So here we are, a bunch of Newfies working at Reliance Industrial Products, owned by Mike Sirois and Georg Eger, a company in Nisku, Alberta, go figure. We are active members on the social committee and we have this OTS (Oilfield Technical Society) Bar-B-Q Blowout coming up. This event only happens once every two years. We need to come up with a tent theme and some sort of food to serve.
What in the world could we do? What type of food could we serve? Then it came to us. Where are we originally from? NEWFOUNDLAND. What do people do when they come to visit the greatest island in the world for the first time? Why, they “Get Screeched” of course and enjoy a little seafood! So that’s what we did!
Our tent was “located” in Reliance Cove, Newfoundland where you could walk off the green grass right onto the most beautiful scenic wharf with the blue water and lighthouse off in the distance. We had a mural painted as if you were standing on the dock in St. John’s harbour looking out. The lobsters were abundant, and our good ol’ fisherman was having a blast fishing from the boat. We also had traditional Newfoundland music playing in the background. We were on NL time, tree and a half hours ahead of everyone else. It was a true experience of Newfoundland without actually being there.
We had people wear the sou’wester, then walk onto our “wharf”, kiss a cod (yes a real one flown in from Newfoundland), downed a shot of true Newfoundland screech, and shouted “long may your big jib draw,” well, as best they could for non Newfies!! Then we presented them with a Reliance Onarary Newfie certificate. We served Crab au Gratin right in the crab shell. People loved the atmosphere we created and it was a huge success. Those of us fortunate enough to come from NL were somewhat homesick and those not from NL wanted to go there to visit.
Everyone got to enter their name for the door prize, which was a basket of Newfoundland goodies which included; a lot of Purity products from the hard candy, cookies, jam, syrup, caramel logs, snowballs, etc., a NF flag, bottle of NL screech, bottle of NL blueberry wine, couple of wine glasses and shot glasses. We also included a bag of savory which we attached a little note to explaining how to use it, as it seems no one has heard of it here.
We served 36 – 26oz bottles of NL screech, one shot at a time, along with approx 700 crab au gratins and gave away 800 plus sou’westers. We turned a lot of people into RELIANCE ONARARY NEWFIES that night! Oh, what a time!!!

Pictures: Top Left-Outside of tent Top Right-Georg Eger Bottom Left & Center-Inside Tent Bottom Right-Mike Sirois
RELIANCE INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTS LTD.
780-955-7115   Submitted By: Amanda Chow