Bark Pots and Bark Tanning - Heritage NL releases new paper on the history of a local tradition

Bark Pot, Cape Broyle, c 1950s, from the slide collection of Mr. Ronald O'Brien.

As part of our work on safeguarding skills at risk, we've been doing some research on the various traditions in Newfoundland and Labrador related to the use of bark pots for tanning, preserving fishing gear, and colouring canvas. 

You can read the report "The History and Practice of Bark Tanning in Newfoundland and Labrador" online, right here. 

If you have a memory of bark pots, email dale@heritagenl.ca, or comment below. 

What Will Happen to the Storytellers?: Storytelling, Painting, and Newfoundland Ponies with Clifford George. #MakerMonday

For #MakerMonday we'll be profiling some of the people practicing traditional skills on the Baccalieu Trail.
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Clifford George of Whiteway wears many hats. He is a storyteller, an artist, and has been rescuing Newfoundland ponies for decades.

Storytelling comes naturally to Clifford. He says that growing up without electric lights and without television, stories were all around him. He was inspired by the stories of his father, Esau George, and others, and has been remembering and writing them down to safeguard them for future generations. His favourite stories to tell are about Newfoundland fairies. These stories about ghosts and fairies were told to him by older family members to encourage him to be home before dark.

He has also always been a painter, and credits his isolation growing up in a small town in Newfoundland with training his eye to see the shapes and colours of the land. He practices plein air painting, capturing the vivid colours of Newfoundland and Labrador outports. He says you can probably hear his palette knives clicking all over the harbour as he lays on the paint. He plans to continue painting this summer, and you may see him on the side of a road with his easel surrounded by yellow caution tape.

Clifford George and one of his paintings. Photo by Jackie Evans.

Clifford has also worked hard to save the Newfoundland pony from extinction. With his own money, he would buy ponies that were destined for meat trucks, and established a sanctuary for retired Newfoundland ponies to spend their days. While the generation of Newfoundland ponies that he saved in the 1980s and 1990s are mostly gone now, their legacy lives on.

To hear more stories from Clifford George, check out the Living Heritage Podcast Hidden Gems episode.

This episode is part of a special series about the Baccalieu Trail region of Newfoundland and Labrador. Join us as we explore the hidden gems of the Baccalieu Trail- from stories of phantom ship sightings to local art and history.
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Do you live on the Baccalieu Trail and practice a traditional skill or know someone who does? Fill out our survey!

Living Heritage Ep 178: Green's Harbour Loyal Orange Lodge

The Green's Harbour Orange Lodge. Photo courtesy of Nancy Brace.

Nancy Grace is the founder of the Green's Harbour Heritage Society. She is a Green’s Harbour native who returned to Newfoundland in 2007. In 2009, she learned that the Orange Lodge in her community was for sale, and felt compelled to preserve one of the town’s oldest historic buildings. Nancy’s memories of the Green’s Harbour United Church being torn down when she was a teen motivated her to start the Green's Harbour Heritage Society and restore the community’s heritage architecture.

Mike Paterson delivering the Star of the East window. Photo courtesy of Nancy Brace.

The Loyal Orange Lodge, also known as the Orange Order, is a protestant fraternal organization. The Orange Lodge was established in Northern Ireland in 1795 in support of the Protestant monarchy in Britain. Every year on July 12th, the Orange Lodge celebrates the 1691 victory of Protestant Prince William of Orange, or William the Third, over the Catholic monarch King James the Second. Lodges all over the U.K. and North America traditionally hold an Orange Day parade on July 12th.

The Loyal Orange Lodge also had a women's association. This pin belonged to Jane Burgess (née Butt) born 1877 in Blow Me Down. She married Richard Burgess from Whiteway in 1901. As there was no lodge in Whiteway, they were both members of the Green’s Harbour lodge. Jane Burgess was made a honorary member of the Lodge on her 90 birthday in 1967.

Photo Courtesy of Burgess Heritage property.

