#Makersmonday Do you recognize these logging themed copper relief panels?

At our last meeting with the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society, they brought out three prints they want to identify. The photographs show what looks to be copper (or similar) relief art panels. They show three different aspects of logging work. While they look very familiar to me, we have not been able to place the. Do you know where these pieces are or were displayed? Comment or email kelly@heritagefoundation.ca 

Basic Folklore and Oral History Interviewing Course

Monday Nights
7pm-9pm
January 9th - January 30th, 2017

Calling all budding folklorists and armchair historians! This workshop is open to anyone with an interest in local history, culture and folklore, and who wishes to learn more about safeguarding our cultural heritage through the medium of oral histories.

The course will give a background on conducting research interviews in the field. It will provide an overview of the methodology and explore the practical matters of creating, designing, and executing effective oral history research projects, project planning, interview questions, ethical issues, and recording equipment.

Over the four week course, participants will conduct an interview, prepare archival metadata, and work collaboratively to create a finished oral history project.

The workshop will be taught by folklorist Dale Jarvis, the Intangible Cultural Heritage Development Officer for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has been working for the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador since 1996, and holds a BSc in Anthropology/Archaeology from Trent University, and a MA in Folklore from Memorial University.

Participants will need to bring their own laptop/tablet, all other materials provided. If you have your own digital recording device (tablet, iPhone, mp3 recorder, etc) you are encouraged to bring it, but it is not required.

Workshop fee: $100 (preregistration required, limited to 10 participants)
Location: Newman Building, 1 Springdale Street, St. John’s
Online registration here

For more information, contact Dale Jarvis at 709-739-1892 x2, or email ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Mummers Parade Day Events - Saturday, December 10th!

Mummers Parade Day. 4 Events. 1 Great time!
Shake out those long johns and borrow your Aunt’s size 42 bra. We’re calling all mummers to the Mummers Parade! Join us at Bishop Feild Elementary (46 Bond Street) in St. John’s at 2:00pm on Saturday, December 10th to march in the parade wearing your best mummer gear. 

The Parade will line up at 1:45pm and leave the school at 2:00 pm. 

If you don’t have a disguise, come to the Rig Up starting at 1:00pm at Bishop Feild Elementary to find a disguise on the spot. Find the perfect tea cozy hat, fashion the perfect lace veil, or turn your clothes inside out. 

Also happening at 1:00pm at Bishop Feild, the Pot ‘n’ Pan Kitchen Jam teaches mummers some simple rhythms to bang out during the Parade. Bring your pots, pans and ugly sticks. Learn some beats then hit the streets! 

A hard-stepping Mummers Scuff ‘n’ Scoff will follow the Parade from 3:00 to 4:00pm back at Bishop Feild with live musical performances by “Russells in the Corner” and traditional dance lessons from the Mistress of Misrule! We’ll also have a drop of Purity and some sweets on hand.

In case of bad weather, the Mummers Parade day events will be held at the same times on Sunday, December 11th. Notice of postponement will be made 9:00am on Saturday Dec. 10th. Go to mummersfestival.ca for more information.

Living Heritage Podcast Ep063 Rekindling Indigenous Strength

Amelia Reimer is a Cultural Support Worker for the St. John’s Native Friendship Centre. She is a proud Métis woman originally from the Pacific Northwest, but has made her home in St. John’s for the past 4 years. For the past 23 years, she has worked with and served a wide variety of Aboriginal communities across North America. With the Native Friendship Centre, she has taken on the national Faceless Dolls project – tracking and honouring Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women in Newfoundland and Labrador while increasing public awareness through media, speaking, and events. She volunteers her time with a variety of community organizations, including serving on the Board of Directors for the St. John’s Status of Women Council.

In this podcast, we discuss the services of the St. John’s Native Friendship Centre, the Faceless Dolls Project, In Her Name vigil, reconciliation, and Amelia’s work with the Centre and volunteering with the Status of Women Council.

Listen on the Digital Archive:
http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/ich_oral/id/713/rec/1

Harbour Grace Railway Memories

Canadian National Train in Harbour Grace. Photo from the Town's website.

