Argentia Naval Station #FolklorePhoto

Photo from Helen Griffin, Jerseyside, Placentia collection.

This week's #FolklorePhoto is of the naval station in Argentia. This was a naval base for the United States Army from 1941-1994. At the time, this was the tallest building in Newfoundland.

Living Heritage Podcast Ep129 Jams, Mustard, and Chutneys, Oh My!

This week, Natalie talks with Steve Curtis, owner of Condiments by Steve Curtis. Steve launched his condiments business is 2012 at the St. John’s Farmer’s Market. He had decided to take a break from the restaurant industry and began making chutneys, jams and mustard at home as gifts for friends and family. Now, Steve drives a Metrobus and spends his days cooking up condiments for his booth at the Market. In this episode, we chat about some mouthwatering food podcasts, local ingredients (including jams made with Newfoundland Distillery Company spirits), and what Steve is cooking up in the kitchen. You can find Steve at the St. John's Farmer's Market every Saturday.

This episode is part of a series showcasing the people and stories of the St. John’s Farmer’s Market, from farmers, to craft and food vendors, and more.

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The Living Heritage Podcast 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 HFNL and CHMR Radio. Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Tuesday's #FolklorePhoto: Textiles in St. Anthony Bight

Ruth Pilgrim holds a knitting project, St. Anthony Bight. Photo by Lisa Wilson. 2010

Today's Folklore Photos come from St. Anthony collection on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. St. Anthony is located on the northeastern tip of Newfoundland's Great Northern Peninsula. This site was first given the name of 'St. Anthony Haven' in 1532, for the way in which the area operated as a safe landing point for fishing fleets. The region was initially settled based on the fact that there were rich cod fishing grounds in the vicinity, a move that helped to establish a productive fishery that would last for several centuries. Despite the eventual collapse of the cod fishery, St. Anthony has had many development successes, making it a vital service center for residents of the broader GNP region.

Another important feature of St. Anthony is the community's historic affiliation with the legacy of Dr. Grenfell. Wilfred Thomason Grenfell (1865-1940) - a British doctor-arrived in St. Anthony in 1892 as a medical missionary, sent by The Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen. Within a year of his arrival, Dr. Grenfell commenced building a medical system that eventually grew to serve the regions of Northern Newfoundland and Labrador. As his medical mission grew, his mandate expanded to include the development of schools, cooperatives, industrial work projects, an orphanage, and other social programs. One such program involved utilizing local textile-based craft skills to help sustain the region's economy. Grenfell style embroidered coats and hooked rugs with Grenfell inspired designs are being produced by residents of the Great Northern Peninsula to this day. These objects are now referred to as being a part of the 'Grenfell tradition' and can be seen and purchased at Grenfell Handicrafts, located in St. Anthony.

The St. Anthony inventory is part of a founding collection for the Great Northern Peninsula Textiles Archive and Learning Center. This project, based in Conche, NL, is an on-going initiative to document and preserve the textile-based crafts that are being created on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula. The items in this collection were gathered between May and July of 2010 and include photographs of textile craft objects such as patchwork quilts, knitted items, and Grenfell-style hooked rugs. This inventory also includes audio clips of craftspeople discussing their particular textile-based skills and practices.

If you want to learn more about this collection click here and if you want to listen to an interview with Ruth Pilgrim about rug-hooking, knitting, painting, quilting, cross-stitching, and crocheting click here.

Hooked mat of a school house belonging to Ruth Pilgrim, St. Anthony Bight. Photo by Lisa Wilson. 2010

A caribou scene painted by Ruth Pilgrim, St. Anthony Bight. Photo by Lisa Wilson. 2010

Living Heritage Podcast Ep128 Welcome to the Farmer's Market

Photo by: Ritche Perez Photography

The Living Heritage Podcast goes to the Market! This episode is the first in a series showcasing the people and stories of the St. John's Farmer's Market, from farmers, to craft and food vendors, and more.

In this episode, we chat with Ann Connors about the transition from the Lion's Club Chalet to the Market's new home at 245 Freshwater Road. Ann talks about the Market's grand opening, partnerships with the Rabbittown community, market vendors, as well as upcoming workshops, performances and more.

Before taking on the role of Executive Director of the Farmer's Market, Ann was the general manager of the Resource Center for the Arts at LSPU Hall in St. John’s. She was also a manager for High Performance Rodeo in Calgary.

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The Living Heritage Podcast 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 HFNL and CHMR Radio. Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Bonne Bay Maternity Ward #FolklorePhoto

Photo courtesy Julia Ann Walsh Heritage Centre.

This week's #FolklorePhoto shows a nurse tending to a newborn baby at the old Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital. The date of this photograph is unknown. 

Folklorist looking to interview Lebanese Newfoundlanders.

Tooton's The Kodak Store, Water Street, St. John's. Photo from Facebook via Anthony M. Tooton.
The company was founded in 1905 as the "Parisian Photographic Studio"
by his great-grandfather Anthony Maurice Tooton (1886–1971) in St. John's.
Tooton immigrated from Damascus in 1903 after studying photography in Paris.