In Newfoundland, the Orange Lodge serves many functions. One of the tenets of the Lodge is to encourage its members to do good works in their community without seeking recognition. The Green’s Harbour Orange Lodge is now amalgamated with nearby communities, but Nancy and the Green’s Harbour Heritage Society are looking to adapt the historic Lodge building as a multi-use center for the community. In this interview, Nancy shares stories about the lodge and the new life being brought to the building through restoration.

This episode is part of a special series about the Baccalieu Trail region of Newfoundland and Labrador. Join us as we explore the hidden gems of the Baccalieu Trail- from stories of phantom ship sightings to local art and history.

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

It Was the Music That Got Me: Tin Whistle and Wooden Flute with Gerry Strong. #MakerMonday

For #MakerMonday we'll be profiling some of the people practicing traditional skills on the Baccalieu Trail.
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Gerry Strong is a self-taught tin whistle and wooden flute player living in Carbonear. He has always been interested in music, playing in the brass band in his high school, but it wasn't until he moved to Ireland after graduation that he found his calling in the tin whistle.

Gerry Strong playing the wooden flute. Photo provided by Gerry Strong.

The tin whistle has given him the opportunity to travel the world and share traditional Newfoundland and Irish music with people in other countries. He has been a member of several bands including Tickle Harbour, A Crowd of Bold Sharemen, What Odds, and Cotillion with Dave Panting and Hugh Scott. The only challenge he finds with the tin whistle is to always keep learning and improving.

Knowing to play a traditional instrument allows Gerry to connect with his heritage. As long as he has one or two people who appreciate the music, he will sit and play for them all day.  He is part of a project which is working to get tin whistle introduced into school music programs to foster a love for the instrument and traditional music with future generations.

Heritage Foundation NL · Gerry Strong On Newfoundland Traditional Music

It means a fair bit. It's part of what we are and who we are and it's important that we keep it alive, to keep it going. It's made us unique in the world. When I started playing, I was mostly Irish traditional music and stuff, and I was up in Toronto at a session. A session is where you're just sitting around at a bar with a bunch of other musicians and you're just playing. There's no set list or anything you have to play. It's like a kitchen party. And people were really interested. Those musicians were saying, "Play some of your music now!" And I had one or two Newfoundland tunes, not an awful lot, and it made me realize that you go out into the world and you can hear the Irish music pretty well anywhere. It's very popular all around the world now. But the Newfoundland, the pure, traditional Newfoundland music is not that well known, and people are eager to hear it. So, it's important that we learn it, and carry it on, and pass it on to others. And it is starting to get a much broader audience now. There are musicians from Ireland that have come over here and gone back over to Ireland, now, and they've recorded some Newfoundland tunes they've learned while they're here. So, I mean, it's important that we learn these and pass them on to the future.

The reaction from the crowd when playing traditional music inspires him. But it also brings him a personal joy. He says that if you've had a hard day, and you can get a chance to sit down and play a few tunes, all is forgotten.
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Do you live on the Baccalieu Trail and practice a traditional skill or know someone who does? Fill out our survey!

Living Heritage Ep177: Hiking and History on the Baccalieu Trail

Photo courtesy of Barb Parsons-Sooley.

We’re hitting the trails with Barb Parson Parsons-Sooley. Barb is a founding member of Hike Baccalieu, a trail maintenance association in the Baccalieu Trail region. She’s also a hiking tour guide for Roots Adventures. Barb grew up in Bay Roberts and lived away in Alberta working as a flight medic and firefighter for many years. When she returned to Newfoundland, she settled in Hearts Delight and began hiking. She started taking her garden clippers with her on trails that needed some trimming, and she’s been maintaining the trails ever since.

Barb Parsons-Sooley sits beside the outport village built by her father on the Western Point Trail.

This episode is part of a special series about the Baccalieu Trail region of Newfoundland and Labrador. Join us as we explore the hidden gems of the Baccalieu Trail- from stories of phantom ship sightings to local art and history.

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

A (very incomplete) history of the Mary March Museum, Grand Falls-Windsor.

