The Memory Store: Root Cellar Capital of the World

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[Image of Don Johnson and Terra Barrett standing in front of a hillside root cellar]

[Don Johnson standing inside the doorway of a hillside root cellar]

Don Johnson: Elliston got into a lot of trouble, like most of the communities on the east coast of Newfoundland with the cod moratorium. And Elliston was dying. It reached a point with that final indignity, they were going to have to turn out the streetlights, and that sparked local people, they formed a committee to save their town, literally.

And looking around, to see what they had to offer, what was unique, and Elliston had this remarkable number of very visible root cellars and was so well known for it already, that ingenuity took this and turned it into a tourism attraction and found the phrase, “The Root Cellar Capital of the World,” which was, I don’t know, but who can stand against that. But, it was a great tourist attraction and two, there’s a great colony of Atlantic puffins here, combined, they built a tourism industry on it.

Now, that is doing very well, 20-to-30,000 visitors a year. With that, they developed festivals. There’s a local festival with local people, local town, called the ‘Puffin Festival’ and serves vegetables for their feast. They have feasts various days and just serve vegetables that are kept in the cellars. It adds that little unique touch to it.

And then in the fall, we have the ‘Roots, Rants, and Roar Festival,’ which is a little more higher end, attracts a more, I would call it, a more sophisticated eater. And we have ships come in all from all over Canada, high quality foods, high-end products that we offer at the end of the year, and this is very successful. We’re selling out now even in June. We’re selling out now for that festival in September.

But Tourism Elliston, with this initiative, as they’re moving on, now we have two festivals. First it was just a ‘come see the root cellars, come see the puffins, now we have the two festivals, we have a gift shop that sells local products. Just lately there’s been built the ‘Home from Sea Seals Museum,’ were very moving, the statue with grounds, and an interpretation center. All this grown from that very first initiative when Elliston was almost dead and just someone invents this brilliant idea to turn cellars into a tourist attraction. 

[Image transition: Terra Barrett in front of a hillside root cellar; Newfoundland coastline]

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