Remembering the Pouch Cove SUF hall

SUF Parade, Pouch Cove, 1955

Do you remember the concerts and times at the old Society of United Fishermen's hall in Pouch Cove? Did you dance there, or have a reception there? Do you know someone who was a member, or remember parades? Come celebrate the history of the SUF, meet former members, have a cup of tea, and maybe even sample some traditional sweets!

Bring any old photos, member's certificates, or SUF memorabilia, and the Pouch Cove Heritage Society will take photos or scan it, to help record the important place of the SUF in Pouch Cove history.

Thursday, July 18th - Remembering the old SUF hall
7:30pm, Anglican Church Hall, Pouch Cove

Organized by the Pouch Cove Heritage Society and Heritage NL.
Free event

Facebook Event Listing
https://www.facebook.com/events/370007783714726/

Take the NL Heritage Craft at Risk Survey!

How many people do you know who can run a birch broom, weave a basket, or make a tea doll? At one point, makers of these types of objects were commonplace in Newfoundland and Labrador. Today, the practitioners of these heritage crafts seem to fewer in number, with fewer people having the knowledge of how to make the tools, objects, and crafts of yesteryear.

Heritage NL and the Craft Council of NL are concerned about this loss of traditional know-how, and are working together to compile a list of makers, craft producers, and skills in decline.

The Heritage Craft at Risk survey is a joint project of the two organizations, which aims to assess the current viability of traditional heritage crafts in NL, and to identify those crafts which are most at risk of disappearing. The project also aims to create a list of heritage crafts in NL, accompanied by information about each craft and whom may practice it.

"Living in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean our craft producers have spent years using their heritage of English, Irish, French, and Indigenous ancestors to grow their creativity and developed a true sense of place that is one of a kind,” says Rowena House, Executive Director of the Craft Council of NL.

“Newfoundland and Labrador has such a unique and diverse range of craft skills that supports some of the best craftspeople in the world,” she adds. “These skills will only survive if they continue to be taught through each generation. They provide a tangible link to our roots, and they are part of our shared heritage.”

With the survey, organizers are asking craft producers, makers, and builders to provide feedback on the current state of the heritage craft form they are most familiar with in Newfoundland and Labrador. The survey covers topics such as the number of makers currently practising specific skills, and issues limiting the health of craft in NL.

Organizers hope that the future Heritage Craft at Risk List will help safeguard, document, and stimulate production of contemporary, traditional, and Indigenous craft. They are looking for feedback from anyone at any level of practise, from professional or amateur craft producers, and from traditional makers of objects ranging from snowshoes to dry stone walls.

“When people think of craft, they often think of things like knitting or rug-making,” says Heritage NL folklorist Dale Jarvis. “We certainly want information on the health of those traditions, but we are just as concerned with things like tinsmithing, fly tying, or making komatiks and slides.”

Interested makers and craft producers can take the survey online at www.heritagecraft.ca, at one of the public sessions to be held over the summer, or by calling Rachael at the Heritage Craft At Risk toll-free hotline at 1-888-739-1892 ext 6.


Public Sessions
Monday, August 12th
7pm Anna Templeton Centre, Duckworth Street, St. John’s

Wednesday, August 14th
7pm SUF Hall, Winterton

Register for the public sessions online at:
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/heritage-craft-at-risk-public-sessions-tickets-64797180110

A Brief History of the Evening Telegram at 275 Duckworth Street

The Evening Telegram offices have been in several locations over their 140 year existence, including 275 Duckworth Street. The building was home to the telegram from the mid 1950s to 1981. During this period of time, the Telegram mainly operated from 275 Duckworth Street but the mailroom was located on 154 Water Street. It is the longest running daily newspaper in the province!

With approximately 120 workers, on October 31st, 1981 the Evening Telegram operated at 275 Duckworth for the last time. The 81-year-old printing press printed its last ever copy, its successor being a new 80 page Goss press. Because of this, the last published newspaper at 275 Duckworth had a different style from any published afterwards. During its last week of operation here, the six-section Hoe press turned out more than 230,000 copies of The Telegram.

