Thursday, September 26, 2013

A Persian bonfire for a grey Newfoundland day


I'm in Corner Brook for a meeting sponsored by the Qalipu First Nation, and it is a dreary, grey day here on the west coast. I was delighted therefore to open my mailbox and find a note and photo from Shabnam Inanloo Dailoo, the Heritage and Community Engagement Adviser with Western Heritage in St. Albert, Alberta.

A native of Iran, Shabnam was one of the many people I had the pleasure of meeting at the Alberta Museums Association conference last week. She was intrigued by my mention of Bonfire Night traditions in Newfoundland, and asked me if I knew of the end-of-year bonfire traditions in Iran.

Happily, I was! A few years ago, as part of our Festival on Fire, we organized a talk between Dr. Philip Hiscock and Ebrahim Monajemi, comparing bonfire traditions in Newfoundland and Iran. You can listen to that interview on the Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory for Newfoundland and Labrador.

Shabnam, who has done research on traditional Persian gardens, describes the photo as a "Persian fresco on the walls of Chehel Sotun Garden (40-column garden) from 17th century depicting the bonfire ceremony.... clearly an intangible cultural heritage associated with a cultural place in an artistic way."

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

An interview with CBC Central!



Yesterday, I was contacted and interviewed by Leigh Anne Power from CBC Central on the wells and springs project I've been working on here at the Heritage Foundation. Have a listen!

http://www.cbc.ca/centralmorning/episodes/2013/09/25/well-researched/

Also, if you have any stories, wells and springs, photos, or memories you would like to share with us, please contact me - I would love to hear more from you!

Contact me here: sarah@heritagefoundation.ca or 1 (709) 739-1892 ext. 7

Sharing stories of Quidi Vidi Village, Sunday, 7pm


This Sunday, graduate students from Memorial University’s Folklore Department will be sharing some of their fieldwork discoveries at a community gathering in Quidi Vidi. For the past three weeks, new folklore graduate students have been stationed in the village, as part of their graduate program requirements.

Students have been learning about a variety of different cultural documentation methods, all from a folkloristic perspective. They have learned how to use recording equipment and conduct oral history interviews, picked up photography tips from Newfoundland photographer Brian Ricks, and had instruction in how to draw floor plans of historic buildings. Along the way, they have interacted with locals, and gained insight into how folklorists really work in communities.

The students’ work is part of the “Folklore 6020: Field and Research Methods” course, aimed at teaching students how to document local culture and traditions, taught by instructor Dr. Gerald Pocius. The fieldschool program is a partnership between the Department of Folklore, the Quidi Vidi Village Foundation, the City of St. John’s, and the Heritage Foundation of NL’s Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) office.

“This is the second time we’ve partnered with Memorial University to run the folklore field school program,” says the foundation’s Dale Jarvis. “It is great for students to see how research happens outside of a classroom setting.”

Students will present their findings and research to the community at 7pm on Sunday, September 29th, at The Quidi Vidi Village Plantation, 10 Maple View Place, in Quidi Vidi. The event is free and open to the public.

(Photo: local resident China Snow being interviewed as part of a 
folklore class at The Plantation, photo by Lisa Wilson.)

Tuesday, September 24, 2013

Bite what you can chew: Project focus for your oral history or folklore project

I'm back in the office after spending the end of last week at the Alberta Museums Association's annual conference, where the theme this year was on Intangible Cultural Heritage, and I'm already back into the thick of things.

Conferences tend to revitalize me, and get me thinking about what it is we do here at the Heritage Foundation's ICH program. And being asked questions about what other people could do to pursue projects helps get me focussed on practical approaches.

So it was with delight today that I had a phone conversation with Madison Sharman, who I met briefly at the AMA conference (you can check out her art and photography page on facebook).  The organization she works with is embarking on an oral history project, and she had questions about where to start, and what to do with collected materials.

Many of her questions seemed very familiar, and are ones often asked by groups starting out doing some kind of ethnographic documentation project. So I gave her some of my thoughts, starting out with project focus.

I've seen a lot of community projects get bogged down quickly. They all start from a similar place: a sense that stories or traditions are under threat, and that a need to collect information from the community before it vanishes. It is a legitimate fear. One of the big reasons we do documentation work is to collect that sort of information whilst we can.  For that reason, and for other reasons, lots of groups or museums have started oral history collection projects.

