Heritage Update 085 - September 2021: Root Cellars, Research, and Rita Remembers Labrador!

In this edition of the Heritage Update newsletter: our new intern Sarah Roberts brings you up to date on our Digital Museums of Canada project tracking the history and evolution of root cellars in the province; Michael Philpott shares a summary of the research we've been doing on St. George's Anglican Church in Brigus; Lara Maynard has a report on our workshops and training program; Andrea O'Brien documents the work we've been doing with the Town of Fortune to reimagine a purpose for the old Victoria Hall Masonic Lodge #1378; Terra Barrett visits with  Rita Fitzgerald in North River (photo above) and reminisces about life on the Labrador; while Dale Jarvis fanboys about a historic potato. 

Download the pdf here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tk_1whf4VmDLQk_dDhMgOixsXPoDxWEq/view?usp=sharing

A recipe for Old Time Pork Cake, just in time for #FoodwaysFriday!

We want your old North River, Conception Bay, recipes for a community heritage book!  You can email a photo of your recipe to dale@heritagenl.ca or drop off a copy to Mayor Joanne Morrissey at the Town Office.

Old Time Pork Cake

1 cup finely ground pork

1 cup hot strong coffee

1 cup granulated sugar

1 teaspoon each of allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 eggs well beaten

⅔ cup of molasses

3 cups sifted flour

2 cups raisins

1 cup currants

2 cup mixed peel

Place pork in bowl. Pour hot coffee over it and let stand until cold

Sugar spices and soda - stir into pork and then add well beaten eggs and molasses.

Two tablespoons of flour over fruit, add raisins

Flour to the pork mixture, stirring until well blended

Add the floured fruit. Use a nine or ten inch baking pan and line it with three layers of brown paper.

Bake at 275° for about three hours.

Wicker work and woven furniture in Newfoundland - Have you seen a chair like this?

I've been scanning some photos from North River and Halls Town in Conception Bay, as part of an ongoing project we have there. If you are on Facebook,  you can look at all those photos in the North River Halls Town Memories group.

One of the photos is scanned from a slide from the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation, circa 1994. I have no information for it, but am assuming it came out of a house in North River, and was photographed when the Heritage Corp was doing heritage inventory work there in the 1990s. It shows a wicker rocking chair, painted white. I don't know if it was made locally or imported, but I'd love to have more information on it, or pieces like it.

Back in 2012, I photographed the woven bassinet below, owned by the Barnable family. It was purchased in 1959, and was made as part of a craft training program run by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). You can see more on that here.

If you have any pieces of Newfoundland (or Labrador) made woven furniture or basketry, or if these spark a memory for you, email me at dale@heritagenl.ca or comment below.

Do you have a favourite memory or recipe from North River, Conception Bay?