On Sunday evening the Heritage Foundation along with the Town of Harbour Grace hosted the Railway Memories and Story Swap. Although we didn't come across any photos of the railway station that evening we did hear some great stories and were told there are a couple of photos in the local museum's collection. If you or anyone you know has photos of the Harbour Grace Railway station or the Conception Bay North railway more generally please get in touch at terra@heritagefoundation.ca as we are still on the hunt for photographs!

We arranged a follow up interview with Pat Collins who had excellent stories about his time working on the railway.  He told us about a old railway station in Riverhead, Harbour Grace and suggested several people we get in touch with for more stories.

Pat also described his fear and embarrassment when he fell asleep during an overnight shift on the Main Line and awoke to the sound of a work train coming through. In his confusion he thought it was a passenger train which was not supposed to come through on the tracks at that time. He put the call over the radio to stop the train but was laughed off the radio instead. Pat was told to go back to sleep  and was informed it was a freight train coming through in the early morning and there was nothing to worry about!

~Terra Barrett

#Folklorephoto Do you recognize this St. Lawrence area woman?

I have had the pleasure to be given the task of digitizing slides from the St. Lawrence Historical Advisory Committee. The boxes contained 141 slides, likely taken around the late 1990s or early 2000s by a unidentified photographer. They show a variety of businesses, historic sites, and important natural landmarks in the St. Lawrence area. Along with the slides of natural and built St. Lawrence sites was one photograph of a person, a woman in a red sweater and holding a piece of rope, who looks to be sitting in the grass at the edge of a beach. Do you recognize this woman or the photograph? If so contact Kelly by email kelly@heritagefoundation.ca or by phone at 1-888-739-1892

UPDATE: Thank you to everyone who has contacted us to identify this woman as Philomena Quirke!

- Kelly

In Memoriam: John F. Young - #CollectiveMemories Stephenville

Earlier this year, I had the good fortune to be the folklorist-in-residence for the Friendly Invasion 2016, a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the closing of Harmon Air Force Base in Stephenville.

Over a few days, I conducted a pile of oral history interviews, most of which you can listen to here. I met a lot of people over those few short days, but one of the gentlemen who stood out was John F. Young, who was born in 1927. He was one of those many Americans who had come up to Newfoundland and lived and worked at Harmon AFB. 

John was one of our participants in the incredibly successful "Sharing the Memories – stories of Harmon AFB" event we held at the Can-Am Lodge. John told stories about coming to Harmon in those early years, and his humour was one of the highlights of the evening.  I've blogged about that event before, where you can listen to the full recording of the event.

I was able to sit down with John and do a longer one-on-one oral history interview with him. Over the course of an hour, we talked about his early life, coming to Stephenville, meeting his wife in Newfoundland, his work with the weather service, the Cuban missile crisis, and his love for hunting and fishing in Newfoundland. 

That entire interview has been placed online on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative, and if you have an hour, give it a listen or download the mp3 here.

Over the past few months, his daughter Tracy has been giving me updates on John's condition. He hadn't been well at the time of our interview, but his doctor had given him clearance to make one final trip to Newfoundland. Tracy wrote that she had been inspired by our oral history work to do some of her own, and had been getting John to tell her some of his stories. 

I got a text from Tracy Saturday night to tell me that John had passed away. I only met him a couple times over that week in Stephenville this summer, but he stands out in my memory of that celebration. I was honoured to have spent some time with him and to have been given the chance to record some of his stories.

A memorial and Military Honors ceremony will be held on December 10, 2016, at 2:00pm in Valdosta, Georgia.  You can read John's obituary here, or if you enjoyed listening to his tales, you can make a donation to the National Audubon Society or the Disabled American Veterans Association in his memory.

Thanks for the stories and the laughs, John.

- Dale Jarvis

#CollectiveMemories Roadtrip - Grand Falls-Windsor

Terra Barrett, Dale Jarvis, and Kelly Drover in the Old Mill in Glovertown. 

This week as part of the Collective Memories Project Dale, Kelly, and I travelled to Grand Falls-Windsor to meet with their heritage society. On the drive out we made a quick stop to the Old Mill in Glovertown. After learning a bit more about the site and the urban legend it has encouraged we wanted to take a look at the building itself. The mill is situated on a side road relatively close to the main road through town but if you didn’t know the mill was there you could bypass it completely. The abandoned mill is covered in graffiti from different decades with some graffiti referencing the red eyes urban legend. It was an interesting but eerie spot to visit and learn more about.

