Young Heritage Professionals Panel - audio podcast #YHF2015

We are still abuzz here at the Intangible Cultural Heritage office after the wonderfully successful Youth Heritage Forum 2015 held this past Saturday at The Lantern here in St. John’s.

One of the highlights was the young heritage professionals panel. Six talented and inspiring young women spoke about their work in the heritage sector, and then took questions from moderator Alanna Wicks and the assembled crowd.

You can download the full, unedited audio of the panel as an MP3 here or visit archive.org for other audio formats.




Bios of the presenters in the order of speaking:

Crystal Braye - Crystal received her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2008 before completing her Masters of Arts in Folklore at MUN. During her time at MUN, Crystal’s work focused on documenting root cellars for the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with additional research on Newfoundland’s “Screech-In” customs and mummering traditions. She is presently on the board of directors for the Mummers Festival and has been working as a folklorist for the Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador since 2012.
Follow The Wooden Boat Museum on Twitter @WoodenBoatNL

Nicole Penney BA, MA. - Nicole is a folklorist and archivist living and working in St. John’s, Newfoundland. She has been working within the heritage community since 2004 and holds a BA in Folklore / English Literature and an MA in Public Folklore from MUN. Nicole currently works full time at the MUN Medical Founders' Archive, part-time on The Rooms reference desk and sits as vice president and education committee chair on the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives board of directors. She is a strong advocate of community-level projects and inter-generational activities and regularly assists with educational activities that combine art and archives.

Follow Nicole on Twitter @AuntTriffie

Katherine Harvey - Katie is a folklorist whose primary interest is Museology. Since beginning her career in the heritage sector in 2009, she has worked in a variety of capacities with the Cupids Legacy Centre,The Rooms Provincial Museum, The Museum of Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove and The Railway Coastal Museum. She obtained her B.A. in Folklore from Memorial University in 2014, and has plans to return to complete her M.A. in Folklore.
Follow Katherine on Twitter @katieaharvey

Aimee Chaulk - Aimee is the editor of Them Days magazine, an oral history quarterly about Labrador, and the de-facto archivist at Them Days Archives. She received her Hon.B.A. from the University of Toronto, in English and Mediaeval Studies. She also attended Ryerson University’s Magazine Publishing program. Aimee is on the ANLA Executive, is a co-founder of the Tamarack Camera Club, and organizes community events in her spare time. You may have seen her breastfeeding and canoeing at the same time in Metrobus shelter ads.
Follow Aimee on Twitter @themdays

Dr. Lisa M. Daly - Lisa has been working in the heritage sector since 2001, first with the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, then Parks Canada, and now as a tour guide, both independent and with Wildland Tours. She holds a B.A. in archaeology from MUN, a M.Sc. in forensic and biological anthropology from Bournemouth University, and has just completed a Ph.D. in archaeology at MUN. Her study focus is aviation in Newfoundland and Labrador. Up to now, most of her academic work has focused on World War II aviation in Gander, Goose Bay and Stephenville, but she has also done some work on pre- and post-war aviation history in the province. She is also collecting stories and images of the Hindenburg as it flew over Newfoundland.

Follow her work on Twitter @planecrashgirl or her blog, www.planecrashgirl.ca.

Caitlyn Baikie - Caitlyn is from the province's most northern community of Nain, and has been living in the capital studying Geography and Aboriginal Studies at Memorial University for the past four years. With experience in both the Arctic and Antarctic, she has been participating in climate research for nearly a decade and has been attempting to communicate the effects it has on Inuit culture. An avid volunteer, lover of chocolate, political junkie, and a curious mind for the world we live in Caitlyn thoroughly enjoys exploring her own history as an Inuk and sharing it with those who are willing to share a bit about their own history.
Follow Caitlyn on Twitter @CaitlynBaikie

Youth Heritage Forum 2015 Guest Speaker - Crystal Braye

Guest Speaker: Crystal Braye

Crystal Braye received her Bachelor of Arts in Cultural Anthropology from Wilfrid Laurier University in 2008 before completing her Masters of Arts in Folklore at Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. During her time at MUN, Crystal’s work focused on documenting root cellars for the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador,  with additional research on Newfoundland’s “Screech-In” customs and mummering traditions. She is presently on the board of directors for the Mummers Festival and has been working as a folklorist for the Wooden Boat Museum of Newfoundland and Labrador [WBMBL] since 2012. Crystal is responsible for WBMNL’s cultural heritage research which includes the documentation of traditional design, construction and use of wooden boats in their unique community contexts and the collection of stories and experiences of the people who built and used wooden boats throughout the province.

Why are passionate about heritage?