I had a request for information on the history of the Mary March Museum, in light of the recent discussions over its name. Here is what I've found.

The Mary March Museum started in 1973 and was housed in the Penthouse room at the top of the Provincial building in GFW. It was run by a board of directors. In the early 1970s the board managed to get Federal funding to establish an Exhibition Centre which would become the current museum.

Sod was cut to start work on the museum June 14, 1976. More:

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/trident/id/637/rec/4 page 5

The Museum opened in 1977:

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/trident/id/610/rec/5 page 4

And closed in 1981 due to lack of funds (plus information on the locomotive in the photo) page 52

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/compoundobject/collection/cns_decks/id/4312/rec/1

The Museum was taken over by the province in 1985:

https://www.assembly.nl.ca/houseBusiness/Hansard/ga40session1/May27-1985.pdf 

page R974

At some point in the 1980s there was a reconstruction of a Beothuk encampment associated with the museum. Do photos of this exist??

Archival photo of the building circa 1988:

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/decksphotos/id/3283/rec/8

A petition was made in 2006 by local students to change the name:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/rename-museum-for-beothuk-s-sake-students-1.579197

And

https://briarpatchmagazine.com/articles/view/demasduits-museum-grade-two-students-petition-to-set-the-record-straight

The petition was presented to the House of Assembly by Anna Thistle, the member for Grand Falls-Windsor:

https://www.assembly.nl.ca/HouseBusiness/Hansard/ga45session3/06-11-20.htm#1470

Discussion resurfaced in 2020 with the town council seeming to be in favour of a name change:

https://www.saltwire.com/lifestyles/local-lifestyles/renewed-interest-in-changing-name-of-provincial-museum-in-grand-falls-windsor-460778/#.XufzBI4Mtws.twitter

And

http://ntv.ca/mary-march-museum-may-soon-be-changing-name/

One response to the proposed change suggested the museum needed to go further, and operate as more than a seasonal museum:

http://ntv.ca/qalipu-councillor-says-changing-name-of-mary-march-museum-would-be-good-first-step/ 

UPDATE: The first Curator of the Museum was Glen Stroud. The Beothuck village reconstruction was never part of the Museum, it was established by the EVTA, Exploits Valley Tourism Association and run seasonally by them. It was put in place with the help of Don Pelley, Lloyd Seaward and a few other people.

It's Just the Love of the Craft: Stained Glass With Michael Laduke. #MakerMonday

For #MakerMonday we'll be profiling some of the people practicing traditional skills on the Baccalieu Trail.
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Michael Laduke remembers seeing his first stained glass piece, a gift given to one of his friends, and the love of glass was instantaneous. Originally from Quebec, he and his wife have been operating the SeaGlass Bed and Breakfast in New Perlican for the past 6 years. After moving to Newfoundland and Labrador permanently last year, Michael brought with him all the glass he needed to continue making stained glass and selling it out of his studio.

Jellyfish stained glass sun catchers by Michael Laduke. Photo from Sea Glass BnB.

Influenced by nautical themes and the scenery of Newfoundland, Michael likes to play with colours and textures in glass to catch the light in different ways and bring dimension to his work. He uses his wife's photography as layouts to design unique Newfoundland inspired pieces.

Heritage Foundation NL · Michael Laduke On Stained Glass

I really like the way the light plays on the glass in different intensities. In the sunlight sometimes it looks completely different than if you're in the shade. So, that's kind of cool. I really like that aspect of it. I try my best to think about that. I mean, sometimes I finish a piece and hold it up to the light and go, "Oh my God, what was I thinking?" But probably most of the time, I hang it up anyway because, a piece that's completed, it'll sell right away. So, I have my tastes, but that's probably not the same as anybody else. I mean, everybody's taste is individual, so what I think doesn't go well together, somebody else might really love.

According to Michael, stained glass has one speed: slow. It is a solitary process, and you need to be comfortable to sit down for hours and do the work. He says that for self-isolation during this pandemic, it has been the perfect refuge.