Members of the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society and Dale Jarvis and Terra Barrett of the Heritage Foundation. Photo by Kelly Drover.

After our short detour we met up with the GFW Heritage Society in their office on High Street. This meeting was a follow up on the work I did in Grand Falls-Windsor in September on the memories and merchants of Main Street in Windsor. The photographs and interviews are being edited into a booklet for the community however the ICH Office also wanted to do something a little bit different so we met with the society to discuss the booklet launch and the possibility of doing a pop-up exhibition in the New Year. We tentatively decided on the last weekend in February for the launch and exhibit and are looking forward to the event!

Razor, stropper, brick, bottle, and tobacco from Stewart's Grocery.

While in the community we also completed an oral history interview with Brian Reid and photographed some of the artefacts housed by the society. We also returned digital copies of the Merchants of Main Street interviews which can be found online here. If your community has material you would like help digitized or would like to start an oral history project of your own feel free to contact terra@heritagefoundation.ca or call toll free 1-888-739-1892 ex. 5.

~Terra Barrett

Living Heritage Podcast Ep062 Retaining and Recruiting Volunteers

Debbie O'Rielly is Coordinator for Volunteer Mount Pearl (VMP), an office created in 2014 by the Mount Pearl Sport Alliance. VMP was established to address the volunteer needs of community groups in the Mount Pearl area, and to act as a hub to connect volunteers and the groups that need them. Debbie does community outreach with seniors, youth and all those in between. She provides volunteer related news and shares volunteer job details on her website, through social media and in a quarterly newsletter. We talk about the work and objectives of Volunteer Mount Pearl, retaining and recruiting volunteers, using social media, linking youth with seniors, bread and raspberry jam making workshops, the Art of Storytelling project, and community gardens.

Download the MP3

Railway Memories Photo and Story Swap - Harbour Grace

Harbour Grace Railway Station. Photo by Michael Philpott.

Did you work in the building or on the railway line? Do you know someone or have a family member who did? Do you have memories of taking the train? Do you have old photos or items associated with the Harbour Grace Railway Station? The Heritage Foundation NL, in partnership with the Town of Harbour Grace, wants to know!

We’ll be hosting a Railway Memories Photo and Story Swap in the in the Danny Cleary Harbour Grace Community Centre, 1 Cee Bee’s Way, Harbour Grace on Sunday December 4, 2016 at 7:30pm.

“We are looking for anyone connected to the Newfoundland Railway in Conception Bay North including labourers, station agents, telegraphers, and flagmen, as well as locals with memories of railway travel.” says the foundation’s folklorist Dale Jarvis. “If you have memories or photographs of the Newfoundland railway, we would love to hear from you.”

The oral history project is part of the foundation’s Collective Memories Project. This project is an initiative of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with funding provided by the Department of Children, Seniors, and Social Development. The Collective Memories Project invites seniors to record their stories and memories for sharing.

Come for a cup of tea, and bring photos, calendars, timetables, tickets, objects to show off. This information will be used in the restoration of the train station. There will be a scanning station there to digitize or photograph everything that people bring, so you can take your originals home with you. The information gathered will be used to help restore and celebrate the old railway station in Harbour Grace.

For more information please contact Terra Barrett with the Heritage Foundation toll free at 1-888-739-1892 ext. 5 or email terra@heritagefoundation.ca or Natalie Austin with the Town of Harbour Grace at 709-596-3042 or email natalieaustin@hrgrace.ca.  Click here for the Facebook event.

#FolklorePhoto: Windsor Taxis and Buses

97-243 GFWHS.
Goodyear Taxi Service, circa 1909, located at the Grand Falls Station (Windsor), was operated by Josiah Goodyear.
It boasted of 8-10 horse drawn “Victorias”, with upholstered seats for passengers.

This weeks Folklore Photo comes from the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society and is circa 1909.  The photo is of Goodyear Taxi Service located at the Grand Falls Station (Windsor).  This Taxi Service was operated by Josiah Goodyear and boasted 8-10 horse drawn “Victorias” with upholstered seats for passengers.  Roy Oldford of Grand Falls-Windsor remembered similar horse and carts being used by Stewart's to deliver groceries to the community in the 1950s.