But often they go nowhere.

I think one of the big reasons for this is that organizations simply try to collect too much stuff all at once. In haste to collect everything they can, they end up with a morass of audio or video recordings and notes, with no clear focus or thematic similarity. In collecting everything, they've ended up with information that doesn't have a clear purpose, or eventual use. And often, it ends up sitting in a box, under someone's desk, forgotten.

Sometimes, the people they collect from, their informants,  are uncertain what is expected from them. While they have stories and memories to share, some aren't sure where to start with their stories while being interviewed.

Much of this can be solved by having a clear set of goals, and setting a very specific project scope, with targeted questions. Initially, some community groups resist this, in their goal of wanting to collect as much as they can before it vanishes. I always encourage groups to start small, work on a meaningful project, that results in a clear final product that they can share back with the community.

Think about why you want to do the project, and what you hope to end up with when the project is completed. Instead of doing a project on the history of your town, maybe pick one street, or one shop, or one park. Instead of doing a project on women's work in general, look at one particular craft or occupation or tradition bearer. Don't be afraid to start small, or stop when you think the amount of data you have collected is getting too large to process. Once you finish a project, and have something to show for it, you can always do another project! I much prefer seeing a couple small projects finished, than one unwieldy, behemoth of a project that is never ended.

A finished, understandable,  and accessible project means that when you go forward looking to do another project, you can show what you've done. This way, you, your group, future collaborators, partners, informants, and, importantly, funders, know what you are capable of.

Want some tips on things to think about before you start a project? Check out our project planning checklist! Download it, share it with your group, print it off, and make notes on it. You don't need to fill out every block on the checklist, but hopefully it will give you a better sense of the scope of the project you are embarking on, before you end up with a box of recordings stuck under your desk and piles of unfinished paperwork.

Those are my thoughts! Thanks, Maddy!

Got a question about starting a folklore or oral history project for your town? Email me at ich@heritagefoundation.ca or call 1-888-739-1892 ext 2.

- Dale Jarvis

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: This is Mr. TB Germ

Educational booklet published by the Newfoundland Tuberculosis Association.
Ca. 1950 
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Newfoundland had a very high rate of tuberculosis infection and death, much higher than that of Canada, Great Britain or the United States. Several factors contributed to the spread of  TB in Newfoundland and Labrador. One was the custom of large families spending a lot of time in the kitchen, especially in winter, when all would gather to socialize and stay warm. A person with active TB would then expose their family and visitors to the disease.  A monotonous diet that lacked fresh food and important nutrients also weakened immune systems and left Newfoundlanders vulnerable to the disease. Tuberculosis was also difficult to detect until it became active and at this point was much more difficult to treat. Also, severe isolation in Newfoundland and Labrador meant there was little or no access to medical services and to top it off,  there was little understanding of the causes and prevention of TB. 

Educational booklet published by the Newfoundland Tuberculosis Association.
Ca. 1950 
The Newfoundland Tuberculosis Association, a dedicated anti-TB group founded in 1944 by Ted Meany, released publications to educate the community about the spread and prevention of the disease. The booklet featured in today's folklore photo was published by the association ca. 1950. 

Educational booklet published by the Newfoundland Tuberculosis Association.
Ca. 1950 
Tuberculosis continued to be a leading cause of death in Newfoundland and Labrador well into the 20th century, only being overtaken by heart disease and cancer in the 1950s. From 1901-1975, just under 32,000 people died of TB in Newfoundland. Often the victims were males aged 15 to 45, the wage earners of their families, so the social and economic costs of TB were great. It wasn't until the 1970s, with advances in pharmaceuticals, living conditions and through the efforts of the Newfoundland Tuberculosis Association, that Tuberculosis was defeated.

Click here to read the full booklet! 

-Nicole 

Monday, September 23, 2013

Boatbuilder and tradition bearer Henry Vokey to receive honorary doctorate of laws

The Corner Brook session of fall convocation of Memorial University will take place at the Arts and Culture Centre on Friday, Oct. 4. Master boat builder Henry Vokey will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree.

