The West End Oral History and Folklife Festival is being offered as part of the ICH office’s 3rd Annual Folklife Festival and will be held in two sessions: during the day on Wednesday, August 17th and on Saturday afternoon, evening and night, August 20th.
The theme of this year’s ICH Festival is “Seeds to Supper” an homage to agri-culture and education in food sustainability in Newfoundland Labrador. The West End festival seeks to present agricultural history in urban neighbourhoods in St. John’s. The geographic focus is from the Memorial to Tommy Ricketts on Water Street west to the ‘Crossroad’s, the location where Water Street west, Waterford bridge Road and Topsail Roads converge. The site goes north primarily from the bottom of Patrick Street to Wesleyan United Church on Hamilton Avenue (at Patrick St.), west past Victoria Park, Hamilton Hall (the CEI Club) and then to the Laurier Club at the top of the street. This neighbourhood was once the industrial heartland of the city as well as a farming region prior to that. Currently there are about 30 businesses in the area including a music store, lettuce farm, Pennecon, the Labatt’s Brewery and one of the oldest businesses in the city, not to mention the lovely Victoria Park, perhaps best known currently as the home of the Lantern Festival, held every year in the summer.
All Folklore graduate students and upper classmen who require practical ethnographic experience for their degree and diploma programs are welcome to participate in a volunteer capacity to carry out original fieldwork in a supervised community setting. Students may also volunteer to become festival administrators, presenters and programmers. A ‘buddy system’ and team structure will be engaged.
Options for fieldwork include occupational and labour folklife, the dockyards, the rail yards, folk art and music; old farms once right off Water Street; food sustainability for urban residents; river management in Victoria Park; and the history of the CEI Club. This building is turning into condominiums so opportunities abound for the analysis of the gentrification of the neighbourhood. Interest in children’s folklore past and present is welcome, as is the contemporary impact of the lack of children in the locale. Anyone interested in working with senior citizens on any topic should consider this opportunity to carry out original, independent field work. Finally, histories of Victoria Park, along with folklore of the park are also welcome.
Field work will officially start after Canada Day and will conclude with the festival dates. Students who wish to volunteer to conduct festival programming are welcome as well. Ultimately, the festival will be a place where students can, if they choose, apply their fieldwork for common good. If you wish, you can do as much fieldwork as you can fit into July month. Technical equipment is not necessary to participate in this project. The only requirement for the project is a brief essay summarizing your fieldwork and suggestions for additional fieldwork (4-5 pages). This essay must be completed by the festival date (August 17th).
Folklorist Kathryn Foley, MA (Memorial Folklore 1987), has experience in the public sector from 1987-1994 in New York State and Pennsylvania. She has edited and written curricula, managed the field office for a graduate student institute in oral history; taught ethnography and oral history to ninth graders and has extensive communication and networking skills. Folk art is a specialization. Additional information is available on her profile on the website, Linked In. Students will be provided with a Certificate of Participation as well as a reference letter upon request.
email only: kathrynfoley47@yahoo.ca.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Monday, July 4, 2011
Newfoundland Set Dancing and Percussive Dance Workshops
From Wednesday July 13th through to Tuesday July 19th there will be DAILY opportunities to participate in an exciting variety of dance workshops at the Sound Shift Festival
http://www.mun.ca/ictm2011/festival.htm
Workshops are listed at: http://www.mun.ca/ictm2011/festival_workshops.htm.
Ticket prices at: http://www.mun.ca/ictm2011/festival_tickets.htm
(Purchase at door, cash only)
$10.00 / Regular, per workshop
$8.00 / Students/Seniors, per workshop
$20.00 / Regular, 3-workshop pass
$15 / Students/Seniors, 3-workshop pass
Thursday July 14 from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the MMAP Gallery at the Arts and Culture Centre, Jane Rutherford will be leading a workshop in Newfoundland Set Dancing, accompanied by Christina Smith
Tuesday July 19th from 1:30 pm - 3:0 pm, also at the MMAP Gallery at the Arts and Culture Centre,
Kristin Harris Walsh will be leading a workshop in Percussive Dance , accompanied by Stan Pickett
http://www.mun.ca/ictm2011/festival.htm
Workshops are listed at: http://www.mun.ca/ictm2011/festival_workshops.htm.