This photo is one of the images from the Heritage Society which will be featured in an upcoming booklet on the merchants of Main Street based on oral history interviews completed in Windsor in September.  Tomorrow afternoon we are meeting with the Heritage Society to discuss a pop up exhibit to go along with launch of the booklet in the coming new year.

The booklet will focus on the merchants from the bigger well known stores such as Cohen's, Riff's, and Stewart's to the buses (or taxis) which lined Main Street and provided transportation between the towns of Windsor and Grand Falls. Several people described the buses which would run between Main Street in Windsor and High Street in Grand Falls and even delivered lunches to the mill workers.

Included below is a short audio clip from Roy Oldford who grew up in Windsor. In this clip Roy talks about the popularity of the buses and also tells a humorous story about using his friend's father's bus to earn a bit of pocket change when they were teenagers.


~Terra Barrett

Get your long underwear ready! It's a #MummersFestival #Podcast! #FolkloreThursday

In celebration of the return of the Mummers Festival on November 26th, we are rebroadcasting one of our previous podcasts, an interview with Ryan Davis, the mummer-in-charge of the festival!

Ryan Davis has been running the Mummers Festival since 2009. He holds an MA in Folklore and a BA in Communication Studies. It was his interest in festivals, celebrations, and costuming that led him to mummering traditions. The Mummers Festival promotes the continuation and evolution of traditional arts and performance by encouraging active participation in mummering activities. The Mummers Festival helps to keep mummering alive and contemporary and adds to the population’s pride of place.

In this edition of the Living Heritage Podcast, Ryan talks about what mummers are and what they do, the beginnings of the Mummers Festival and how it has grown over seven years, the successes and challenges of running a festival, and what he hopes the festival will offer in the future.

See you at the parade on December 10th!

Listen on the Digital Archive:

http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/ich_oral/id/678/rec/1

#Folklorephoto Do you have memories of the Newfoundland Railway?

This weeks Folklore Photo is a still taken from one of the 8mm reels that came to us from the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society. This particular film features an event taking place at the railway station in Grand Falls-Windsor. While the date and particulars of the event are unidentified, it is an example of the goings-on that took place around train stations in our province. The film shows a train pulling up to the Grand Falls station, which is decorated with Union Jacks. Crowds are gathered around the station, waiting to see the visiting dignitary step out of the train car. The visitors arrive, step from the train and are greeted with handshakes and photos before they are whisked away in waiting cars.    

A train pulling up to the Grand Falls Railway Station

Stay tuned for the full reels to be posted soon! If you can identify the visitors or any other individuals in the film, please email me at kelly@heritagefoundation.ca

#CollectiveMemories Booklet Launch - The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl

Left to Right: Roy Hiscock, Ben Hiscock, Minnie Hiscock, Albert Hiscock, and Sarah Hiscock. 

On Tuesday afternoon the Heritage Foundation and the Champney’s West Heritage Group Inc. launched the booklet The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl. The booklet launch took place in the Ella Freeman Heritage House in Champney’s West, Bonavista Peninsula. There were twenty community members who came out for the launch including four of the people who were interviewed about the wreck of the Hazel Pearl. The Heritage House provided tea, coffee, and some treats for everyone to enjoy.

The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl is the second booklet in the Collective Memories Series produced by the Heritage Foundation. This booklet focuses on the Hazel Pearl shipwreck and includes archival research, field recording measurements of the spar, and oral history interview transcripts. The interviews were completed by Terra Barrett and Dale Jarvis, the measurements and drawing of the spar by Michael Philpott and Li Xingpei, background research by Sarah Hannon, and the booklet was edited by Heather Elliott.

As stated in The Sailor’s Word-Book:

Li Xingpei measuring the spar in July 2016.

The spar which sits outside the Heritage House was once a part of the Hazel Pearl. This spar was part what sparked the interest in the story of the Hazel Pearl and was accidentally brought ashore by fisherman Wayne Freeman when it became tangled in his capelin seine several summers back. 

If you want to learn more about the spar or the Hazel Pearl you can head to collections.mun.ca to hear the full interviews or you can check out PDF version of the booklet here!

The Hazel Pearl booklet is part of the foundation’s Collective Memories Project. This project is an initiative of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with funding provided by the Department of Children, Seniors, and Social Development. The Collective Memories Project invites seniors to record their stories and memories for sharing.