Did you or one of your relatives work at 275 Duckworth Street, St. John’s? If so, you are invited to a party! To celebrate the history of their new home at 275 Duckworth Street, the Craft Council of NL is hosting a building reunion in partnership with Heritage NL.

Thursday, August 1st
3pm-6pm Cocktail reception
The Salt House
171 Water Street, St. John’s

7pm Reunion
Craft Council of NL Gallery
275 Duckworth Street, St. John's

Get your free tickets here:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/275-duckworth-reunion-tickets-63656748047

July Heritage Events - Memories, Mats, Photos, and Crafts!

We have a month full of events, workshops, and all-around fun stuff planned for July!

Saturday July 13th - Heritage Day in New Perlican
2pm, Veteran's Memorial Community Centre, New Perlican

12th Annual Heritage day! New designations, winners of the photo contest, and Dale Jarvis will present (briefly!) on the ongoing St. Mark's Cemetery research.

Sunday July 14th - Memory Mug Up at the Market - Southside Memories! 
2pm, St. John's Farmers Market Community Room

We are hoping that the lovely Helen Fogwill Porter will be with us to share memories of growing up on the Southside of St. John's. If you're from that part of town or not, come listen and share your memories of earlier times.


Monday July 15th - Old Christmas Photo Scanning Party
2pm-5pm, SUF Hall, Heart's Delight-Islington 

Bring along your scrapbooks and photo albums and we'll scan your Heart's Delight-Islington Christmas photos for you. We'd love to see photos of your old Christmas tree, family shots, concerts and times, jannies, your favourite gift, and especially photos of the old SUF and Orange parades!
Facebook event.


Wednesday, July 17th - Heritage Craft Show-And-Tell 
7pm, Wesley Gosse Heritage Museum, Spaniard's Bay

Bring something you or your ancestors made to the Heritage Craft Show-And-Tell at the Wesley Gosse Heritage Museum. Folklorist Dale Jarvis with Heritage NL will be on site to chat with you about your object, and Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador researcher Rachael Green will answer your questions about the Craft-at-Risk project. Mug up to follow.
Facebook event


Thursday, July 18th - Remembering the old SUF hall
7:30pm, Anglican Church Hall, Pouch Cove

Do you remember the concerts and times at the old SUF hall in Pouch Cove? Did you dance there, or have a reception there? Do you know someone who was a member, or remember parades? Come celebrate the history of the SUF, meet former members, and maybe even taste some fudge. Bring any old photos, certificates, or SUF memorabilia, and the Pouch Cove heritage society will take photos or scan it, to help record the important place of the SUF in Pouch Cove history.


Monday, July 22nd - Cemetery Transcription and Best Practices Workshop
9:15am - 4pm, Logy Bay Middle Cove Outer Cove Museum

This combination workshop/documentation project will instruct participants in how to transcribe grave markers, and provide advice for towns or heritage groups thinking about planning a historic cemetery project.
$35 - Register here


Wednesday, July 24th - Tea With Hookers!
1pm, Livyer's Lot and Tea Rose, Placentia West Heritage Committee 

Bring your favourite hooked mat for a show-and-tell, and have tea and a conversation with some of Placentia West's best rug and mat makers.
Facebook event

Saturday, July 27th - Traditional Boat Launch
2pm, on the South West Side of Heart's Delight,
between George Reid's wharf and Richard Hebbes wharf.

Join the folks of Heart's Delight-Islington for the traditional boat launch of local heritage boatbuilder Edwin Bishop's new wooden motorboat. Also, if you have a boat that was built by Edwin Bishop, we'd like you to bring it out, and have it in the harbour for the launch on that day.
Facebook event


Thursday, August 1st - 275 Duckworth Street Reunion
7pm, 275 Duckworth, Craft Council of NL Gallery

Did you or one of your relatives work at 275 Duckworth Street? If so, you are invited to a party! To celebrate the history of their new home at 275 Duckworth Street, the Craft Council of NL is hosting a building reunion in partnership with Heritage NL.
Free, tickets available here.  or through the Facebook event here

Cemetery Transcription and Best Practices Workshop July 22

Cemetery Transcription and Best Practices Workshop

This combination workshop/documentation project will instruct participants in how to transcribe grave markers, and provide advice for towns or heritage groups thinking about planning a historic cemetery project.