Michael Laduke working on a piece. Photo from Sea Glass BnB.

Michael says that the way this tradition will continue is for other people to fall in love with the craft as he as. His best advice for new practitioners is patience. It will take time to learn how to put thin, smooth lines of solder on and to grind the glass to the appropriate shape. Even though he has been practicing this craft for over 40 years, he says he is still getting better at it and there are always new things to learn.

Puffin stained glass sun catcher by Michael Laduke. Photo from Sea Glass BnB

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Do you live on the Baccalieu Trail and practice a traditional skill or know someone who does? Fill out our survey!

A Window on History: the June Heritage Update for Heritage NL

In this edition of the Heritage Update: restoration of the Basilica windows; heritage staycations; the Baccalieu Trail Traditional Knowledge Inventory; and engaging seniors in heritage work. Download the pdf here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ps2krKSV5q6RXufbekjWy-Cu5KlYOwK4/view?usp=sharing

Living Heritage Ep176: Storytelling on the Baccalieu Trail with Clifford George

Photo courtesy of Jackie Evans.

Clifford George is an artist and storyteller living in Whiteway, Newfoundland and Labrador. While he’s primarily self-taught, Clifford also received a formal art education at the College of Trades and Technology in St. John’s. He has painted and studied with well-known Newfoundland artists like Gerald Squires, Frank LaPointe and Don Wright. Clifford also worked as a medical artist at the Health Sciences Centre at Memorial University.  You can find Clifford’s work at the Christina Parker Gallery in St. John’s.

In this episode, Clifford shares a few stories with Heritage NL researcher Katie Crane about Newfoundland faeries, his painting, and his advocacy work on behalf of Newfoundland ponies.

This episode is part of a special series about the Baccalieu Trail region of Newfoundland and Labrador. Join us as we explore the hidden gems of the Baccalieu Trail- from stories of phantom ship sightings to local art and history.

Learn more about Clifford's work and the Newfoundland Pony:

https://christinaparkergallery.com/artist/clifford-george/
http://nqonline.ca/article/q-and-a-with-clifford-george/
https://newfoundlandpony.com/
https://gem.cbc.ca/media/absolutely-canadian/season-15/episode-8/38e815a-00939422c38

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Performance and Pandemic - an interview with Jordan Vincer

As part of our ongoing Covid-19 NL Oral History series, we sit down for a chat with Ryerson University student Jordan Vincer about his studies, performance during lockdown, and his thesis project reimagining the traditional Newfoundland Mummers' Play. 

Out of Necessity, I Suppose: Knife Making and Wood Carving with Edward Delaney. #MakerMonday

For #MakerMonday we'll be profiling some of the people practicing traditional skills on the Baccalieu Trail.
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Edward Delaney of Gull Island has been whittling and carving since he was a child. He describes himself as an outdoorsman, and carving has been a way for him to pass the time and entertain himself while hunting or working outside.

Heritage Foundation NL · Edward Delaney on Carving and Making His Own Knives

I could always kind of recognize the images and shapes of the things, right? Like I said, what it was, you look at a piece and you see something into it, like you see an animal, like a weasel, or a mink, or maybe a head of a horse. Something like that, right? And then you go from there. Of course, you'd start off with a pocket knife. And then as I got a little bit more advanced, then I had to make my own knives because, they were basically, well, you couldn't hardly buy them and they were too expensive to buy anyway, so you had to make your own knives. Something like that, right? It was a hobby and a pastime, and like I said, you create something that you like. Because I was always interested in it. I like horses, and I like animals, and I like wildlife, right? So, why not carve it?

Now, after years of practice, he can see animals and objects in the shape of the wood. He prefers to carve wildlife. He does several different types of carving including carving in the round and relief carving. He prefers carving in the round because it allows him to bring the animal to life from the wood. For people new to carving, his advice is to start small and visualize the end product. If you can't see what you're trying to bring out of the wood, it will be harder for you to figure out the steps to make it happen. He says no one gets it right on the first try, so keep practicing.