~Terra Barrett

Reviewing old photographs in the Heritage House.

Living Heritage Podcast Ep061 Forgotten Songs of the Newfoundland Outports

Anna Kearney Guigné is an independent folklorist and adjunct professor affiliated with Memorial University of Newfoundland’s ethnomusicology program. An historian at heart, Kearney Guigné has extensively written about twentieth-century folksong collectors and collecting practices. Kearney Guigné also explores the wide range of influences that continue to shape our rich musical tradition including such popular media as newspapers, broadsides, songsters, and radio programs, vinyl recordings.

This November, Anna will release her fourth major publication The Forgotten Songs of the Newfoundland Outports: As Taken from Kenneth Peacock’s Field Collection, 1951-1961. We talk about the life, fieldwork, and legacy of Kenneth Peacock, and the work of selecting songs for publication in this new book.

Listen on the Digital Archive:
http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/ich_oral/id/692/rec/1

Take note! 

The University of Ottawa Press and the Canadian Museum of History official book launch of

The Forgotten Songs of the Newfoundland Outports

As taken From Kenneth Peacock’s Field Collection, 1951-1961

By Anna Kearney Guigné

Wednesday November 30th from 7:30 to 9:00 pm

MMaP Gallery

Research Centre for Music, Media and Place

Second floor, Arts & Culture Centre, St. John’s, NL

#Folklorephoto The cross in St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Cemetery, St. Lawrence

When driving through St. Lawrence a large concrete crucifix can be seen from the road, standing tall among the headstones in St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Cemetery. While we were in St. Lawrence Dale interviewed Thérèse Slaney about her life, and she talked proudly about her husband Herb, an engineer who designed the cross.

The cross in St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Cemetery

After the interview, Thérèse showed us some of Herbs beautiful technical drawings, some of the cross and others of the St. Lawrence Grotto which he also designed.

Herb Slaney's technical drawing of the cross

In the following clip you can listen to Thérèse Slaney talk about the work Herb did on the cross.

#CollectiveMemories Roadtrip to St. Lawrence

Terra Barrett and Kelly Drover with the material to be digitized!

Last Thursday Dale, Kelly and I took a drive down the Burin Peninsula to meet with the St. Lawrence Historical Advisory Committee. When we arrived on Thursday afternoon we stopped in to their office in the town hall where we sorted through the material they needed digitized. We ended up taking 20 VHS, 21 CDs and DVDs, 4 cassettes, 4 Kodak slide carousels filled with slides and a small box of assorted slides. This material will be digitized over the next little while and will certainly keep Kelly busy. After this successful visit we drove to Burin in order to take a couple of photos of the designated buildings in the community. We also stopped in to the Heritage Café for a delicious supper.

Public meeting on oral history projects.

In the evening we met with community members in the St. Lawrence Public Library in order to discuss how to do an oral history project. Dale gave an introduction to oral history interviewing including how to focus the interview, reasons to conduct an informal “pre-interview” and the sort of questions to ask. We also ran through the basics of consent forms and how to process the material once you collect it. This included an explanation of tape logs and suggestions of ways to use the material such as booklets, audio clips, etc.

ThérèseSlaney and Dale Jarvis.

Reviewing Herb Slaney's plans.

The following morning we had an interview with Thérèse Slaney about growing up in St. Pierre, her move to St. Lawrence and marriage to Herb Slaney, a description of the first autopsy performed in the community and its importance to miners, an explanation of how the tradition of Mardi Gras started in St. Lawrence, and her husband Herb’s work engineering the cross and grotto in the community. Thérèse was a wonderful woman to chat with and described delicious French foods over a cup a tea in her kitchen.

St. Lawrence's grotto.

The cross in St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Cemetery.

After our interview with Therese we had a look at the community’s grotto and cross engineered by Herb Slaney and visited a couple of graveyards. Our last stop on the drive back to St. John’s was to the community of Petite Forte to photograph another designated building and take a look at the beautiful harbour. All in all a very successful trip to the Burin Peninsula!

Petite Forte

~Terra Barrett

Digitizing the Mount Pearl Oral History Project. #collectivememories #oralhistory

Gaze in wonder at our high-tech digitization suite, converting micro-cassette tapes to WAV format recordings!