My passion for heritage comes from my interest in understanding the ways our culture (including our customs, beliefs and practices) shape our everyday experiences and perceptions of the world around us. Through an understanding of our tangible and intangible cultural heritage, we can gain new insights on contemporary experiences and develop appreciation for the simple things in everyday life we too often take for granted.

Want to hear more from Crystal? Join us for Youth Heritage Forum 2015!

Registration forms can be downloaded here! 
Keep up to date, join our Youth Heritage Forum Facebook Event!

Living Heritage Podcast Ep002 Kevin Aucoin, Agricultural History Society.

In today's edition of the Living Heritage Podcast, folklorist Dale Jarvis talks with Kevin Aucoin of the Agricultural History Society of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Kevin Aucoin was born and raised on a small mixed farm in the Codroy Valley, on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland. He was introduced to the 4-H program as a teenager, which lead Kevin to an interest and training in the agricultural field. Kevin attended the Agricultural Colleges in Nova Scotia, Quebec and Ontario. He worked for some 35 years in the agricultural industry, becoming involved in farm and agricultural history in the mid 1980s. Kevin discusses his family background in farming, the formation of the Agricultural History Society, changes in technology, hay barracks and root cellars, agriculture in Labrador, and the Century Farms program.

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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.

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: Something fishy this way comes

Plowing under caplin for fertilizer [VA 110-32.2] 1930
International Grenfell Association photograph collection
Fred Coleman Sears photographs
Photo: Courtesy of The Rooms Provincial Archives.

Although it is not quite caplin time – the weather we have been having for the majority of June could be considered caplin weather. The RDF (rain, drizzle and fog) which prevails during Newfoundland’s “spring” and early summer is also known to coincide with the appearance of caplin which roll across our shores late June or early July.

Caplin used on field as fertilizer [VA 14-105] 1939
Newfoundland Tourist Development Board photograph collection
Gustav Anderson photograph album
Photo: Courtesy of The Rooms Provincial Archives.

In honour of the lovely caplin weather and the hope that summer is just around the corner I took this opportunity to select some caplin related pictures for today’s folklore photo.

Caplin used as fertilizer in garden [VA 14-106] 1939
Newfoundland Tourist Development Board photograph collection
Gustav Anderson photograph album
Photo: Courtesy of The Rooms Provincial Archives.

These pictures from The Rooms Provincial Archives show one of the many uses for caplin – as an all natural fertilizer!

Home Gardening, Decks Awash [vol 11, no.1, February 1982]
Photo: courtesy of MUN's Digital Archives Initiative 

In my search for garden fertilizers I also came across this lovely article from the Decks Awash newsletter proclaiming all the benefits of seaweed and fish offal as a natural soil conditioner and compost.

Gathering kelp on Back of Beach [Kenneth Nash]
Jackie Nash personal photo collection
Photo: courtesy of MUN's Digital Archives Initiative 

What do you use for fertilizer and compost in the garden? Any tips on what could help a garden grow on this rock?

The benefits of kelp and caplin seen in a potato garden [William Snelgrove]
Terra Barrett personal photo collection
Photo: courtesy of Digest [vol 3, issue 1, summer 2014]

For more information on the local food system check out these videos done by Root Cellars Rock showcasing seniors’ food knowledge.

Digital Museums Canada Investment - The Early Lebanese Community in Newfoundland

Photo of Melin and Marion Noah and family in the doorway of their New Gower Street grocery store. Courtesy of City of St. John's Archives

Heritage NL's exhibition proposal for The Early Lebanese Community in Newfoundland receives funding as part of Digital Museums Canada's 2022 investments. Stay tuned as we create this digital exhibition over the next year. 

The Early Lebanese Community in Newfoundland
Heritage NL
The Lebanese community has a long history in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador that is not often commemorated. This virtual exhibit delves deeper into the story behind many well-known local businesses across the province, exploring how one group of immigrants built a unique sense of place while retaining cultural ties to its ancestral homeland.

Heritage NL has produced three exhibitions funded by Digital Museums Canada:
2019 - Remembering the Merchants of Main Street, Windsor
2020 - Carved by the Sea: Heritage Places of Bay Roberts, Newfoundland
2022 - Heritage Underground - A History of Root Cellars in Newfoundland and Labrador

Press Release shared from Digital Museums Canada:

We’re pleased to announce that 19 new projects submitted as part of the 2022 call for proposals were approved for investment.

“The recipients of funding from the 2022 Call for Proposals represent a wide range of compelling subjects from organizations all over Canada,” said Leah Resnick, Director of Digital Museums Canada. “We look forward to working with these organizations to build their digital capacity and bring their projects to life.”

