Stompin’ Tom
Late musician’s dream of cultural hub opens 50 years after he was introduced to the world
SKINNERS POND, P.E.I.— The newly opened Stompin’ Tom Centre smells of fresh lumber.
It makes a visitor think of the sheets of plywood native son Stompin’ Tom Connors’s boots pounded onstage with such legendary beat-keeping ferocity, it gave him his name.
The late singer-songwriter behind Canadian anthems “The Hockey Song” and “Sudbury Saturday Night” may have left the Prince Edward Island hamlet of Skinners Pond as a youngster to hitchhike and hop trains across the country, but he said this spot was always his home.
Aproud Canadian and never shy about showing it in the more than 500 songs he wrote, Connors dreamed of establishing a cultural centre to showcase P.E.I. music and island heritage. To that end, he bought the circa-1859 schoolhouse he once attended, the family house across the yard and the surrounding land in the 1970s.
Connors died in 2013 at age 77 and his wish was finally fulfilled with the $1.2-million Stompin’ Tom Centre Homestead & Schoolhouse (STC). Fittingly, it opened on Canada Day — 50 years to the night he was first introduced onstage as Stompin’ Tom.
That story and others are told throughout the STC through photos, displays and Connors’s quotes stencilled on the walls. The site is a great introduction to Prince Edward Island culture, as well as Stompin’ Tom, with music, P.E.I. food, such as fresh oysters and mussels and plenty of stories shared throughout. You may even meet someone who knew Connors among the staff or local visitors. There’s an emphasis on supporting Canadian talent and opportunities to hear music by local performers all summer.
The patriotic theme is clear from the STC foyer, where a quote from Connors’s song “Believe in Your Country” greets guests: “If you don’t believe your country should come before yourself, you can better serve your country by living somewhere else.”
It’s written as a Canadian sentiment, but it’s not unique to Canadians, like many of Connors’s True North-set songs. While “Bud the Spud” champions the best from the red earth of P.E.I., who doesn’t love potatoes? Ketchup sure does. Connors wrote a song about that, too.
The four-hectare site includes the simple home where Connors lived with his adoptive family. It can only be seen from the outside, but the one-room schoolhouse has been carefully restored for a self-guided visit. The oldest school still standing on the island, the original twoseat desks are in place, along with a potbellied stove and a blackboard from another school, rumoured to be one where Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery taught.
There’s a nod to 2017 with a touchscreen interactive map of Canada that plays clips of Stompin’ Tom performances.
The gift shop sells only Canadian-made items, including books, music, ball caps, shirts and Connors’s signature black cowboy hats ($29.95). Just behind the gift shop, there’s a small museum with vintage photos, his gold records and one of Connors’s stage costumes, boots, hat and stompin’ board, on loan from his family.
Most of the building is taken up by the 110-seat Stompin’ Grounds showroom. There’s a small standup bar, and food is available at the Black Hat takeout window. There are plenty of opportunities to hear live music at the centre, including free daily sessions from 1-2 p.m.
In the evening, catch a Skinners Pond Ceilidh with singers, step dancers and local food at intermission, attend an open-mic night or find out what a Kitchen Party is about. Every Tuesday and Thursday this summer, there’s a performance of My Island Home: A Stompin’ Tom Story, a dinner theatre production starring Chad Matthews as Connors.
“I think it’s a wonderful opportunity for people to come” explore Connors’ “history, his songs and his culture,” said Tracy Doyle of Tignish, about a 10-minute drive from Skinners Pond.
Her sons, Henry Arsenault, 9, and Marcus, 8, performed at the opening weekend’s Stompin’ Tom Festival, complete with their own stompin’ boards.
Anne Arsenault, general manager of Tignish Initiatives Corp., which runs the STC, knew Connors. She said like P.E.I.’s famous fictional redhead, Anne of Green Gables, who brings more than 125,000 tourists to P.E.I. annually, he was an orphan who found a new life on a farm.
“He is a true story, it’s not fiction,” she said, adding the singer’s story of a difficult life, being born to a teenage mother unable to care for him, was “much more tragic.”
“He lived the Anne story,” Arsenault said. Linda Barnard was hosted by Tourism Prince Edward Island, which did not review or approve this story.