The quiet months of February and March were known as the “matting season” along the rugged coast of northern Newfoundland and Labrador. It was a time of respite from the fishing season. Generations old by the time the Grenfell Mission began, the roots of mat hooking lay with the founding English and Scottish settlers. The women all hooked, most from their earliest childhood. […]

In 1928, the Industrial Supervisor M.A. Pressley-Smith sent out a plea through the mission’s quarterly publication, Among the Deep Sea Fishers, “Save Your Old Silk Stockings! When your stockings run let them run to Labrador! We need silk stockings and underwear in Unlimited Quantities! Please send your silk stockings and underwear no matter how old or worn! We need such silk and artificial silk for the making of hooked rugs of a beautiful type!” Silk stockings when dyed to beautiful soft hues, helped propel the mat industry into its peak production years of 1926 to the early 1930s.

NIGHTMARE ALLEY (1947), dir. Edmund Goulding.