Doors Open St. John's returns for 2013

Guest blog post by Christina Robarts

September 7-8 from 10am-4pm

It’s that time of year once again for the annual Doors Open event. Every year various sites around the city of St. John’s open their doors to visitors free of charge. For those who don’t know Doors Open is a unique opportunity for citizens and visitors to the province to celebrate our heritage through the exploration of some of our hidden historical, architectural and cultural gems. Doors open events are community-wide, open-hours events which provide the public access to architecturally, historically or culturally significant or interesting properties, free of charge, within a given time frame. The places and spaces included may be those which normally charge fees, or are not usually open to or promoted to the public.

This year we have 16 returning favourites and 3 new sites:

16 returning favourites

• The Newman Wine Vaults
• Robin Hood Bay Waste Management Facility
• James J. O’Mara Pharmacy Museum, Apothecary Hall
• Basilica of St. John the Baptist and Basilica Museum
• The Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist
• Clovelly Stables Community
• Art Gallery at the Refugee and Immigrant Advisory Council
• Central Fire Station
• Crow’s Nest Officers’ Club
• Quidi Vidi Plantation and Craft Incubator
• Quidi Vidi Brewery
• The Railway Coastal Museum
• The YMCA of Northeast Avalon
• St. John’s Farmers’ Market
• Winterholme Heritage Inn and Spa
• Suncor Energy Fluvarium

3 Sites participating for the first time

• The Peter Lewis Gallery
• Logy Bay-Middle Cove-Outer Cove Museum
• FarOut Fitness

Admission is FREE to all sites. For more details about times and days of participating sites please visit www.doorsopendays.com , Like Doors Open Days on Facebook or @DoorsOpenDaysNL on Twitter or on Instagram @DoorsOpenNL.

You can also email Christina Robarts, Doors Open Days 2013 Coordinator at doorsopendays@gmail.com

This event is sponsored by: CBC, The Telegram, Newfoundland Historic Trust, City of St. John’s, Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canadian Heritage, and Heritage Canada Foundation.

Tuesday's Folklore Photo

Have you ever wondered what the oldest structure is St. John's is? Anderson House, built circa 1804-1805, is most likely the oldest in the city. The structure was built for James Anderson who was a sergeant in the militia at the time. Anderson House was designated as a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador on March 23, 1996. 

-Nicole

Place Names, History and the Labrador Innu: A Lecture by Peter Armitage

The Newfoundland Historical Society will be holding its monthly free public lecture and Annual General Meeting on
Thursday, April 28th 2011
at 8 pm
at Hampton Hall Lecture Theatre, located at the Marine Institute on Ridge Road

This month’s lecturer will be Peter Armitage, and his talk is titled:

“From Uapamekushtu to Tshakashkue matshiteuieau: Place Names, History and the Labrador Innu”

On the Island of Newfoundland, we are surrounded by place names in daily life and would have a great deal of trouble living without them, yet we take them for granted. Moreover, few of us have any understanding of the origins of the names we use even though many of them have very important historical associations and are anchors for a great deal of memory about our experiences on the land.

The same thing applies to Innu place names in Labrador. They anchor Innu people to the land and help them remember events that took place there. Many Innu place names are already known to us because anglicized versions of them appear on the maps of Labrador, for example, Minipi Lake (from Minai-nipi, meaning 'Burbot Lake') and Snegamook Lake (from Ashtunekamiku meaning 'Canoe Building Shelter').

Armitage's talk will start with a mysterious Innu place name called Tshakashue matshiteuieau. It means 'Tshakashue's Point' which is located on the south shore of Lake Melville. Tshakashue is the name of two people, one Innu the other Settler. But who is the point named after - the Innu or the Settler person? Tshakashue matshiteuieau will lead us into a labyrinth of meaning and historical association that extends east-west from the coast of Labrador to James Bay, and north-south from Ungava Bay to the Quebec North Shore. By the end of lecture, we will understand better the uniqueness of Innu culture, the connectedness of the Innu people across the Labrador-Quebec peninsula, and the role that place names play in facilitating talk and memory about the land.

Peter Armitage is a consulting anthropologist based in St. John's, Newfoundland. He works with Algonquian-speaking First Nations in Labrador, Quebec and Ontario, and has been working with the Innu since 1982. He curated the Innu place names website called "Pepamuteiati Nitassinat: As We Walk Across Our Land" (www.innuplaces.ca).

Here's how to pronounce Tshakashue matshiteuieau:

1. Uapamekushtu

wop-mek-goo-stoo

2. Tshakashue

chuck-ash-way

3. matshiteuieau

much-a-teo-wee-ow (that' ow as in ouch)

the 'a' between much and teo is a schwa as in the 'u' in u

Makkovik Elder "Uncle Jim" wins Rogers Arts Achievement Award

On Saturday May 2, 2009, the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council (NLAC) held its 24th annual Arts Awards Show and Gala at the Reid Theatre in St. John’s. The annual Arts Awards honour the accomplishments of Newfoundland and Labrador’s artists.

NLAC Chair Camelita McGrath said, “This year’s winners represent artists who are achieving excellence in their fields both at home and away."

The winner of the Rogers Arts Achievement Award was Uncle Jim Anderson of Makkovik.

James Anderson of Makkovik has been taking pictures for over six decades. Last May an exhibition of his work, James Anderson: Over 50 Years of Taking Pictures, was presented at The Rooms Provincial Archives. It consisted of 80 large colour photographs along with numerous sound recordings of Anderson.

His photographs are a legacy of a lifestyle now gone; they capture candid moments, everyday work activities, and the special events of Makkovik. Church services, jamborees and get-togethers; buildings, industry, and the passing seasons; men and women fishing in boats, working on wharves, and riding snowmobiles.

The complete collection contains some 297 black and white photographs; 1700 slides; 75 hours of VHS cassettes, and 84 hours of 8mm and Hi8mm tape analogue recordings.

Known to many as “Uncle Jim”, he has long been a central part of life in Makkovik: as the dog-team mailman, a fisherman, the post master, an elder at the church, and a musician. For 40 years he helped his late wife Susie run a boarding house.

He was introduced to photography as a teenager, when an English missionary taught him how to develop black and white photos. He bought a Kodak Jiffy 35 mm camera from the Eaton’s catalogue and started to capture the moments he thought important. Self taught and intuitive, his use of angle, perspective, contrast, focus, composition, and framing have evolved by trial and error, experimentation, sensitivity, and perseverance.

He says he never gets tired of looking at his pictures. “They comfort me,” he says, “It’s a contribution I hope will give joy to my viewers.”

His relentless artistic drive and the resulting collection of photographs are unmatched. It’s an outstanding contribution to the cultural life of this province.

Photo of Uncle Jim getting his award here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/djangomalone/3497981710/

CBC Radio Podcast of Weekend Arts Magazine's Angela Antle introducing Uncle Jim, and his thank you speech:
http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/labmorning_20090504_15094.mp3