Henry Vokey has been surrounded by boats his entire life. He began building boats at age 12 when he constructed a six-foot model in the now-resettled outport village of Little Harbour in Smith Sound, Trinity Bay. At age 25 he began to take a serious interest in building boats as a means of survival and, after moving to Trinity in 1964, his business flourished.

During the 1970s Henry Vokey and Sons Shipbuilding employed close to 40 people. He has been active in the construction of more than 1,000 seafaring wooden vessels ranging from a 12-foot rodney to 65-foot draggers. The varieties include trap skiffs, sailboats, dories, schooners and numerous small-scale models.

Through the years there have been many changes where boat building is concerned, most notably the introduction of steel and Fibreglas models of fishing vessels. Despite these changes, Mr. Vokey remained determined to do as he always had done: he had spent so many years working with wood and had no desire to change to any other material.

In 2008 Mr. Vokey announced he would build one last schooner. He started in 2009 and the 44-foot double-masted wooden schooner named Leah Caroline was launched three years later in Trinity Bay. Named after his great-granddaughter Leah and his late wife Caroline, the schooner is still enjoyed by Mr. Vokey and his friends and family.

In 2007 Mr. Vokey received the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. In 2008 he was awarded honorary life membership in Newfoundland and Labrador’s Wooden Boat Museum and in 2012 was inducted into the Atlantic Canada Marine Industries Hall of Fame.

A significant contributor to the cultural traditions of our province, Henry Vokey will receive an honorary doctor of laws degree during the Corner Brook session of convocation at 10 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 4.

Thanks to Jim Wellman, Editor, Navigator Magazine, and Beverley King, Project Manager, Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador, for sending this note my way. - Dale

Henry Glassie: Irish Music and Stories, Oct 2nd


The Rooms
7pm
October 2nd, 2013

Henry Glassie: Irish Music and Stories
From the markets of Istanbul to the back roads of Ireland,  renowned folklorist Henry Glassie has spent a lifetime studying material culture and the process of creation. Join us as he talks about his groundbreaking work with Irish music and stories.

Admission is Free, but seating is limited.
The Rooms
9 Bonaventure Avenue
St. John's, NL A1C 5P9
www.therooms.ca

Friday, September 20, 2013

Water Sources Closer to Home

When the wells and springs project first began, I was getting contacted from all over the province, and planning amazing day trips to different communities to be shown sometimes upwards of 10 wells in a day, and chatting with multiple people. Over the last several weeks, I have started reaching out to contacts that are a little more local. Although I live in St. John’s, it has been a little more difficult to find wells, springs, and people to meet that remember a time when you didn’t just turn on a tap. But I’ve made some new friends, with some great stories to share from a little closer to home.


A few weeks ago I made a trek out to the MUN Botanical Gardens, and met with Christine, who showed me around their property. This area of the city has gone through multiple changes over the years, and has hidden within it several wells and springs. The wishing well, closest to the main building, used to service a house owned by Wilt Butler. It was used for water until the pipes were crushed and it became unusable, and after serving as a wishing well for a while it was eventually was covered over due to vandalism. Christine also showed me an open spring along a 200 year-old section of Oxen Pond road originally used for carts that has been integrated into the Botanical Gardens pathways. This spring was across the road from Albert Clarke’s cottage, and he and his wife accessed this spring with a bucket. There are two more wells belonging to cottages now gone on the property that are slightly more hidden from view, and so I plan on going back to the gardens soon to find them.

Last week, I made a short trip out to Portugal Cove St. Philips. I first met up with Michael Murray, who owns and operates Murray’s Gardening Centre on family land. He told me an amazing story about his ancestors, who were some of the first people to settle in the area, and showed me a spring that they found in a hillside and dug out to create a wellhouse. Michael told me he believes the well is from the early 1800’s, and was discovered by his family – and with the few landmarks in the vicinity named after the Murray family, it isn’t hard to believe. It has since been sealed up for safety reasons, and is no longer in use.



