeing the quality of this bay from a humanities perspective, seeing the assemblage successful its heyday, being a centre of the westbound coast," said McCarthy.

Woody Point was a large economical centre successful occidental Newfoundland successful the precocious 1800s, arsenic good as a centre for instrumentality and government.

A amusement for everyone

Parsons, Rumbolt and McCarthy judge Woody Point of View is a amusement that visitors and section radical volition enjoy.

"I judge it's going to amusement a batch of my generation, similar it's going to archer them our past and it's going to springiness them a antithetic position connected wherever they really came from," said Parsons.

McCarthy said she believes adjacent those who aren't from the country volition admit what the amusement has to offer.

"I deliberation they're going to person moments of nostalgia. They're going to person an acquisition that truly adds to the contiguous time magic of Woody Point," said McCarthy.

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