Horse carved by Edward Delaney. Photo by Linda Delaney.

Edward also makes his own knives for carving and hunting. He says that commercial carving knives were too expensive and had to be ordered from away when he started carving. Out of necessity, he started crafting his own knives out of already tempered steel. Making knives this way requires no specialized tools, and the knives are able to be resharpened and reused. Sustainability is an important factor for Edward, and knowing how to make knives is important to him so that he can continue the traditions of resourcefulness and independence of Newfoundlanders.

Knives by Edward Delaney. Photo by Linda Delaney.

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Do you live on the Baccalieu Trail and practice a traditional skill or know someone who does? Fill out our survey!

Living Heritage Podcast Ep175 Weaving with Renee Finlayson

This week, we chat with retired Newfoundland production weaver Renee Finlayson. We talk about her move from Quebec to rural Bonne Bay in the 1970s, her beginning and evolution as a weaver, the types of work she created, and her insights into weaving as a profession.

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Bark Tanning

One of the projects I am working in this summer is researching the process of barking or bark tanning. The Dictionary of Newfoundland English describes this as "to immerse a fish-net, sail, etc, in the liquid formed by boiling the bark and buds of a conifer, as a preservative."

People would boil bark, twigs, and branches from local trees in a communal barking pot or barking kettle and use the resulting tea which was rich in tannin to preserve nets, sails, or other canvas goods. The area near where St. John's City Hall is today was once the location of a barking kettle.

It was also used to tan things like seal skin for making boots. There is evidence of the Dorset Paleoeskimo practicing bark tanning of seal skins in Port aux Port, indicating its long history of use in the province. This is a practice which is continued today by some residents on the Northern Peninsula.

Last week, the Craft Council tweeted about the website Handmade In Labrador, a collection of handmade crafts by the Labrador Artisans Co-operative which showcases the traditional craft methods of Southern Labrador. Many of their products use traditional bark tanning to transform cotton duck, a plain, heavy cotton fabric, from white to shades of brown and moss green.

Barked apron with right whale. Labrador Artisan Co-operative via Handmade in Labrador

They include a page with a history of barking in Southern Labrador, and also, wonderfully for my research, an interview with Kathleen O'Brien of West St. Modeste, Labrador on her process of barking cotton duck. Listen to the interview here!

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Below is a transcript of the interview.

Interviewer: I am here at Kathleen O’Brien’s, at her house, and she’s going to give me an outline for how to do bark for cotton duck. Go ahead, Kathleen.

Kathleen O'Brien: Go in the forest, first of all, and cut alder trees. You rind the alder, and you put the rind in a container or box for a few days until it turns brown. And the best season for getting your rind is summer or early fall before the sap leaves the rind and goes, you know, because trees go dormant in the fall.

Interviewer: So, would you gather this all one time for all your cossacks or just pick so much at a time?

Kathleen O'Brien: So much at a time because if you took too many the one time it would dry out too much before you get it used. Then, you fill up a large boiler with water, throw in about two gallons of rind from the alders, let it simmer, bring to a boil, boil the rind for about approximately two hours. Then you add two tablespoons of salt because salt helps the bark to go in the material. And then you let it simmer and after it’s boiling for about - simmering and boiling for about six hours, when you see the colour of the colour of the bark go in, you know, through the water, you add, well, two tablespoons of baking soda but do not add the full amount all at once, just gradually add it until it dissolve because, you know, baking soda fizzes up and water in the boiler would boil over, and of course you’d have a mess. Keep simmering and check your bark. If it’s not dark enough you could always add more soda, but keep stirring it around as it's boiling through. When your bark is completed you take it off your stove and strain it with cheesecloth or pantyhose or some kind of a cloth. All the dust into that then will be strained out because if you don’t strain it all the dust from the bark, from the trees, will get in your cotton duck and make a mess on it. So then, when that’s strained off you put it in a bucket or a tub, whatever you have, and add your cotton duck while your water is hot and keep turning, keep turning the cotton duck over so as the material won’t go spotty. So do that until the water starts cooling down, and then after so many hours, only leave it in so many hours. If you leave it in all night all the bark will lodge on the material in different spots and it’ll be darker in some spots and then lighter so to have it all the one thing you just keep stirring it over. And then you take it out and you can put it on your clothesline outdoors to dry or you can put it in the dryer. I found the best was to put it in the dryer. When it was drying it would all dry even. So then it’s ready for to make.

