Heritage Day is coming, and you are invited!

Heritage Day is the Canadian holiday celebrating the country’s history and architecture, celebrated on the third Monday in February. Heritage Day was created in 1973 by the Heritage Canada Foundation to preserve and promote Canada’s natural, architectural, and historical heritage.

This year, Heritage Foundation of NL is celebrating Heritage Day by launching several projects, and announcing the winners of our annual school poster contest. Along the way, we're reporting on our living heritage workshops, partnering with architectural conservationists from Ireland, and sharing stories of love (appropriate for the days after St. Valentine's!).

To read more about the celebrations, and about our coming events and workshops, download the pdf version of our special Heritage Day issue of the Heritage Update newsletter!

Labrador Wedding #FolklorePhoto

Photo courtesy The Rooms Provincial Archives.

In honour of Valentine's Day, this week's #FolklorePhoto is of a wedding that took place in Labrador in the 1920s. Note the boy on the left holding a shotgun. It was customary in parts of Newfoundland for someone to fire a gun on the day of a wedding.

#CollectiveMemories Monday - Moravian Memories with Reverend Lawrence Junek

Nain church and building, Nain, Labrador. 1995-26-07.
Moravian Architecture of Labrador - Dale Jarvis collection.
Scanned from colour slide number CF18.
Courtesy of Memorial University's DAI. 

As part of the Collective Memories project the ICH office is showcasing community material which has been placed on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. Check out this interview with Reverend Lawrence Junek at his home, the Moravian manse, in Nain, Labrador, conducted by Dale Gilbert Jarvis as part of his thesis research in 1995. This interview is primarily about the Moravian system of dividing the congregation into age and sex based groups called "choirs" dead houses, funeral rituals, and the role of chapel servants.

The ICH office is helping communities place previously recorded materials online. If your community has material you would like to make publicly accessible reach out to the Heritage Foundation at 1-888-739-1892 ex.2 or ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Living Heritage Podcast Ep100 Beware the Dried Persimmon

Jae Hong Jin is a researcher, photographer, and musician who is currently working as a library assistant at the QEII library at Memorial University, with a background in the anthropology and folklore of his native Korea. Since his college days, Jae Hong has been a tradition bearer of the intangible cultural heritage of traditional farmers' music and drumming ensembles, and his MA research focussed on traditional music learners and audiences, continuity, and change.

In this episode of the Living Heritage Podcast, we talk about how Korean culture has changed over the last fifty years, the work being done to safeguard intangible cultural heritage and musical traditions, cultural tourism, Korean folktales, and discuss if there is anything in the world more terrifying than a dried persimmon.

Download the MP3

#CollectiveMemories Monday - Recollections of Hopeall with Lillian Smith

Walter Edward Davidson fonds. Three girls on see-saw.
Series, Item A 51-124. Between 1915-1917.
Photo courtesy of The Rooms.

As part of the Collective Memories project the ICH office is showcasing community material which has been placed on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. Check out this interview which is part of a series of filmed oral histories, collected in 2005 by the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation, from over 40 elders who grew up in the area. The Baccalieu Trail HeritageCorporation is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to preserving, promoting and protecting the heritage of the Baccalieu Trail Region. This project includes memories of living and working in the area, going to school, children’s games, home remedies, the first modes of transportation, supernatural beliefs, traditional industries and calendar customs and celebrations. This interview is with Lillian Smith of Hopeall, NL. The interviewer is Linda Reid. The camera was operated by Linda Cooper. The video was edited by Darrell Barrett.

The ICH office is helping communities place previously recorded materials online. If your community has material you would like to make publicly accessible reach out to the Heritage Foundation at 1-888-739-1892 ex.2 or ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Living Heritage Podcast Ep099 The Story of the Spar - The Wreck of the Hazel Pearl

Outside the Ella Freeman Heritage House in Champney’s West sits a curious artefact. Passersby might think it only an old piece of wood, but locals know it was the spar of the wrecked vessel Hazel Pearl. This spar was accidentally brought ashore by fisherman Wayne Freeman when it became tangled in his capelin seine several summers back. Documentary producer Rebecca Nolan presents a special episode which tells the full story of the Hazel Pearl - where the ship came from, and how it ended up at the bottom of Trinity Bay.

Rebecca Nolan graduated from Department of Folklore at Memorial University in May 2017. She has been doing radio for two years and has held radio internships with both NPR in the United States and CBC in St. John's. Photo of Li Xingpei measuring spar in Champney's West by Michael Philpott.

Download the MP3

Get a pdf copy of the booklet here:
The Story of the Spar: An Oral History of the Hazel Pearl

Lighthouse Cross Stitch Workshop

Have you ever wanted to learn how to cross stitch but had no idea where to start? Well now is your chance to learn! The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador has added a second cross stitching workshop which will take place on Tuesday, February 13 from 7:00-8:30 p.m in the Newman Building (located at 1 Springdale Street).

HFNL folklorist Katie Harvey (and owner of Queen Stitch NL) will teach you all the basics of cross stitching, while marrying the stitching lesson with the history of the Heart's Content Lighthouse. You will leave this workshop with all the materials needed to finish your cross stitch.

The workshop is $30 and space is limited. To register click here.

Man Carrying Rabbits #FolklorePhoto

Photo courtesy The Rooms Provincial Archives.

Here is a photo of an unknown man carrying several dead rabbits as he walks along the railway tracks on the west coast of Newfoundland. The photo was taken around the early 1900s. Snaring rabbits is a popular winter activity within the province. People say it is best to snare rabbits after a fresh snowfall.

There are many different ways to prepare rabbit. I remember my mother bottling it, making it into stew and roasting it when I was a child. How do you prepare rabbit?

-Katie Harvey

#CollectiveMemories Monday - Knitting in Conche with Gertrude Hunt

Gert Hunt demonstrating her knitting skills in Conche, Newfoundland.
Photo by Lisa Wilson. 2010. Photo courtesy of MUN's DAI.

As part of the Collective Memories project the ICH office is showcasing community material which has been placed on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. Check out this interview from May 17, 2010, Lisa Wilson interviews Gertrude Hunt of Conche, Newfoundland. Gertrude discusses knitting, life in Conche, her family, making quilts, working in the Conche fish plant, working in Alberta, and social change in Conche.

The ICH office is helping communities place previously recorded materials online. If your community has material you would like to make publicly accessible reach out to the Heritage Foundation at 1-888-739-1892 ex.2 or ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Traditional snowflake pattern mittens with the cuff.
Made by Gertrude Hunt, Conche, Newfoundland.
Photo by Lisa Wilson. 2010. Photo courtesy of MUN's DAI.