I also went to meet up with Edna and Edgar Spurrell in St. Philip’s. The house they live in is close to a century old, and has always been a part of Edgar’s family – he has lived there since he was born in the late 1930s. Edgar dug the well 40 years ago on his own, about 240 feet away from the house up the hill, and the well itself is about 6 feet deep, which feeds into the house via gravity. Up until last year they have never had a problem with the water, and both Edna and Edgar describe it as being both cold and clear. Unfortunately, some nearby construction seems to have affected the water table that feeds their well, and they have been relying on rainwater and water supplies from Edna’s sister since May. Hopefully the city can provide them with some help, and Edna has promised to keep me updated as to what is going on with them.

Just this past Wednesday I went up to Shea Heights to meet with a wonderfully cheery woman named Shirley Holden. Shirley had a great well tradition to share with me that I had not heard about yet – taking special occasion photos around their well. She even shared a great family photo from 1961 with me, and even though I used it a few days ago for the Tuesday Folklore Photo, I have to share it again. Shirley told me how the well outside of Vicker’s general store was a popular place for Christmas ad Easter picture taking, because they would decorate the front window to fit the holiday, and it made the perfect backdrop for the pictures. You can read a little more about our meeting here.



Having more opportunities to do interviews and talk to people has been a great learning and growing experience. For me, it’s a way to understand research and history from a different perspective than I’m used to as an archaeologist; for the project, it’s a way to give meaning and life to the wells and springs we’ve visited; and for the men and women I’ve had the privilege to be able to speak with, it’s a way to make sure their memories and traditions are preserved for future generations to enjoy, remember, and continue.

If you have any stories to share about sharing wells, drinking from springs, or taking photos with wells as the centrepiece, please let us at the Heritage Foundation know! You can email me at sarah@heritagefoundation.ca, or call 739-1892 ext 7.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Tuesday Folklore Photo: Posing Pretty on a Well



So yes, technically it's Wednesday, but I had to slightly delay the folklore photo this week because of a really exciting meeting I had this morning. I went out to Shea Heights to meet Shirley Holden, who contacted the Folklore office about a tradition she remembers surrounding taking special occasion photos.

Shirley told me this morning that when she was growing up in Shea Heights wells represented a gathering place - kids would hang out on the well and meet up to decide where to play, and workmen would eat sitting on the general store well while waiting for a ride back to work. One really interesting tradition she told me about was taking photos on a well for a special occasion. The photo above is of Shirley (bottom) with her older sister Rita (top left) and her mother Anne (top right) sitting on their family well for a photo, which was taken around 1961.

Shirley remembers always gathering to take photos on the well for anything special: birthdays, Easter, or even Christmas, especially outside of the Vicker's general store window on their well out front of the property. "They put all the decorations and the lights and the little houses [in the window] and so that was your big background; everybody would go and sit on the Vicker's well and get their picture taken ... and it wasn't only us, it was a lot of people that went and sat on the well and got their pictures taken".

Later this week there will be a more detailed recap of some interesting people I have been lucky enough to meet the last couple weeks, including Shirley!

If you have any wells or springs stories to share, please contact me at either Sarah@heritagefoundation.ca or 739-1892 ext. 7

Thursday, September 12, 2013

A trip to Indian Rock, Petty Harbour


I've been doing a little bit of digging into the folklore surrounding this glacial erratic in Petty Harbour, Newfoundland. Locally, it is known as Indian Rock, Injun Rock, and Engine Rock. Based on a historic photograph in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Indian Rock is probably the historic name, with "Injun" and then "Engine" being later reinterpretations of the name.

It is also referred to in a couple places as a logan stone, from an old English or Cornish word meaning to rock back and forth.  The earliest reference to Indian Rock as a logan stone is from William Grey's Sketches of Newfoundland and Labrador, (Ipswich, England: S. H. Cowell, Anastatic Press, 1858). Accompanying a sketch of Petty Harbour, Grey writes,
"On the hill opposite the church is a curious rock, which Druidical antiquaries would call a Logan stone."

This name for the rock was referenced in an article by folklorist Philip Hiscock in 1998 (Downhomer, 11.5 pp 18-19) and then later by popular Newfoundland author Jack Fitzgerald in 2009 (Remarkable Stories of Newfoundland, Creative Publishers, pp 3-5).

