A local folklorist has done some digging, and has learned that the ugly stick—considered by many to be a traditional Newfoundland musical instrument—is actually a relatively new invention.
Dale Jarvis conducted some research into the ugly stick for a Wikipedia entry through a project by Memorial University Libraries and The Newfoundland Quarterly.
Known as “All Hands,” the project aims to create and update Wikipedia entries on all things Newfoundland and Labrador.
An ugly stick is a pole that is adorned with bottle caps and bells, and is struck on the floor and with another stick for percussion.
(A Newfoundland ugly stick made for the grade five class at Creekside Elementary School in Durham North Carolina, courtesy Martha Matson.)
Jarvis says while considered a traditional instrument, the first reference he’s found only dates to the Newfoundland and Labrador Folk Festival 1987.
He says they printed a guide featuring Winston Stanley of the Goulds playing an ugly stick, complete with a description of what an ugly stick was.
The instrument was then popularized by the Folk of the Sea, a group of fish industry workers displaced by the cod moratorium who performed throughout the province in the 1990s.