Ticket prices at: http://www.mun.ca/ictm2011/festival_tickets.htm
(Purchase at door, cash only)
$10.00 / Regular, per workshop
$8.00 / Students/Seniors, per workshop
$20.00 / Regular, 3-workshop pass
$15 / Students/Seniors, 3-workshop pass
Thursday July 14 from 1:30 to 3 p.m. at the MMAP Gallery at the Arts and Culture Centre, Jane Rutherford will be leading a workshop in Newfoundland Set Dancing, accompanied by Christina Smith
Tuesday July 19th from 1:30 pm - 3:0 pm, also at the MMAP Gallery at the Arts and Culture Centre,
Kristin Harris Walsh will be leading a workshop in Percussive Dance , accompanied by Stan Pickett
You, Your Town & Tourism Workshop in Carbonear
You are invited to attend a one-day workshop that will leave you with a passport to explore this spectacular historical region of the province.
You’ll learn more about the culture, history, heritage and natural beauty of the region.
When: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 8:30 am – 3:00 pm Where: Lecture Theater at College of the North Atlantic, Carbonear Campus
To Register call: 709 596 8957
Free admission.
Lunch and nutritional breaks compliments of the Town of Bay Roberts and Department of Tourism.
You’ll learn more about the culture, history, heritage and natural beauty of the region.
When: Wednesday, July 13, 2011 8:30 am – 3:00 pm Where: Lecture Theater at College of the North Atlantic, Carbonear Campus
To Register call: 709 596 8957
Free admission.
Lunch and nutritional breaks compliments of the Town of Bay Roberts and Department of Tourism.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Root Cellar Typology for Newfoundland and Labrador
We are digging away on our root cellar project, documenting different root cellars, taking photographs, making measurements, and interviewing people about root cellar traditions.
One idea we've come up with is to create a map of root cellars across the province, to see what kind of root cellars are most common where. So, I've taken a first stab at creating a root cellar typology, listing out the different kinds of root cellars we've found to date.
If you know of a different kind, or have a suggestion for a root cellar for us to look at, or root cellar owner to interview, contact Crystal Braye, our down-to-earth folklore co-op student, at folklore.coop@gmail.com.
Dual Entrance Cellar - set into the ground and lined with rocks/concrete. A shed is built over top of the cellar, with its own door. Access to the cellar is through a ground-level door into the cellar, and through a hatch door incorporated into the floor of the shed.
Hatch and Shed Cellar - set into the ground and lined with rocks/concrete. Beams and planks are laid over the hole, with a hatch door incorporated into the ceiling/floor, along with a ladder for access. A shed is then built over the top of the cellar.
Hillside Cellar - dug out of a hillside, lined with rocks or concrete, and then a ceiling is attached to overhead beams. Access through a ground-level door on the front.
Above Ground Cellar - freestanding cellar, covered thickly with sod on the outside, lined inside with rocks/concrete, with access through a ground-level door on the front.
Above Ground Hatch – like the Above Ground Cellar, but with access from a hatch at the top.
Walk-in Cool Room – Insulated room, part of a house or outbuilding.
Barrel Cellar – A small root cellar made of a converted barrel or drum.
Unidentified Ruin
Others?
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Ghost stories and legends from Cape Broyle, Bell Island and Grand Falls-Windsor
I posted a few of the stories recorded by participants in our Young Folklorists Program yesterday. Here are three more, with tales from Cape Broyle on the Southern Shore, Bell Island in Conception Bay, and Grand Falls-Windsor in Central Newfoundland.
Stacey Challinor, Baltimore School - The Legend of Peggy's Hollow
Nicole Doyle, St. Michael's Regional High - A Bell Island Ghost Story
Tayler French, St. Peter's Junior High - The Phantom of the Arts and Culture Centre
Stacey Challinor, Baltimore School - The Legend of Peggy's Hollow
Nicole Doyle, St. Michael's Regional High - A Bell Island Ghost Story
Tayler French, St. Peter's Junior High - The Phantom of the Arts and Culture Centre
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Supernatural Stories from the Young Folklorist Program
Earlier this spring, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador hosted its first Young Folklorists Program. Students spent two days learning about local folklore, doing interviews along Water Street, and researching and learning local stories.
