ICH on the road - Edmonton, Alberta

While the City of Edmonton Historic Resource Management Program is primarily focused on the conservation of Edmonton's built historic resources, the City recognizes that these buildings have a story to tell or an activity that occurred in them. These stories, songs, or activities make up an very important part of Edmonton's heritage, that is not a physical reminder of the past (like our buildings) but an intangible connection to Edmonton and Alberta's rich history.

The City of Edmonton Planning and Development Department, in cooperation with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, is pleased to present a half day workshop on Intangible Cultural Heritage. The workshop will be lead by Dale Jarvis, a well known storyteller, author and folklorist who currently serves as the Intangible Cultural Heritage Officer with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador. Dale will guide participants through an overview of intangible cultural heritage, help brainstorm some of Edmonton's unique intangible cultural heritage and provide the City with some strategies for protecting and documenting these important connections to our past.

Friday, March 20th, 2009, 9 am to 12 pm
Governor's Room, City of Edmonton Archives, Prince of Wales Armouries
10440 108 Avenue
Edmonton, AB

The event is being organized by Lesley Collins MSc. Pl., Heritage Planner
BRZ & Heritage Conservation Unit, Planning & Policy Services Branch
Planning & Development Department , City of Edmonton
lesley.collins@edmonton.ca

An afternoon with hookers

On Wednesday, March 11th, I spent the afternoon with 47 hookers.

“Tea… With Hookers!” was an event sponsored by the Intangible Cultural Heritage program of the Heritage Foundation of NL, which saw a room full of rug and matt hookers come together to listen to three of their own discuss the history, craft, art and changing tradition of rug hooking.

The event was held at the Red Mantle Lodge in Shoal Brook, Gros Morne National Park, and was organized by Corner Brook-based folklorist Sandra Wheeler. A seasonal Parks Canada employee in the region, Sandra is a board member of HFNL, and is currently working on a documentary film about rug hooking.

The event took the form of a staged interview, where Sandra introduced everyone, and I gave a brief overview of the province’s ICH strategy. Following that, I interviewed three women: Molly White, Rose Dewhirst and Florence Crocker. Of the three women, Florence was the one who had been involved in the tradition the longest, having grown up at a time when hooking mats was still a functional craft. Both Molly and Rose learned the art more recently, and shared their experiences about what they saw as a tradition that has undergone a fundamental change from craft that produced functional pieces of furnishing for the floor, to an art that produces objects to be viewed on the wall.

See the photos of the event on Flickr

Visit Molly White's shop in Woody Point

4480 Walks on Water

Last Friday, George Chalker, Executive Director of HFNL, and I took Jillian Gould's Memorial University Folklore 4480: Folklore and Oral History class for a walk down memory lane, otherwise known as Water Street, St. John's. We stopped at various points along the way, talking about the changes to the street, and sharing tales of what used to occupy various buildings, different fires, and local characters.

The walk was part of an ongoing class project to document the oral history of St. John's main downtown street. Students will be collecting and recording stories about the street, and will eventually be placing some of their research online as part of an online exhibit about Water Street. The result will be posted on the class blog, still a work in progress. Stay tuned!

Clarenville Place Name Project

On the evening of Wednesday, March 4th, I was invited to give an address on intangible cultural heritage for the Clarenville Heritage Society’s annual general meeting. I started off with a folktale about names and naming that I had learned from a past resident of the area, and spoke on the folklore of naming and some of the possible origins of the name “Clarenville” itself.

The Society also used the AGM to inform the public about a place name mapping project they are working on. The group has hired on Carol Diamond as a researcher for the project, utilizing funding through the Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation’s Cultural Economic Development Program. Carol, a Clarenville native, is a Master’s student in Ethnomusicology at Memorial, studying Takudh hymnody of the Gwich’in (an Athapaskan First Nation), focusing specifically on communities in the Yukon.

After the meeting, the group moved from the lecture hall to another room, where we had unfurled maps showing Clarenville and the surrounding area. While some people chatted and shared stories amongst themselves, Carol gathered others around the maps. They pointed out areas they knew, rhymed off names of others, and suggested other residents who might be good sources of local information.

Download Dale’s address to the Clarenville Heritage Society as an mp3 podcast

Listen to streaming audio of the address, or download in other formats

See some of the named rock formations around Clarenville, in this pdf prepared by Society member Darlene Feltham