The morning session will cover the DOs and DON’Ts of planning a cemetery project: Andrea O'Brien (Heritage NL) will provide an overview of how municipalities can designate and protect historic cemeteries; while Dale Jarvis (Heritage NL) will talk about how to record inscriptions, tombstone symbols and stone types, and how to fill out cemetery marker forms. In the afternoon session, participants will assist the Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum in collecting tombstone information at the St. Francis of Assisi RC Cemetery.

Participants will walk through the cemetery looking at the evolution of the memorials and tombstone motifs over time, and then will work to record contemporary grave markers as part of the Museum’s ongoing project to maintain a database of cemetery inscriptions.

Full day workshop, breaks, water, lunch included

Monday, July 22nd, 2019
9:30am - 4:00pm
Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum
744 Logy Bay Road, Logy Bay
$35

(backup rain date: Tuesday, July 23rd, 2019)

Spaces limited, pre-registration required. Registration deadline Thursday, July 18th.

Book your spot here.

A Brief History of the Newfoundland Clothing Company

November 11th, 1911 the Newfoundland Clothing Company opened for the very first time in it’s 275 Duckworth street location. The factory celebrated their opening with a dinner and ball, with 350 ladies and gentlemen in attend. The interior of the building was beautifully ornamented and decorated for the occasion, the place was lit by electricity with noon-day brightness, while the tables were decorated lovely. There were games and dancing on various levels of the building, with heartfelt speeches and cheering by all. Opening over a century ago… I can only dream of what it felt like to be there!

With the seamstresses and tailoresses hard at work, business at the factory soon took off! Producing suits, shirts, overalls, coveralls, etc. with brand names such as Fitreform, Truefit, Progress, Americus, Stylenfit, and Faultless. By 1917, the factory had 150 employees inside, and 30 outside. They were advertised and recognized for their good material, workmanship, quick delivery, and strong attention to detail. In its early days, the clothing factory is described as being a huge operation that was ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, in 1952, the Newfoundland Clothing Company closed its doors for good. Some may say because of confederation, it was simply too difficult for the company to compete with major chains. My hunt for more information continues, and I'm super excited to see what else I can uncover!

Did you or one of your relatives work at 275 Duckworth Street, St. John’s? If so, you are invited to a party! To celebrate the history of their new home at 275 Duckworth Street, the Craft Council of NL is hosting a building reunion in partnership with Heritage NL.

Thursday, August 1st

7pm Reunion

Craft Council of NL Gallery

275 Duckworth Street, St. John's

Get your free tickets here:

https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/275-duckworth-reunion-tickets-63656748047

Calling all tailoresses and newspaper boys: 275 Duckworth Reunion

Calling all tailoresses and newspaper boys: 275 Duckworth Reunion

Did you or one of your relatives work at 275 Duckworth Street, St. John’s? If so, you are invited to a party! To celebrate the history of their new home at 275 Duckworth Street, the Craft Council of NL is hosting a building reunion in partnership with Heritage NL.

Perhaps best-known as the home of the Evening Telegram newspaper, the building was constructed circa 1911 for the Newfoundland Clothing Company. Tailoresses busily churned out suits for export, while the cardboard box factory in the basement fabricated the boxes in which to ship them. The business continued till the 1950s, when the fabric merchants moved out, and the newspaper moved in. Scores of paper boys delivered their goods based out of Solomon's Lane, while reporters and printers plied their trade inside. In the mid 1980s, locals dined and danced at The Dallas Lounge or The Reporter, and later still, students made their way through the Compu College doors.