The students chose to work on superstitions and ghost stories, and each student recorded their story on the second day of the workshop. All of them will be added to our oral traditions collection as part of the ICH Inventory. Here are the first three! I'll put out a notice when the rest are uploaded to the Inventory.
Amanda Brace, St Peter's Junior High - A ghost story from Victoria Street
Ashley Brace, St. Peter's Junior High - Phantom fires in St. John's
The students chose to work on superstitions and ghost stories, and each student recorded their story on the second day of the workshop. All of them will be added to our oral traditions collection as part of the ICH Inventory. Here are the first three! I'll put out a notice when the rest are uploaded to the Inventory.
Amanda Brace, St Peter's Junior High - A ghost story from Victoria Street
Ashley Brace, St. Peter's Junior High - Phantom fires in St. John's
Emma Burry, Leary's Brook Jr. High - The Sunshine Park Killer - An Urban Legend
Digital Root Cellar storing memories as part of Memorial's Digital Archives Initiative
This abandoned root cellar, located on Thorpe's Road, St. Phillip's, is one of the root cellars that will be documented as part of this summer's Seeds to Supper Festival. This year, the province's third annual folklife festival will celebrate agricultural traditions past and present.
The root cellar research project is being conducted by Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) folklore coop student Crystal Braye, and Agricultural History Society intern Julie Pomeroy. The pair will be photographing, measuring, and drawing cellars wherever they can root them out, as well as conducting interviews with root cellar owners and farming families.
All collected photographs, drawings and audio interviews will be stored, nice and cool, in our digital root cellar, as part of Memorial's Digital Archives Initiative and HFNL's ongoing Intangible Cultural Heritage inventory. The research is funded in part with grants through the Department of Tourism's Cultural Economic Development Program, and the Helen Creighton Folklore Society.
If you have a root cellar and are interested in participating, or for more information, please contact Crystal Braye via email folklore.coop@gmail.com or telephone at 709-739-1892 ext. 5
Monday, June 27, 2011
Zombie Invasion! Flee!
Following yesterday's post on Bigfoot along the Trans Canada Highway, CBC reporter Cecil Haire today terrified CBC listeners with news of the zombie apocalypse.
Apparently, someone has reprogrammed a traffic sign near Windsor Lake to warn motorists of a zombie invasion and impending doom. The sign also flashes that people should save themselves and reminds people of the movie folklore that you should never be overconfident about a zombie's demise.
Happy motoring!
UPDATE: CBC web article
Apparently, someone has reprogrammed a traffic sign near Windsor Lake to warn motorists of a zombie invasion and impending doom. The sign also flashes that people should save themselves and reminds people of the movie folklore that you should never be overconfident about a zombie's demise.
Happy motoring!
UPDATE: CBC web article
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Newfoundland Bigfoot: Help me in the hunt!
As you drive along the Trans Canada Highway, motorists on the lookout for a large, hairy animal may find themselves staring at something decidedly more cryptozoological than your average Newfoundland moose.
As I was driving back to St. John's from Bay Roberts on the Trans Canada Highway earlier this week, I spotted something just east of the Salmonier Line turnoff.
"That tree stump looks just like Bigfoot," I thought. Then, as I came closer, "My God! It IS Bigfoot!"
Some genius prankster has put up a plywood cutout of a sasquatch-looking creature just at the edge of a pond, 60 meters or so off the highway.
Folklore junkie that I am, I immediately recognized the outline of the monster captured in the controversial Patterson film of 1967.
I returned today, and crept close to the monster cut-out, snapping a series of photos, now on Flickr.
I'd love to know who created this, and why! If you have ANY ideas as to who made it, email me at info@hauntedhike.com or text me at 709-685-3444. If the creator wants to remain anonymous, I'd be happy to oblige, but I'd love to interview them about their monster, and the story behind it.
PS - Here is an article I wrote about Bigfoot in Newfoundland in 2007.
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