Newfoundland is home to an over century-old Lebanese community, representing some of the earliest non-European immigrants to settle on the island. Many of the descendants of these immigrants, who arrived in Newfoundland between the late 1800s and early 1900s, still live in the Province and identify with their Lebanese heritage.

Despite this, there is relatively little public visibility of this diaspora in Newfoundland today. Privately, however, many members of the Lebanese diaspora still practice elements of the folk culture of their ancestors.

Folklore graduate student, and third-generation Lebanese-American, Wyatt Hirschfeld Shibley is working on a project called “Cedar Roots on Pine Clad Hills: the folklore of Lebanese Newfoundlanders." His project focuses on the ways in which Lebanese Newfoundlanders use folklore to construct and/or maintain their ethnic identity.

"As this research pertains to a group that has been living in Newfoundland for several generations," says Shibley, "a further focus will be placed on the narratives Lebanese Newfoundlanders tell about themselves, and the way they remember their collective past. My goal is to understand and present the lives of Lebanese Newfoundlanders from an insider’s perspective, in hopes of deepening the understanding of this diaspora and Newfoundland’s ethnic history."

If you have family memories you are willing to share as part of the project, or if you know someone who might be a good interview candidate, you can contact the researcher directly at wjs167@mun.ca or call (709)-770-6800.

A peek at John & Phonse Ducey’s Root Cellar, Keels

If you've followed the ICH Blog for any amount of time, you probably already know that we love root cellars. Like, really, really LOVE root cellars. Well, my mother and father were off for a 50th wedding anniversary jaunt around the Bonavista Peninsula, and Fadder snapped these pics of John and Phonse Ducey's root cellar in Keels, Bonavista Bay. It is of a type we'd call an above ground cellar, but of a specific sub-type that features an exterior wall holding back a layer of insulating sod. The final photos in the series below show the cellar from the rear, where some degradation over time allows you to see the construction process a bit better. The diagonal side braces, acting as a type of buttress, helped keep the outer walls up against the weight of the sod. It is a feature you will sometimes see in old fishing stages called a "side span" -- a wooden exterior brace on the side of a stage which kept the side of the stage from breaking out when a large amount of salted fish was stored inside.

The root cellar was featured in the booklet Living Spaces: The Architecture of the Family Fishery in Keels, Newfoundland which was produced by the first Memorial University Folklore Field School, under the direction of Dr. Gerald Pocius. Then MA candidate Kristin Catherwood, now the ICH Development Officer for Heritage Saskatchewan (insert heart emoji here), wrote the following about the cellar:

The root cellar owned by John and Phonse Ducey is located on the eastern outskirts of Keels. It was built in the early 1950s by Henry Thomas Curtis, a carpenter from the nearby community of King’s Cove for Kenneth Mesh. The bulk of the work done by Curtis consisted of pouring the cement for the interior structure. Roland Mesh, Kenneth’s brother, recalls that the cement was poured first, and left to set for several months. In the meantime, a wooden exterior structure was constructed of spruce split logs cut in the woods surrounding Keels. A space of five feet was left between the cement interior cellar structure and the exterior wooden structure. This space was then filled with turf. Much of the turf was brought from Pigeon Island in Keels’ harbour, since turf was in short supply in the surrounding area of the community itself. The turf was dug by hand and loaded in punts (a type of small boat often used for transporting fish), then brought to the family’s stage on Keels’ shore. 

Thanks, Dad! Happy Anniversary!

Living Heritage Podcast Ep127 Heritage and Environmental Conservation with Megan Stuckless

Megan Stuckless began working with Conservation Corps of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2007 and her appreciation for the cultural and environmental well-being of our beautiful province, as well as the as the not for profit sector, has grown with each passing year. As the current Programs Manager she finds great value in being able to support and advance the goals of the organization. Being a mother and working with youth inspires her to continue working toward sustainability and cultural and environmental integrity for those to come. In this episode, Megan talks about the intersections between heritage and environmental conservation, and the different job and internship opportunities with the CCNL. Special thank you to the CCNL, which made the Living Heritage Podcast Broadcast Assistant position possible.

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The Living Heritage Podcast 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 HFNL and CHMR Radio. Past episodes are hosted on Libsyn, and you can subscribe via iTunes, or Stitcher. Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Memories of Georgestown Walking Tour - Sept 29th

Memories of Georgestown: A walking tour of Georgestown

Saturday, September 29th

1 pm

The Lantern, 35 Barnes Road 

Free event! 

For the month of September graduate students of Memorial University’s Folklore Department have been learning about and researching historic and contemporary Georgestown. They will share their discoveries of the neighborhood in a public walking tour on Saturday, September 29th at 1pm. Tour begins at the Lantern, 35 Barnes Road. In case of rain, students will present their findings indoors. Tea, coffee, and conversation at the Lantern following the tour.

photo: Rawlins Cross, St. John's, circa 1930. Parsons family collection S.H. Parsons and Sons sous fonds, Community views and sportsmen activities Series, Item E 20-8. The Rooms.