If you remember any of these workplaces, we'd love to meet you! Come along for a chat, some cake and a cup of tea, and meet the others who shared experiences at 275 Duckworth. If you have photos or memorabilia, we'd love to see it!

If you have questions or a memory of the building you want to share, contact Rachael Green craft@heritagenl.ca or call toll-free 1-888-739-1892 ext 6.

Thursday, August 1st
7pm
Craft Council of NL Gallery
275 Duckworth Street, St. John's

Eventbrite listing
https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/275-duckworth-reunion-tickets-63656748047

Facebook listing
https://www.facebook.com/events/454785308620627/

Remembering the Hant's Harbour Post and Telegraph Office, an interview with Clarence Snook.

On 10 June 2019, Dale Jarvsi sat down for a chat with Mr Clarence Snook, of Hant’s Harbour, NL, at his apartment at the Admiral's Coast Retirement Centre, Conception Bay South. Now in his 90s, Mr Snook had been the telegraph operator and postmaster in Hant's Harbour for 11 years,  starting before the end of the second World War. This is his story of how he got started and of the women who trained him in. 

Well the lady retired through illness and I had been interested in telegraph, in Morse telegraphy at the time. I was training through another lady, an ex-school teacher over there who also was a postmistress at one time. She was proficient in Morse code, so I went through all one winter and trained under her to learn the Morse telegraphy.

So the following spring, the lady there, Miss Melina Critch, she had been there for many years and her health broke down, and the secretary of... telegraphs – who was the Newfoundland government at that time – called, and wondered if I could struggle through with it even though I hadn’t been officially in the office but I had been trained.

So I said, “Well I’ll try to get along with it,” and I did, and I was there for 11 years, just about 11 years.

I’d just finished high school. I suppose I was probably 18? I had trained in telegraphy independent of the post office that winter. I was attending classes for this lady who’d – I don’t know where she came from, somewhere from out in the community – and I knew that she was proficient in telegraphy. And by arrangement with her schedule I used to go there nights, and eventually I became I suppose proficient in the Morse code.

I was there all long winter, you know, spasmodic right? I didn’t go there every night now but pretty well I’d be there three or four times a week, you know? And it went over very well. She was good as a teacher. And then of course I went over – when Miss Critch [left] – she must’ve been there for I’d say 25 or 30 years.

She was what I would term almost a Florence Nightingale of the community. In those days everybody were letter-writers, and if there was somebody who couldn’t express themselves very well in a letter, they’d go to Melina, Miss Melina, and ask her to write the letter.

She spent hours and weeks I suppose that she never got paid for, nor did she charge for. She was just an angel; that’s the way to put it. She was the nerve centre of the community. In those days were only two radios, not short-wave but long-wave radios, in the community, and she would have to take the news, so-called, and like this time of the year when the sealing ships were out there, the Imogene and the Kyle, etc., etc., they would report back and she would record this in long foolscap books and hand-write it, believe it or not.

This was for the information of the public, to go to the public of the post office and read this. That was the news centre.

Living Heritage Podcast Ep154 Summer Update and Request for Help

In this episode we discuss some of the projects the ICH (Intangible Cultural Heritage) Office is working on this summer. First up Dale, and Terra discuss their research in Bay Roberts on significant sites in the town. These include memories from the chocolate girls about their time working in short-lived Adler’s chocolate factory, stories of the jacky lanterns of Fergus Island, the Klondyke causeway, and the history behind the mummer murder gate. During the second part of the podcast, Dale introduces Rachael, who is working out of our office this summer in collaboration with the Craft Council of Newfoundland and Labrador. Rachael is working on two projects including craft at risk, and the history of 275 Duckworth Street. She is working to create a database of craftspeople around the province and identifying crafts at risk. Rachael is also researching the history behind the Craft Council’s new building. So if you have memories of, or worked in the Newfoundland Clothing Factory, The Telegram, or Compu College on Duckworth, or have memories about the sites in Bay Roberts let us know at livingheritagepodcast@gmail.com.

Download the mp3


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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 HeritageNL 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.