Our Collective Memories project is embarking on a new partnership with the Admiralty House Communications Museum to digitize its oral history collection, largely collected in the early 2000s. Here, we are digitizing an interview conducted January 16, 2001 with Steve Best, conducted by Lisa Abbott. The interview focuses on Steve's childhood memories of growing up in Gambo and later working for the Newfoundland Railway as a telegrapher. There is some focus as well on his memories of Mount Pearl in the 1970s.

We will be working with the fabulous Carla Watson at the Museum to place the collection online as part of Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. Stay tuned!

- Dale

Living Heritage Podcast Ep060 Cousin Silas and The Moose Woman

Elinor has been telling stories for over 25 years . She was inspired by many, including Newfoundland fiddler and storyteller, Emile Benoit, Rita Cox, Bob Barton and Laura Simms. After 22 years as an administrator with the Newfoundland Public Libraries, she left to devote more time to storytelling, working with the “Learning Through the Arts” programme in schools in Western Newfoundland, before moving to Nova Scotia in 2011. Lifetime member, former Administrator, retired Webmaster of Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada, she received the Storytellers of Canada/Conteurs du Canada “Storykeeper Award” in 2015.

In this podcast, we discuss how Elinor started in storytelling, her new project “Cousin Silas and the Moose Woman”, and the work of Silas Tertius Rand who was a Baptist Missionary and Mi’kmaq story collector. We also discuss several stories Silas collected and published and what the future holds for Elinor’s storytelling projects.

Listen on the Digital Archive:
http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/ref/collection/ich_oral/id/696

Photo: 1880-1887 ca. The Reverend Silas Tertius Rand and two Mi'kmaq boys Amherst, N.S. Photograph: R. S. Pridham

Booklet Launch - The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl

The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and the Champney's West Heritage Group Inc. invite you to the official public launch of our new booklet:
The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl

Tuesday, November 15th, 2016
3:00 pm
Free Admission
Ella Freeman Heritage House, Champney's West, Bonavista Peninsula

“The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl” is the second booklet in the Collective Memories Series produced by the Heritage Foundation. This booklet focuses on the history of the Hazel Pearl and the memories of several community members about the wreck of the boat and the rescue of the spar.

“We saw the Hazel Pearl coming in around, coming in here on their full sail, fully rigged,” recalls Ben Hiscock. “She come on in and she hit the hard ice and and he holed her up, holed her upward and the water started pouring in.”

Hiscock was one of several residents of Champney’s West who was interviewed as part of the oral history project completed by the Foundation. The booklet which developed out of the interviews was edited by Heather Elliott with research conducted by Terra Barrett and Sarah Hannon.

“The booklet focuses on the story surrounding the shipwreck of the Hazel Pearl and the spar (a mast off the boat) which was retrieved by local fisherman Wayne Freeman and is displayed outside the Heritage House,” says Barrett, a researcher with the Intangible Cultural Heritage office of the Heritage Foundation of NL. “The booklet contains transcribed excerpts and portraits of community members, background research, memories of the wreck as well as a detailed drawing of the spar.”

The Hazel Pearl booklet is part of the foundation’s Collective Memories Project. This project is an initiative of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with funding provided by the Department of Children, Seniors, and Social Development. The Collective Memories Project invites seniors to record their stories and memories for sharing.

The booklet launch is open to the public and will include tea and light refreshments. There will be printed copies of the booklet available at the launch and a PDF version will be placed online.

For more information please go to www.collectivememories.ca, call Terra Barrett at 1-888-739-1892 ext. 5 or email terra@heritagefoundation.ca

Li Xingpei measuring the spar outside the Ella Freeman Heritage House in Champney's West.

#Folklorephoto of St. Lawrence Grotto

The detailed design work of Herb Slaney for the St. Lawrence Grotto. One of the technical drawings shown to us by his wife, Therese Slaney after her oral history interview with Dale Jarvis.



The completed Grotto which was dedicated by Archbishop James H. Macdonald on August 15th, 1995. Erected by the Priest, parishioners and friends of St. Thomas Aquinas Parish and designed by Herb Slaney.

Put a Folklore student to work! Winter 2017 work terms

Students from Memorial University’s MA Folklore program are now seeking winter 2017 work terms. 

