Supernatural Stories from the Young Folklorist Program

Earlier this spring, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador hosted its first Young Folklorists Program. Students spent two days learning about local folklore, doing interviews along Water Street, and researching and learning local stories.

The students chose to work on superstitions and ghost stories, and each student recorded their story on the second day of the workshop.  All of them will be added to our oral traditions collection as part of the ICH Inventory. Here are the first three!  I'll put out a notice when the rest are uploaded to the Inventory.


Amanda Brace, St Peter's Junior High - A ghost story from Victoria Street


Ashley Brace, St. Peter's Junior High - Phantom fires in St. John's

Emma Burry, Leary's Brook Jr. High - The Sunshine Park Killer - An Urban Legend

Digital Root Cellar storing memories as part of Memorial's Digital Archives Initiative

This abandoned root cellar, located on Thorpe's Road, St. Phillip's, is one of the root cellars that will be documented as part of this summer's Seeds to Supper Festival.  This year, the province's third annual folklife festival will celebrate agricultural traditions past and present.

The root cellar research project is being conducted by Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) folklore coop student Crystal Braye, and Agricultural History Society intern Julie Pomeroy.  The pair will be photographing, measuring, and drawing cellars wherever they can root them out, as well as conducting interviews with root cellar owners and farming families.

All collected photographs, drawings and audio interviews will be stored, nice and cool, in our digital root cellar, as part of Memorial's Digital Archives Initiative and HFNL's ongoing Intangible Cultural Heritage inventory.  The research is funded in part with grants through the Department of Tourism's Cultural Economic Development Program, and the Helen Creighton Folklore Society.

If you have a root cellar and are interested in participating, or for more information, please contact Crystal Braye via email folklore.coop@gmail.com or telephone at 709-739-1892 ext. 5

Zombie Invasion! Flee!

Following yesterday's post on Bigfoot along the Trans Canada Highway, CBC reporter Cecil Haire  today terrified CBC listeners with news of the zombie apocalypse.

Apparently, someone has reprogrammed a traffic sign near Windsor Lake to warn motorists of a zombie invasion and impending doom. The sign also flashes that people should save themselves and reminds people of the movie folklore that you should never be overconfident about a zombie's demise.

Happy motoring!




UPDATE: CBC web article

Newfoundland Bigfoot: Help me in the hunt!

As you drive along the Trans Canada Highway, motorists on the lookout for a large, hairy animal may find themselves staring at something decidedly more cryptozoological than your average Newfoundland moose.

As I was driving back to St. John's from Bay Roberts on the Trans Canada Highway earlier this week, I spotted something just east of the Salmonier Line turnoff.

"That tree stump looks just like Bigfoot," I thought.  Then, as I came closer, "My God! It IS Bigfoot!"

Some genius prankster has put up a plywood cutout of a sasquatch-looking creature just at the edge of a pond, 60 meters or so off the highway.

Folklore junkie that I am, I immediately recognized the outline of the monster captured in the controversial Patterson film of 1967.

I returned today, and crept close to the monster cut-out, snapping a series of photos, now on Flickr.

I'd love to know who created this, and why! If you have ANY ideas as to who made it, email me at info@hauntedhike.com or text me at 709-685-3444.  If the creator wants to remain anonymous, I'd be happy to oblige, but I'd love to interview them about their monster, and the story behind it.

PS  - Here is an article I wrote about Bigfoot in Newfoundland in 2007.

Life Beyond the Overpass

The Overpass before (upper photo by Cecil Haire) and after (lower photo by David Cochrane)

Donovan's Overpass has been demolished as part of a redesign of the highway system in and around the St. John's area.  A demand for highways that are both wider and faster for commuters has been given as the reason for the structure's demolition.

The structure entered into the provincial vernacular, with the expression "beyond the overpass" coming to mean anything in the province that was outside of St. John's.

Like the similar expression "beyond the pale," the phrase "beyond the overpass" always seemed to imply a certain cultural superiority. The structure, and the phrase, generated a certain emotional response, and while the concrete bridge was perhaps nothing exceptional architecturally, it is (was) imbued with a level of cultural meaning perhaps unique in the province.

The Telegram called the structure "infamous," while VOCM referred to it as a "cultural icon." CBC News said the bridge "symbolized the divide between St. John's and the rest of the province." As CBC's David Cochrane said today on his twitter feed, it was "our Berlin Wall."

Love it or hate it, the overpass is no more. It will be replaced by a six-lane road on the Topsail Road stretch, and a four-lane "structure" serving Kenmount Road.  I suspect the phrase itself will linger on, long after the $5.6 million to replace the overpass has been spent.

Just added: Good Bye Overpass Video

UNESCO on iTunes U

By joining iTunes U, a dedicated area of the iTunes Store that offers free audio and video content from leading educational institutions, UNESCO is reinforcing its efforts to reach out to young men and women around the world, providing multilingual audio, visual and printed materials in education, sciences, culture and communication.

Collections containing several hundred movies, podcasts, and documents are available in three languages (English, French and Spanish), ranging from training support materials, to policy reports and journals, and lectures, interviews and documentaries which can be downloaded for free to a computer, iPad, iPhone or iPod touch. The collections will be regularly updated with new content from UNESCO’s programmes as well as from its 65 years of archives. Featured collections at launch will focus on UNESCO activities around Girl’s Education, Biosphere Reserves, Africa, and Heritage.

"UNESCO has an incredible wealth to share, and joining iTunes U is a fabulous way to do this,” UNESCO Director General Irina Bokova declared. “UNESCO has a long and deep commitment to Open Educational Resources and to making knowledge widely accessible to all . We see this as a foundation upon which to build the ‘knowledge societies’ that we need today – where information is transformed into knowledge and contributes to the welfare of the whole of society, where none are excluded and all voices are heard,” she said.

http://www.unesco.org/new/itunes/

Windows on the West End - Heritage Tourism in St. John's, Newfoundland

The City of St. John's is holding a special celebration during St. John's Days to celebrate the heritage of the Downtown West End! It's going to be a great event with lots of exciting entertainment all day long, including Irish step dance and belly dance performances and tutorials, juggling, aerial silks, a fire show, tours of all historic locations participating, informative walking tours, face painting, caricatures, and much, much more!

Windows on the West End: June 25, 2011- 10am to 5pm. An introduction to the St. John's downtown historic west end. Take part in our walking tours (11am and 2pm) and collect stickers on our scavenger hunt to win prizes! Venues include: Railway Coastal Museum, City of St. John's Archives, Victoria Park, Wesley United Church, St. Patrick's Parish, Tommy Ricketts Monument, Apothecary Hall, Newman Wine Vaults and George Street United Church. Come out and enjoy lots of entertainment, food ($5 lunch) and prizes. All Attractions are open FREE of charge and will be ongoing from 10am to 5pm.

Full event listings can be found at the St. John's Days Celebrations.

Newfoundland and Labrador Root Cellar Bibliography now online

As part of this summer's Seeds to Supper festival, folklore co-op intern Crystal Braye has pulled together a bibliography about root cellars in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The resource includes a list of articles and reference materials concerning root cellars in the province, as well as links to do-it-yourself, how-to articles, for those who might want to make their own root cellar.

http://www.mun.ca/ich/inventory/rootcellarbibliography.php

If you know of a published article on Newfoundland and Labrador root cellars that we've missed, let us know and we'll add it to the list.

Seeds to Supper Festival logo launched

Here it is, the logo for the 3rd Annual Folklife Festival of Newfoundland and Labrador - Seeds to Supper! Design by Graham Blair.