Heritage Update: Grants, Conferences, & Red Cliff and Random Head Memories

In Heritage Update Number 070 for March-April 2017: we introduce some changes to our Designation and Grant Programs; share memories from the former Red Cliff Base; announce the grant deadline for the Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Program 2017; meet the Coopers, the lighthouse family of Random Head in a special article from the Clarenville Heritage Society; and ask you to save the date for the "Adapting our Heritage Conference" in St. John’s, October 25 – 28, 2017. We also take a trip to look at the archival material of Portugal Cove-St. Philip’s, seek your help with our survey of historical churches, and announce the Greenspond Courthouse Call for Expressions of Interest!

Contributors: Lucy Alway, Terra Barrett, Stephen Bonnell, Jerry Dick, and Kelly Drover.

Download the pdf

photo: "Home Sweet Home" - The Lighthouse - Random Head. Courtesy Clarenville Heritage Society.

Heritage Week: Clarenville Oral History Collection

Interviewers Megan Vardy, Stephen Bonnell, and Sam Adey

Over the summers of 2014 and 2016, nine oral history interviews were conducted in Clarenville by Sam Adey, Stephen Bonnell, Dale Jarvis, and Megan Vardy. Most of the interviewees talk about growing up and life in the community and surrounding areas. Where Clarenville acted as a travel junction, the railway is an important aspect of the interviews, effecting those who worked with the railway and those who used it. Albert Noseworthy, Lindo Palmer, and Baxter Tuck talk about their work with the railway. Another industry important to Clarenville is the emulsified asphalt and creosote industries, which is the focus of John Stanley's recording. Victor Pittman talks about health and medicine in the area, where his Uncle Jim was a self taught medical practitioner. Gord Tilley talks about his ancestor Joseph "Scholar John" Tilley, who is considered a founder of Shoal Harbour. Gloria Downey is interviewed about growing up in Clarenville, her favorite pastimes, and her experiences acting with the local theater group To Be Announced. As a significant business person in the area, Geneva Cholock talks about being a photographer and the various shops she has owned through her life. Joan Tilley's interview focuses on her experiences growing up in Scotland, moving to Newfoundland as a war bride, and the changes she has seen over the years.


To listen to these interviews, visit the Memorial University of Newfoundland Digital Archives Initiative.

~ Kelly

#CollectiveMemories Roadtrip: Clarenville Heritage Society

I'm in Clarenville today, meeting with the Clarenville Heritage Society about setting up a Collective Memories project. Above are three of the people I met with today,  Megan Vardy, Stephen Bonnell, and Sam Adey.

We had a good conversation about the work they are doing to preserve the history of Clarenville and surrounding area, and where they might fit in to our new Collective Memories project. After our preliminary discussions, I think we'll be assisting them with two small pilot projects: we'll be helping them sort out the metadata and descriptions for their existing oral history collection and adding it to Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative; and we'll return soon to help them with some new oral history interviews, specifically on the railway history of Clarenville and area.

You can check out some of the interviews they've done in the past here.

We'll post more on the project as it chugs on down the track!

The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador is looking for community partners to help make existing oral history collections more accessible to the general public, and can help communities start up new oral history projects to interview local seniors. For more information on the Collective Memories Project or how you or your community organization can get involved, email terra@heritagefoundation.ca or call (709) 739-1892, ext. 5.

- Dale

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: Riding the Rails

This is a picture of my great grandmother, Ethel Peddle (nee Ivany), taken circa 1927-1933. Her father was a roadmaster with the Newfoundland Railway and she would ride the rails with him from time to time. Originally from Bloomfield, Bonavista Bay, Ethel loved the opportunity to go clothes shopping in Clarenville or St. John's on these trips. This snap was taken in Clarenville when my great grandmother was in her late teens to early twenties.

-Nicole

Mummers Parade Saturday in St. John's, Sunday in Clarenville

Well, the Mummers Festival is banging to a crescendo this weekend!

On Saturday, Dec 15th, we have the Rig Up, the Parade itself, the Mummers Jam, and new this year, Mummeroke!

Remember, we want you to be IN the parade! This is a participatory event, and anyone can dress up and join in.

Also new this year, the Clarenville Mummers Parade and Jam, happening Sunday, Dec 16th.

If you are curious, you can look at the St. John's parade route on Google Maps, or listen to the CBC Radio Noon Crosstalk on mummering.

www.mummersfestival.ca

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