Student experience and interests include: cultural documentation (recording audio/video); public event support; culture and economic development; traditional crafts and performances; marketing and communications, tourism, sports, archiving and curating. Assignments could include working in radio, television, magazines, film, festival planning, script assistance, entertainment or research.

We invite employers who may be interested in hiring one of these students to contact us. Winter work terms can begin as soon asJanuary 4 and end as late as April 21; the minimum duration of a work term is 12 weeks. Work terms are full time and paid at a rate that is consistent with your organizational salary structure. Subsidies are available for non-profit organizations; details on eligibility and the application process can be found here: www.mun.ca/coop/employers/funding/

The Cooperative Education office for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences would be pleased to assist you by posting opportunities on our co-op employment portal and arranging interviews with suitable candidates (on campus, at your office or by skype or videoconference, as required).

Please contact us if you would like to recruit a Folklore student or if you require additional information.

Windsor Bonfire Night Memories

In celebration of bonfire night I am sharing two clips from the Merchants of Main Street Project. This project was a part of the Collective Memories Project and focused on Main Street in Windsor, NL.  Although the interviews focused on the memories surrounding Main Street during the interviews we also discussed how holidays were celebrated in the community.

The following clip comes from Elizabeth Munch Power whose father was a cobbler on Main Street in the 1950s and 1960s. In this clip Elizabeth explains what their family would do with the slips from all the shoes her father would repair.

Frank Beson grew up in Windsor and we discussed his memories of Main Street but also what it was like to grow up in Windsor, NL. He shared his memory of torch night which was celebrated on November the sixth the night after bonfire night.

If you would like learn more about bonfire night check out the collection on Memorial University's Digital Archives which has audio, video, and photographs.

~Terra Barrett

Heritage Update for October/November 2016

In this month's edition of the Heritage Update, we explore the value and meaning of heritage places, look at photogrammetry as a tool for recording buildings, document the legacy of the merchants of Windsor in Central Newfoundland, take a peek at the Methodist Central School in Bonavista, announce the 12th Annual Heritage Places Poster Contest, and share the story of the Melita Hynes’ House in Harbour Breton. We also want your input on rethinking Heritage Foundation NL’s programs and services.

Download the newsletter here as a pdf

photo: Melita Hynes’ House in Harbour Breton, courtesy Doug Wells.

Rethinking Heritage Foundation NL’s Programs and Services

We Want Your Input!
In order to ensure that the Heritage Foundation’s programs are responding to present needs and current thinking about heritage preservation we have undertaken an evaluation of our activities and are recommending a number of changes to our designation and granting programs.

We would very much like to have your input if you have any thoughts about what is proposed or other ideas for strengthening our programs. In addition, we will be holding focus group sessions with key stakeholders.

You can complete the questionnaire here:

http://tinyurl.com/RethinkingHFNL

Folklore Photo: Can you identify these Grand Falls-Windsor Boys?

Here is a great still from the Grand Falls-Windsor 8mm film reels, showing two boys having fun with the camera. The shot was taken from a scene showing a group of C.L.B kids playing on a beach, likely filmed by Albert Hillier. Check out the previous blog post 8mm Film Reels from the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society to watch the films and see if you recognize anyone!

Happy Halloween - Ghost Stories and Urban Legends

In celebration of Halloween, today I've pulled together some audio clips recorded in the Newman Wine Vaults from the Young Folklorist Program in May 2011. The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador ran this program as a part of the enrichment program for Junior High students. The clips include an urban legend, a terrifying story of a Bell Island hag, and a story of a ghostly nun.

Recording of an urban legend told by Emma Burry, a Grade 9 student at Leary's Brook Junior High. Emma writes, "I heard this story from one of the counsellors at the summer camp I went to one year. It takes place at Sunshine Park in the summertime, approximately 20 years ago. It has to do with the actual camp I went to and one of the events that they do every year."

Photo of local craftperson Janet Peter's old hag dolls. 

Recording of a ghost story told by Nicole Doyle, a Grade 9 student at St. Michael's Regional High. Nicole writes, "This story takes place on Bell Island, Newfoundland. It is a very small island with very big mysteries. The island is a very woodsy area and it has been told that there are hags, fairies, witches and more in the woods. I never believed that i would be a victim of one of these ghostly encounters. Though, one night I wanted to walk home through the woods, and saw the scare of my life! I had witnesses, so I know that I wasn't just seeing things. I went back to make sure that it was not just an illusion. Well, it was definitely not an illusion!"