 “Through Digital Museums Canada, the Canadian Museum of History is pleased to honour its commitment to communities across the country in sharing diverse online stories, accessible to all,” said Caroline Dromaguet, President and CEO of the Canadian Museum of History.

Topics covered in this year’s new digital projects include:

• Diaspora: Montréal Jewish Community (QC); Lebanese community in Newfoundland and Labrador
• Community History: Early coal mining in the Bow Valley (AB); Lithuanian immigrants and the War of 1812 (ON); a community festival in Saint-Eustache (QC); the impact of the SS Atlantic shipwreck (NS)
• Art and Architecture: Inuit art (MB); Winnipeg modernist architecture (MB); NFT artmaking (ON); Franco-Ontarian illustrators (ON); Acadian stained glass (NB)
• Women: Women in medical illustration (QC); women journalists in the early 20th century (QC)

In all, DMC received 39 proposals for the Medium and Large investment streams, and 20 proposals for the Small stream from museums and heritage organizations across the country. Projects were selected through a competitive process by an arm’s-length advisory committee.

See the full list:
Approved Projects

Eligible organizations are invited to apply during the next Call for Proposals, which opens on Thursday, June 15, 2023. For more information, please visit the DMC website.

Hungry Month of March Mug Up at Marjorie Mews, March 12th

Join us for the final (for now) mug up storytelling session at the Marjorie Mews Library. We want your food memories! Tell us about jam-making, preserving food, root cellars, recipes, favourite (or least favourite) dishes, flipper pie, and the correct term for a bit of left-over bread dough fried up in a pan.  Do you have a memory of Jell-O salads with bits of things floating in the gelatine? Or a memory of the smell of fresh-baked bread? Come have a cup of tea, a treat or two, and trade your table-top tales!

Hosted by folklorist Dale Jarvis, Heritage NL

Thursday, March 12th
10am
Marjorie Mews Public Library 
12 Highland Drive, St. John's

This is a free event, all welcome.


photo:  Mrs. Janie (Herb) and Mrs. W. Milley with table full of bottled preserves. Item MG 63.2217, Item A 57-153 [ca. 1930]. International Grenfell Association fonds, The Rooms. 

"Living Spaces" book launch Monday, March 18th

Most new students spend their first weeks of school in stuffy classrooms. But in a new program through the Department of Folklore at Memorial University, new graduate students spent their first days exploring a small Bonavista Bay fishing community. During the last three weeks of September 2012, the Department of Folklore introduced a new course for incoming graduate students on cultural documentation techniques.

“I decided that I would focus on the community of Keels in Bonavista Bay,” says course organizer Dr. Gerald Pocius. “Unlike previous field courses, this one would actually take place outside the classroom, with students living away from their usual environments, focusing on a place and people different to most of them.”

Timed to coincide with this year’s 20th anniversary of the cod moratorium, the field school examined how outmigration and gentrification affected the traditional cultural landscape of the Bonavista region, focusing on the last two inshore fishing families in the community of Keels. Students lived in the town, and worked to document buildings, including homes, fisheries buildings and root cellars. Along the way they interacted with and interviewed locals about their lives and work. The results of the field school, including architectural drawings and descriptions of some of the spaces studied have been put together in a booklet, “Living Spaces: The Architecture of the Family Fishery in Keels, Newfoundland,” edited by Pocius.

“Both the field school and the booklet have been a cooperative project between Memorial University and the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador,” says Dale Jarvis, folklorist with the foundation. “These types of partnerships are a great way to help students develop real-world skills, and to demonstrate to communities the type of research that is going on within the university. It also helps us with the foundation’s mandate of promoting and preserving the important architectural and intangible cultural heritage of this province.”

The booklet will be launched at a public event at 6pm, March 18th, 2013 at Bianca’s, 171 Water Street, St. John’s. The event is open to the public, though people are asked to RSVP with Christina Robarts at 739-1892 ext 7, or by email at christina@heritagefoundation.ca

Cupids 400 Cultural Tourism Forum - Arts Section

Last week, I was in North River as part of the Cupids 400 Cultural Tourism Forum. In the afternoon, participants broke into groups to discuss issues of particular interest to them as business owners, volunteers, municipal officials and community leaders. I was asked to facilitate the group on the arts.

The arts (visual, literary, performing arts such as theatre, music and dance) provide a great way to generate activity in a community by: drawing visitors, fostering and supporting the creative talent of youth and artists, enhancing the local quality of life, and giving new life to heritage structures.

