Why Is St. John’s Called the City of Legends?

St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, is more than just a city. It is a place shaped by the sea, filled with history and known for its stories. From fishermen returning from the North Atlantic to tales shared in kitchens and pubs, legends are not only part of the past here. They remain part of the everyday character of the city.

But why is St. John’s known as the City of Legends? The answer is found in its long tradition of storytelling, its rich history and its people, who have always known how to turn an experience into a tale worth telling.

A City Built on Storytelling

Newfoundlanders have always been storytellers. It is in our blood. Long before there were books or newspapers here, history and local lore were passed down by word of mouth, by the fire, on the wharf or over a drink.

For fishing families, stories were not only entertainment. They carried news, warnings and knowledge from one person to another. Fishermen came home with accounts of storms, strange sights, narrow escapes and people who never returned. The stories travelled beyond the wharves and into homes, kitchens and pubs, where they were told again.

That tradition continues. A yarn spun at a kitchen party, a song performed in a downtown pub or a tale connected to an old landmark can keep a piece of the past alive. Details may shift as a story is repeated, and a true event may grow into something larger, but the telling is what allows it to carry on.

How St. John’s Became the City of Legends

The name City of Legends became widely associated with St. John’s in the early 1990s. It grew from a City of St. John’s project based on research in Memorial University’s Folklore and Language Archive.

Researcher Elizabeth Fowler prepared a report called City of Legends for the education of local tour guides. Its title and focus were later used in a city campaign, books and public artwork celebrating stories connected to St. John’s. Artist Helen Gregory’s Sheila’s Brush mural, painted in 1992, was one of the works created for the campaign.

The campaign helped spread the nickname, but the reason it caught on is easy to understand. City of Legends already sounded like St. John’s. This was a city with a long history, a strong oral tradition and no shortage of people who could spin a yarn.

A City Shaped by the Sea

St. John’s grew because of its harbour and the cod fishery. Generations of people depended on the North Atlantic for their livelihoods, from fishing crews and merchants to the families who waited for them to return.

The sea provided work, but it could also be dangerous and unpredictable. Stories of storms, shipwrecks, lost sailors and remarkable escapes became part of how people understood that life. Some were recorded in newspapers and official accounts. Others survived because someone told the story and another person remembered it.

The city’s relationship with the water is still written into places such as the Narrows, Water Street and the Battery. Their histories explain why St. John’s developed where it did and why the fishery remains such an important part of its story.

True Stories That Sound Like Legends

St. John’s has no shortage of real characters and events that sound as though they must have been exaggerated.

In 1833, Newfoundland’s first elected House of Assembly met in a St. John’s hotel operated by Mary Travers. When the politicians failed to pay what she believed she was owed, Travers held on to government property, including furniture, papers and the ceremonial mace. The dispute continued for years.

It has everything a good local story needs: important politicians, an unpaid bill and a landlady who refused to be ignored. Yet its broad outline can be followed through legislative records, newspaper advertisements and historical accounts.

Other stories are harder to pin down. Growing up, I heard that Deadman’s Pond was bottomless, that people had disappeared while swimming or skating there and that it somehow connected to the sea. I did not know who first told me. It was simply one of those stories people passed along.

That is part of the City of Legends too. Some stories can be documented. Others remain local lore, remembered less for whether every detail can be proven than for the way they became attached to a place.

Stories Carried Through Music and Tradition

Stories in St. John’s have never been carried only through conversation. Folk songs passed down through generations tell of shipwrecks, separation, work, hardship and home. Music gave people another way to remember events and share experiences long before anyone thought to place them in an archive.

That tradition remains part of the city. Songs are still performed in kitchens, community halls and pubs. Old customs survive alongside newer ones. Even familiar sights such as the city’s colourful row houses have gathered stories of their own, including explanations that have been repeated far more often than they have been proven.

This does not make the stories worthless. It makes them worth examining. Sometimes the history confirms the tale. Sometimes it complicates it. Either way, asking where a story came from often reveals something unexpected about St. John’s.

Why I Chose City of Legends

I grew up hearing St. John’s described as the City of Legends. When I started this blog, the name captured exactly what I wanted it to be about.

I love this city, and I am constantly surprised by how much there is still to discover about places I have known all my life. A familiar building turns out to have survived a fire. A neighbourhood exists because of the fishery or the defences around the harbour. A story heard in childhood leads to a history I never knew.

Every street, neighbourhood and landmark seems to have another story behind it.

City of Legends is my way of sharing those stories, preserving the ones that might otherwise be forgotten and helping other people discover the St. John’s I know and love.

St. John’s became known as the City of Legends because people here have always known how to tell a tale. This blog exists to keep telling them.

Sources and Further Reading

• Philip Hayward and Cory W. Thorne, “I’s the Merb’y: Masculinity, Mermen and Contemporary Newfoundland”, Shima, 2018.
• “The litter, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind”, The Independent, on Helen Gregory’s Sheila’s Brush mural.
• Les Harding, Historic St. John’s: The City of Legends, Jesperson Press, 1993.
• History of the House of Assembly, Newfoundland and Labrador House of Assembly.