Harry's Brook Municipal Heritage Site

Harry’s Brook has been designated a municipal heritage site by the Town of New Perlican because of its aesthetic and cultural value.

Harry’s Brook has aesthetic value as it is a prominent landscape feature in the community. The section of the brook that runs between Tory Road and Harbour Road can be viewed easily from either road and is a reminder to community residents of the many important cultural purposes it has served.

Harry’s Brook has cultural value for generations of New Perlican residents who have a shared recollection of its cultural use. The brook has had many uses over time. It was used as a source of drinking water, for watering vegetable gardens, as a place to wash rugs, for fishing trout and eels and as a place for general recreation.

Residents living in the area of the brook would collect water from the brook for drinking and washing. Water collected from the brook was also used to water nearby vegetable gardens. Former New Perlican resident Dr. Phil Warren recalls that his family would collect water from a section of the brook just above the lower bridge. They had to be careful not to fill their buckets if goats were resting under the flakes just upstream. Occasionally, particularly after a heavy rainfall, they would have to skim off debris before they filled their buckets or go "up the Square" to another water hole above both bridges. This use of the brook continued until the installation of the town’s water system in 1963.

New Perlican resident Bertha Conway remembers washing rugs in the brook when she worked for Annie and Tom Warren, who lived near the Five Roads. Bertha was only 12 years old at the time but recalls gathering rugs from the house - mostly handmade hooked mats - bringing them to the brook by wheelbarrow, laying the mats on rocks and scrubbing them clean. Once washed, the mats would be dipped in salt water and then hung on fences to dry. When they were dry, they would be stored for use in the fall.

The brook was also a source of fun and enjoyment for children in the community. In the spring and summer they played around the brook, jumping from rock to rock, collecting plants, insects and small fish in bottles, fishing for trout and eels or simply dipping their feet in the running water.