Recording of a ghost story told by Jordan Moss, a Grade 9 student at Leary's Brook Junior High. Jordan writes, "My mother told me this story about how she was on her way to work and a nun looked at her and she had no face or feet."

~Terra Barrett

8mm Film Reels from the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society

For the past week I have been working on digitizing 18 reels of 8mm film from the Grand Falls-Windsor Heritage Society. Working with 8mm has been a learning experience for me, but it is wonderful to see the content of the reels that were previously unknown to the society. The films were created by Albert Hillier (1916-2004) in the late 1940's and early 1950's. Hillier was a commercial artist, photographer, and was a cartoonist who worked for the Grand Falls Advertiser for 40 years, producing the editorial page strip Our Town.

The footage involves public community events as well as home videos from Hillier's personal life. In the reels I have viewed so far, the activities of the Church Lads Brigade(C.L.B)  have been prominent, including parades and camp activities.

This first film shows a C.L.B parade, as well as activities at a church.

The second reel features various scenes of the C.L.B including swimming, camping, target shooting, sports, and other camp activities. You can also see footage of the boat Miss Newfoundland.

The third film begins by showing a road banner "Welcome To Their Excellencies." This reel was faintly labeled "Visit by Lt. Gov." Can you identify these visitors?

Do you recognize any locations or individuals in these films? Please contact Kelly at 1-888-739-1892 or email kelly@heritagefoundation.ca

~ Kelly

Living Heritage Podcast Ep059 Tales from the Alaska Highway

Kathy was raised in a remote village on the Alaska Highway in northern BC, but wanderlust has taken her far from her roots. She’s always loved telling tales. One day she stumbled upon the world of traditional storytelling, and she was hooked! Since then, Kathy’s performed original stories and world folktales in schools, libraries, concerts and festivals across Canada and internationally. Highlights include the Scottish International Story-telling Festival, a Nordic storytelling conference in Iceland, and most recently- sharing tales with school children in South Africa. Her stories have been published in various venues, and included on several CD anthologies.

In this podcast, we discuss growing up on the Alaskan Highway, Kathy’s family’s roots in the area, her father memories and work on the Alaskan Highway, and we focus on her upcoming storytelling show the “Alaskan Highway Road Show” celebrating the 75th anniversary of the highway.

Listen on the Digital Archive:
http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/ich_oral/id/695/rec/1

Photo of Kathy Jessup and Dale Jarvis by Kelly L. Jones.

Workshop on how to document old buildings! Nov 3rd and 5th.

The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and Youth Heritage NL are co-organizing a workshop in field-recording for heritage buildings. The workshop will be lead by preservationist Emily Wolf and will cover field measurement (including US HABS standards), recording techniques, and documentary photography.

The workshop will take place in two sessions, from 7-9:30pm on Thursday, November 3, and from 11am-4pm on Saturday, November 5. The evening “classroom” session will take place at the Newman Building, 1 Springdale St., St. John’s. Techniques covered in the evening session will be practiced on-site during the afternoon session at the Squires Barn and Carriage House Registered Heritage Structure (part of MUN Botanical Garden on Mount Scio Road, St. John’s).

This workshop will be useful for architects and enthusiasts, folklorists, historians, or anyone interested in hands-on research in built heritage. The cost for this workshop is $10 and space is limited to 15 participants. No experience is necessary. Volunteers are encouraged to bring a camera (or a cell phone camera) to practice their architectural photography.

Warm drinks and snacks will be provided but do dress appropriately. The workshop will be rescheduled if the weather is uncooperative.

For more information contact Youth Heritage NL at youthheritagenl@gmail.com or Michael at 709-739-1892 ext. 3.

Register on Eventbrite

Emily Wolf is a historic preservationist and lecturer in Boston Architectural College’s Master of Design Studies Program in Historic Preservation, teaching courses in architectural history and research and documentation. She formerly served as Architectural Historian/Assistant Survey Director at the Boston Landmarks Commission. A resident of St. John’s, she is a director of the Newfoundland and Labrador Historic Trust.