Interviewer: So that’s how you make it.

Kathleen O'Brien: That’s how to make it.

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I'd love to chat with anyone who has memories of barking sails, canvas, or skins. I'd especially love to hear from anyone who has barked something recently! You can reach out to me by email at research@heritagenl.ca.




Works Cited

Dictionary of Newfoundland English. https://www.heritage.nf.ca/dictionary/a-z-index.php#192

Renouf, M. A. P., and T. Bell. "Dorset Palaeoeskimo Skin Processing at Phillip's Garden, Port Au Choix, Northwestern Newfoundland." Arctic 61, no. 1 (2008): 35-47. Accessed May 27, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/40513180.

Creativity During Covid-19 with Mireille Eagan, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Rooms in St. John's

Mireille Eagan, Curator of Contemporary Art at The Rooms in St. John's chats with folklorist Dale Jarvis of Heritage NL about her work telling stories in the gallery space, her life as a curator, and about how the pandemic shutdowns have affected The Rooms specifically, but also the wider impact it has had on how we think about galleries, art, and creativity.

The Great Covid-19 Bake Off with Lara Maynard - a #FoodwaysFriday interview!

Today, as part of our ongoing Covid-19 NL oral history project, we visit Lara Maynard in her Torbay kitchen, and chat about what she's been doing to keep busy during the pandemic lockdown. As you might expect if you know Lara, it involves a lot of baking!

Do you know someone we should interview for our Covid-19 project? Email dale@heritagenl.ca

We asked people on the Baccalieu Trail about what they do. This is who answered!

We're off and running with the Baccalieu Trail Traditional Skills Inventory!

Since the launch of our project last week I've been chatting with all sorts of fascinating people working, crafting, making, and keeping heritage alive along the Baccalieu Trail. I've talked to Edward Delaney of Gull Island who makes his own knives for hunting and wood carving, and his wife Linda who knits trigger mittens. I was regaled with fairy and ghost stories by Clifford George of Whiteway. I've heard from vegetable gardeners, traditional musicians, caplin smokers, Indigenous basket makers, seal skin crafts, bakers, and stained glass producers.

Horse carving by Edward Delaney.

Do you know someone practicing a traditional skill in your community along the Baccalieu Trail? I'd love to talk to them! Fill out our survey at www.heritagecraft.ca or join our facebook group Baccalieu Trail Heritage and Memories.

Ian Gillies, Newfoundland Blacksmith - An interview with folklorist Dale Jarvis

Ian Gillies, Newfoundland Blacksmith, chats with folklorist Dale Jarvis about his forge in Brigus South, how he got started with blacksmithing, materials and techniques, colour, coal, and creativity!

Baccalieu Trail Traditional Skills Inventory Facebook Live Event

Do you know an expert berry-picker? The best local net mender or sheep shearer? Who in your community hooks mats or makes furniture? We want to know!

Terrence Howell teaching a print making course at his studio in Grates Cove, NL. Photo by Kathi Penney-Stacey

Today, Dale Jarvis is hopping on Facebook Live to talk about the Baccalieu Trail Traditional Skills Inventory. He'll let you know more information about the project and let you know how you can get involved!

Tune in at 10am to find out more!

The Baccalieu Traditional Skills Inventory Project Launch

Do you know an expert berry-picker? The best local net mender or sheep shearer? Who in your community hooks mats or makes furniture? We want to know!

Terrence Howell teaching a print making course at his studio in Grates Cove, NL. Photo by Kathi Penney-Stacey

We are looking to identify people in the Baccalieu Trail region who are the ‘hidden gems’ of Newfoundland traditions: storytellers, musicians, berry-pickers, hooked mat makers, carvers, knitters, guides, craft producers, and people who know traditional recipes, dances, or other local knowledge. 

