Photo: Lori McCarthy © Dawn Evans
Convenience seems to trump connection these days, but for Lori McCarthy, connection comes from going back to your roots—and hers run deep into the soil of her coastal hometown.
McCarthy’s life’s work can’t be summed up by a single title, although Cultural Ambassador for Newfoundland and Labrador comes close. She’s a forager, a food educator, a heritage advocate, a hunter, a mother, a cook, and a community builder—skills she’s picked up over the course of her life, starting all the way back in the small self-sufficient farming and fishing community where she grew up.
“I grew up thinking we lived lives of luxury,” McCarthy says. “We had everything we needed—food we grew and caught ourselves, land to roam, neighbours who looked after each other.”
McCarthy believes that this forgotten way of life holds the answers to some of our most modern problems: disconnection, burnout, loneliness.
“We need connection to the land, to each other. There’s so much peace that comes from doing things with your hands, feeding people, and being outside,” she said.
Today, she works to ensure heritage skills like wild food harvesting, cooking from the land, basket weaving, and storytelling don’t disappear because we’ve seemingly advanced out of them. If you ask McCarthy, she’ll explain that these practices are more essential than ever.
“There’s a kind of wellness that we’re all chasing—through yoga, meditation, mindfulness—but we already had it here,” she explained. “We just didn’t have the words for it back then. We’ve convinced ourselves that if a machine can do it faster, our old ways have no purpose. But there’s so much value in making bread by hand, in weaving a basket, in learning to light a fire. These things give people a sense of belonging, capability, and meaning.”
Through her platform Food Culture Place, McCarthy teaches people how to harvest, hunt, cook, and craft using traditional skills. She takes guests out to gather berries, cook meals over open fires, and learn about the food and traditions of Newfoundland and Labrador.
But a return to one’s roots doesn’t mean being led by nostalgia. In fact, McCarthy joyfully acknowledges that heritage isn’t static.
“A culture always changes,” she said. “It’s okay that we have newcomers moving here. They’re also looking for community, for purpose, for belonging. And that’s what this is really about.”
That philosophy also extends to her work with Indigenous communities on the island. McCarthy encourages everyone to share their stories honestly, especially those reclaiming their heritage after generations of silence. “You can’t fake culture. You can’t perform tradition. Just tell the truth of your experience, that’s where the real connection lives.”
For McCarthy, it’s also about reclaiming space. Historically male-dominated activities like hunting are now opening up. She’s hunted moose with elderly mentors who are thrilled to see young women carrying on the tradition. And through her work with local Rotary chapters, she turns moose harvested through community licenses into meals for food banks, fundraisers, and Christmas hampers.
“Culture lives in people,” she said. “It lives in how we care for each other, how we feed each other, how we share what we know. If we can hold onto that, we’ll be okay. There’s no dollar value on a life worth living,” she said.
And for McCarthy, a life worth living is shared around a fire, a plate, and a story.
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