Participants brainstormed on possible arts related activities, and one thing we discussed were the key historic themes and traditions in the Cupids and wider Baccalieu Trail area. While not a complete list, some of the local traditions and themes participants identified include:

Fly-tying
Heritage train stations
Archaeology
Pirate history (Hr Grace, Carbonear)
Carbonear Island
Rug hooking
Fiddler traditions
Lancers, traditional dance/ square dancing/ Scottish and NL dancing
Quilting/knitting/spinning, trigger mitts, socks
Boat building
Lobster pot making
Carving, scrimshaw, animal horn
Furniture making
Painting
Photography (modern and historic)
Traditional music
Ballad singing
Stories
Mending nets
Leatherwork
Culinary arts – jams, recipes, rum, dogberry wine, moonshine, winery
Concerts/plays/recitations/mummering/janneying
Wake recitations
Wren boys
Live oral history interviews
Running the Goat
Architecture, stages, root cellars
Fairies
Legends, folklore, ghost stories
Pottery
Mat painting
Jam doughboys on Good Friday
Colcannon, Hallowe’en
Lighthouses

Plenty of work there to keep a team of folklorists busy for quite some time!

New Perlican's Goat Tea and Other Animal Tales

Did you grow up milking goats? Do you remember hauling wood by goat instead of horse? Do you have memories of keeping gardens or raising animals? Do you have old photos or items associated with the agricultural history of New Perlican? The Heritage Foundation NL, in partnership with Heritage New Perlican, wants to know!

We’ll be hosting the Goat Tea and Other Animals Tales in the Veteran’s Memorial Community Centre, Main Road, New Perlican on Friday, May 19th, 2017 at 7:00pm.

“We are looking for anyone connected to New Perlican with stories about goats or other farm animals, growing vegetables, or building root cellars,” says Heritage Foundation folklorist Dale Jarvis. “If you have memories or photographs of agriculture in New Perlican, we would love to hear from you.”

This innovative project is part of the Foundation’s Oral History Roadshow and will highlight the importance of oral history as well as traditional knowledge about animal husbandry, self-sufficiency, food security, and agricultural practices in the community. It will also connect the past to the present and showcase interviews with the current generation of goat-owners, and will demonstrate how goats are used in New Perlican’s older cemeteries today as lawn mowers to cut down overgrowth.

Come for a cup of tea, and bring photos, goat yokes or other agricultural objects to show off. There will be a digization station to scan or photograph items, so you can take your originals home with you. The information gathered will be used alongside oral history interviews and archival research to create a booklet about the goats of New Perlican.

Check out the Facebook event here!

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

Lectures, launches, and living spaces

In the March 2013 edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador: we announce the launch of "Living Spaces: The Architecture of the Family Fishery in Keels, Newfoundland,” a report based on the 2012 Keels Folklore Field School, edited by Dr. Gerald Pocius; researchers Lisa Wilson and Christina Robarts provide articles celebrating International Women’s Day; we announce a series of March events related to cultural landscapes and root cellars; and we gear up for “Newfiki – A celebration of Eastern-European cultures in Newfoundland” with stories, music, art, and a pierogi-making workshop with instruction by the Department of Folklore’s Dr. Mariya Lesiv.

Contributors: Dale Jarvis, Lisa Wilson, Christina Robarts, Crystal Braye. 

Download the pdf version of the newsletter

Job Posting - ICH Researcher

The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HeritageNL) is a non-profit organization which was established in 1984 to stimulate an understanding of and an appreciation for the heritage of the province.

Heritage NL is hiring an Intangible Cultural Heritage Researcher, who will be working on projects to document untold histories, traditional skills, and the associated narratives of Newfoundland and Labrador’s historic places. 

The applicant must have excellent oral and written communication skills; a strong understanding of the 2003 UNESCO Convention on ICH and Heritage NL’s ICH Strategy; good knowledge of Microsoft Excel/Google Sheets; valid driver’s licence and use of automobile (if possible); availability to travel throughout Newfoundland & Labrador. Previous experience with a heritage organization is an asset, as is an educational background in public folklore, public history, or public archaeology. 

The applicant must have in place the practical and technical skills which will allow them to complete the following projects by the end of the contract:

• Write, edit, and manage the formatting/uploading of a Virtual Museums of Canada project on the history of root cellars in NL;
• Complete a community heritage booklet in cooperation with the Town of North River;
• Complete and disseminate the 2021 Craft at Risk study;
• Compile metadata for digital files for inclusion on Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative;
• Assist with the editing and preparation of a community heritage booklet on the history of Lebanese businesses in NL;
• Produce weekly episodes of the Living Heritage Podcast in partnership with CHMR Radio;
• Provide social media support for HeritageNL programs and events;
• Assist with other HeritageNL projects as directed by the Executive Director. 

This is a full-time 52 week contract, at a rate of $30/hour. Heritage NL values diversity in the work place and is an equal opportunity employer.

Deadline for applications 5pm, Friday May 7th

Applications to: ich@heritagenl.ca