Restoration of Newfoundland Root Cellars, Elliston
[Music]
[Image of a hillside root cellar]
Interviewer: So, having these root cellars has attracted visitors from all over North America, tell me about that.
[Image of Colleen Duffett speaking with ocean backdrop]
Colleen Duffett: Yes, the first year we started counting visitors, we saw 1,600. Last year we saw ten thousand.
[Image of Newfoundland shoreline]
Interviewer: Really?
[Image transition: Colleen Duffett walking in front of the James Ryan Ltd. building; Newfoundland shoreline]
Colleen Duffett: Yes, and there’s a lot from all over the world. We have some tourists, the elder hostel program. They come here every year, sometimes three and four groups, sometimes more depending on the programs offered. They’ll spend half a day here in Elliston, they’ll tour the root cellars, tour the puffin site, tour the craft shop, and go to the café.
Interviewer: So there’s spin off from those root cellars?
Colleen Duffett: Yes, oh definitely.
[Camera panning left to right across two side-by-side hillside root cellars]
Interviewer: Colleen, tell me why Elliston is the root cellar capital of the world.
[Image of Colleen Duffett speaking with ocean backdrop]
Colleen Duffett: Actually, it started off as the root cellar capital of Newfoundland and Labrador, and we did some research and we kind of found out that there’s not as many root cellars anywhere else in the world as here in Elliston. So, we declared ourselves the root cellar capital of the world.
[Image of hillside root cellars]
Interviewer: Why root cellars? There are root cellars all over Newfoundland and Labrador, why do you have so many here?
[Image transition: Colleen Duffett speaking with ocean backdrop; a hillside root cellar]
Colleen Duffett: I’d say probably there’s as many everywhere. But we kept ours because Maberly was later getting electricity than the rest of Elliston. And most people grew their own vegetables here in Elliston, and the root cellar was the perfect way to keep them. So, I mean there’s people in Elliston that grow their own vegetables and keep them in a root cellar all year long.
Interviewer: How many root cellars are there?
Colleen Duffett: 133.
Interviewer: And how many were operational? How many did you have to restore?
Colleen Duffett: We restored around 42.
Interviewer: So what do the other hostel people think? Are they really that interested in going in and looking?
[Image transition: hillside root cellar; Newfoundland shoreline]
Colleen Duffett: Oh yeah, they are fascinated by the root cellars, they love it.
Interviewer: So there’s been a real benefit to restoring that unique part of your heritage.
Colleen Duffett: Oh definitely, it revitalized the community really. Before we restored the root cellars, tourism was non-existent actually in Elliston. Now, in the summer it employs like twenty or thirty people, and spin offs too, cause now we got a restaurant, a couple B&B’s, takeout – a couple take outs actually! And they’re all open in the summer months.
[Image transition: Newfoundland shoreline; Colleen Duffett speaking with ocean backdrop]
Interviewer: Okay great.