I'd love to know anything people remember about this rock, particularly about the origin of the name Indian Rock. If you have a memory or a story, email me at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

- Dale Jarvis


Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Thrown blood and stolen luck - a Newfoundland superstition

Recently, I came across this quote linking blood and luck:
"The settlers had many superstitions and were obsessed by a belief in the presence of ghosts. It was common to hear of a man, who, while rowing across the harbor, had seen a phantom French ship, with many soldiers aboard, also crossing. Others had seen an Indian ghost following them from one settlement to another. Their superstitions were legion and I shall mention only one. During the seal hunt if a successful hunter saw anybody throwing blood out of his boat into the boat of another, a fight was sure to follow because the hunter believed that his luck was being stolen."
- from J. Morgan, "Recollections of Harbour Deep," September 1957, page 5, Atlantic Guardian Vol 14, no 9

Has anyone come across this folk belief before? If so, drop me a line at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

- Dale Jarvis

Folklore, fieldwork, and forgotten cemeteries

 

In the 2013 August/September issue of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update: students start the Folklore 6020 field school in Quidi Vidi; the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador launches its most recent publication, on lych-gates in Newfoundland; archaeologist Sarah Ingram gives an update on the wells and springs project; Nicole Penney reports on digitizing the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation Oral History Collection; we have a report on HFNL's recent tombstone rubbing workshop; and notes on a little-known cemetery in Clarke's Beach, Conception Bay.

Contributors: Dale Jarvis, Nicole Penney, Lisa Wilson, Sarah Ingram, Claire McDougall. Photo of the Isaac Snow grave marker by Claire McDougall.

The newsletter is available online as a pdf document. 

Thursday, September 5, 2013

Doors Open St. John's returns for 2013


Guest blog post by Christina Robarts

September 7-8 from 10am-4pm
It’s that time of year once again for the annual Doors Open event. Every year various sites around the city of St. John’s open their doors to visitors free of charge. For those who don’t know Doors Open is a unique opportunity for citizens and visitors to the province to celebrate our heritage through the exploration of some of our hidden historical, architectural and cultural gems. Doors open events are community-wide, open-hours events which provide the public access to architecturally, historically or culturally significant or interesting properties, free of charge, within a given time frame. The places and spaces included may be those which normally charge fees, or are not usually open to or promoted to the public.

This year we have 16 returning favourites and 3 new sites:

16 returning favourites
  • The Newman Wine Vaults
  • Robin Hood Bay Waste Management Facility
  • James J. O’Mara Pharmacy Museum, Apothecary Hall
  • Basilica of St. John the Baptist and Basilica Museum
  • The Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
  • Clovelly Stables Community
  • Art Gallery at the Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Council
  • Central Fire Station
  • Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club
  • Quidi Vidi Plantation and Craft Incubator
  • Quidi Vidi Brewery
  • The Railway Coastal Museum
  • The YMCA of Northeast Avalon
  • St. John’s Farmers’ Market
  • Winterholme Heritage Inn and Spa
  • Suncor Energy Fluvarium
3 Sites participating for the first time
  • The Peter Lewis Gallery
  • Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum
  • FarOut Fitness
Admission is FREE to all sites. For more details about times and days of participating sites please visit www.doorsopendays.com , Like Doors Open Days on Facebook or @DoorsOpenDaysNL on Twitter or on Instagram @DoorsOpenNL.

You can also email Christina Robarts, Doors Open Days 2013 Coordinator at doorsopendays@gmail.com

This event is sponsored by: CBC, The Telegram, Newfoundland Historic Trust, City of St. John’s, Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadian Heritage, and Heritage Canada Foundation.

Tuesday, September 3, 2013

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: That's one dirty old...shut your mouth!


When I happen to have a boil up with folks from away I can't help but point at the kettle on the fire, lean in close and whisper mischievously, "Do you know what we call that in Newfoundland"?

They, of course, say "no" and I giggle like a child who just learned about beaver architecture, the actual name for a female dog and donkey synonyms all in one glorious afternoon.

I blurt out, "It's called a slut!", while thinking, "please ask me why it's called that, please ask me why it's called that."

The inevitable question follows and I practically explode.

"Because they're fast and dirty"!!

I sit back then, far more proud than I should be of this awful one-liner. Who do I think I am? Henny Youngman?

But I can't help myself so I giggle and ask, "Do you know what we call dandelions here"?