Far & Away

Welcome back oyster lovers

Our crew joined up with Rodney’s Toronto this past week and set of island bound for Prince Edward Island and the 50th annual Canadian Oyster Shucking Championships which are held in the town of Tyne Valley P.E.I.

This year Tyne was not only home to the national contest but the Thursday night preceding the contest a group of ten shuckers gathered together to set a new Gunnies Wold Record. Eamon Clark from Rodney’s Toronto & Jesse Papastavros from Rodneys Calgary, joined by Joshua Bishop, Patrick McMurray, Jeff Noy, Janet Hardy Callaghan, Mike Langley, Simeron Novak, Philip Ho & Daniel Notkin. It was quite a site to see these ten rally together in a bid to set a new record which late Thursday night they accomplished shucking 8840 oysters in a hour beating the previous record of 8473 set in 2002 by a team from France. Soaked and sweaty showered in beer the crowed rejoiced with the shuckers when the final number was announced. We’re so proud of this Canadian shucking team who spend most of the year  working at oyster houses gearing up to compete against one another at both national and international contests, they came together shucked hard and fast and set a new World Record.

The Friday following brought us the Canadian National Shucking Competition this year marking it’s 50th anniversary. This contest holds a lot of prestige for the contestants for the winner gets to represent Canada in the world contest held mid September in Ireland.

This year in Tyne we had a great turn out of competing shuckers 31 in total vying for the top spot. The honours this year went to Eamon Clark of Rodney’s Oyster House Toronto sealing his sixth Canadian title. We wish him luck as he goes off to Ireland to bring it back to Canada. Rodney’s Oyster house also took home two other top ten spots as well as the award for best presentation, a great showing by all shuckers in attendance gotta say we’re darn proud of our crew putting their heads down and finishing strong.

We were blessed with great weather great companions and some great learning experiences during our travels, visiting a handful of oyster farms and for many of us our first time visiting a working mussel farm and production facility, so many great mentors at each operation. Big thanks to the crews at Raspberry Point, Prince Edward Aqua Farms & Rodneys Oyster Depot for helping us grow our product knowledge and understanding of island aquaculture.

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Thanks again, the ROH crew.