The purpose of the project is to build a publicly accessible inventory of tradition bearers which will serve as a local resource to match people who have valuable traditional skills with tourism operators in the region. The inventory project is part of Memorial University’s Thriving Regions Partnership Process, which supports research partnerships that help promote thriving social and economic regions.

We are eager to learn more about a variety of traditional skills in the area. We are curious about skills like net making and mending, pottery making, furniture making, tinsmithing, crocheting, tatting, and running birch brooms, but all kinds of skills or crafts are of interest.

We will be launching the project on Wednesday, May 20th at 10am NDT with a Facebook Live event on the Heritage NL facebook page. Join Dale Jarvis as he talks about the importance of the project and how to get involved.

We've created a brief online survey to help identify these hidden gems. Do you practice a traditional skill along the Baccalieu Trail? Does someone you know? Please fill out our survey or contact us at research@heritagenl.ca.

The Sourdough Revolution with Dee Payne - part of our ongoing Covid-19 NL Oral History project

As part of the ongoing Covid-19 NL Oral History project, folklorist Dale Jarvis sits down for a virtual chat with Dee Payne, admin of the Newfoundland/Labrador Sourdough Revolution Facebook group, taking a deep dive into the world of sourdough starters and bread-making during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Learn more about the group here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/243414046963940/

Double Your Bubble with Mike Hickey - documenting social interaction during #COVID19

Here in Newfoundland we’ve been lucky enough to reach a stage of the COVID-19 lockdown where we’re now allowed to “Double Bubble”, choose another household to socialize and interact with as we move forward, learning to live with Covid-19.

In this interview, filmmaker Mike Hickey chats with folklorist Dale Jarvis about his new "Double Your Bubble" podcast, how it got started, the kinds of stories he's been collecting, and some tips for people new to the world of podcasting/recording about where they might start.

You can find the "Double Your Bubble" podcast at https://anchor.fm/hickeycommamike or follow Mike on Twitter @hickeycommamike





Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview as part of the NL Covid-19 Oral History Project? Email us at covid19@heritagenl.ca

Hey NL Students! We want your family stories about the #Covid19 pandemic!

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

Covid-19 NL Oral History Project with Heritage NL and The Rooms

We want your family stories about what is happening in Newfoundland and Labrador during the Covid-19 pandemic! Here are some sample questions to get you started on your home oral history interview. You can answer these yourself, or sit down with a family member and interview them. Don’t forget to start your interview by spelling out your full name, and including the date of the interview.   You can record your interview in any format (audio or video) on your smartphone or digital device, and email it to covid19@heritagenl.ca.  If it is a large file, you can use the free www.wetransfer.com website to send it to the same email address, or post it on YouTube and send us the link.

All submissions welcome, including songs, recitations, poetry, or music!

Sample Questions

• Can you describe the community where you live?
• When did you first learn about the coronavirus? What were your initial reactions?
• How did your community respond to the virus? What closures, restrictions, or safeguards were put in place?
• Describe any events you witnessed that express your or your community’s response to the virus.
• How are you personally responding to the virus? What has changed in your daily routine?
• How has your family been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic?
• How are you staying in touch with family and friends?
• What will you remember most about this time in our lives?
• Who is in your Double Bubble, and why?

Feel free to make up your own questions!

What will happen to my audio/video file?

Once you contact us, we will ask you to fill out this brief, confidential consent form so that we can add your story to a permanent collection on Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative, where it can be seen and accessed for educational and non-commercial use only, and where it may be used as part of a future physical or online exhibit at The Rooms about the Covid-19 pandemic. Your story will become part of the historical record! If at some point you want your story taken down from the website, we can always remove your records from the archive.

• Download this page as a pdf here. 

For more information, contact:

Dale Jarvis, Heritage NL  dale@heritagenl.ca
@dalejarvis on Twitter   www.hfnl.ca 

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.