Two Corner Brook events celebrate the history of basketmaking

In Newfoundland and Labrador traditionally-made baskets came in many shapes, sizes and styles and can be crafted from a variety of materials. On the west coast, traditions included Acadian and Mi’kmaw style root baskets, and the popular mill lunch baskets.

“Baskets once served a very utilitarian role in the province, used for carrying items such as fish, potatoes, eggs and berries,” says Dale Jarvis, a folklorist with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL). “Mill lunch baskets were once so popular nearly every pulp and paper mill worker in Newfoundland used one to bring hot meals to work.”

To celebrate that history, the Heritage Foundation is organising a series of events around the tradition of basket making in Newfoundland.

On Saturday, March 17th, at Grenfell College in Corner Brook, HFNL will be hosting a special talk and presentation on Mi'kmaw and Acadian spruce root and ash baskets, with local and visiting experts, including Mi’kmaw elders Margaret Pelletier and Della Maguire, traditional ash basket makers from Nova Scotia. The talk will take place from 7-9pm in the Arts and Science building, Room 379, Grenfell College.

On Sunday, March 18th from 1-3pm at the Glynmill Inn, Corner Brook and Sunday, HFNL will be hosting an event called “Tea ‘n’ Baskets”. This event is an opportunity for those who still have mill lunch baskets to come out and show your basket and share your memories. Bring your basket, we’ll provide the refreshments! HFNL staff will be on hand to photograph mill baskets, to become part of an educational website.

HFNL’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program was created to celebrate, record, and promote our living heritage and help to build bridges between diverse cultural groups within and outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

"Nurse, you gotta come!" - An oral history for International Women's Day

This photograph from the collection of the Medical Services Branch of the Department of National Health and Welfare shows a nursing sister and a lay nurse caring for patients at St. Clare’s Mercy Hospital in St. John’s, Newfoundland, around 1955.  © Health Canada. Library and Archives Canada, Department of National Health and Welfare Fonds, e002504629

In cooperation with the School of Nursing, and Memorial's Digital Archives Initiative, we've been placing a series of oral history interviews with Newfoundland nurses online.

Today being International Women's Day, we're showcasing one of those interviews, featuring former nurse Gwen LeGrow discussing nursing practices in Newfoundland. In it, she talks about being called away on her wedding night to attend to a birth, and other adventures associated with being a district nurse in rural Newfoundland, as well as a great story about surviving a V2 bombing in England during World War II.

If you've got half an hour, take a listen. Nurse LeGrow is an excellent storyteller, and her stories are full of passion, humour and an obvious love for the people who she served as a rural nurse in La Scie, as a midwife, and as a staff nurse at the Janeway Hospital.

• Interview here on the DAI
• The Development of Nursing in NL

Introduction to Folklore and Oral History Interviews Workshop in Corner Brook

Friday, March 16th, 2012
Glynmill Inn, Corner Brook

This introductory workshop is open to anyone with an interest in local history, culture and folklore. It is intended to give a background on how to conduct research interviews in the field, and will give people a chance to try their hand at creating interview questions and conducting an interview. It will provide an overview of the methodology and explore the practical matters of creating, designing, and executing effective oral history research projects. Topics that the workshop will address include project planning, ethical issues, and recording equipment.

The workshop will be taught by folklorist Dale Jarvis. Dale Jarvis works as the Intangible Cultural Heritage Development Officer for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, helping communities to safeguard traditional culture. He has been working for the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador since 1996, and holds a BSc in Anthropology/Archaeology from Trent University, and a MA in Folklore from Memorial University. He is a past president of the Newfoundland Historic Trust, and has contributed as a board member and volunteer to many local arts and heritage organizations, and is a tireless promoter of the oral tradition.

Date: Friday, March 16th
Time: 1pm - 5pm
Workshop fee: $40 (preregistration required)
Location: Glynmill Inn, Corner Brook
To register call Nicole at 1-888-739-1892 ext 3, or email: ichprograms@gmail.com

What kinds of folklore and intangible cultural heritage workshops are you interested in?

I'm in the process of planning out workshops and events for the coming year. In the past, we've done workshops on oral history interviewing, using Google Maps, digital recording equipment, community memory mapping, folklife & festival planning, and many other kinds of folklore, ICH and oral history workshops.

What kinds of workshops would you like to see us offer? Send me an email at ich@heritagefoundation.ca or leave a comment below.

Tea, baskets, and the community conservation of intangible cultural heritage

In this month's edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador, we invite people to our "Tea and Baskets" events in Corner Brook and Grand Falls-Windsor; ICH intern Nicole Penney shares some of her research on mill lunch baskets; and we nominate inukshuk building as an item of provincial historical significance. Download the newsletter in pdf form.

I have been corresponding a bit lately with Misako Ohnuki, Deputy Director of the International Research Centre for ICH in the Asia-Pacific Region (IRCI) based in Osaka, Japan. Curious about the work we are doing in Newfoundland and Labrador, she asked me about some of the difficulties and hurdles that we have have faced so far in documenting intangible cultural heritage (ICH) in communities in this province. Read my short report on "Challenges in the community conservation of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Newfoundland and Labrador."

And finally, Memorial University has published an article about our current Public Folklore Intern Nicole Penney's work placement with Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and her work cataloguing baskets and baskets makers in Newfoundland.

Happy reading!

Help Wanted

The ICH office is looking for an individual to do some postering in Grand Falls-Windsor for our upcoming "Tea 'n' Baskets" event in March. If you live in the Grand Falls-Windsor area and would like to pick up a few hours work, please contact Nicole at 1-888-739-1892 ext 3 or via email at  ichprograms@gmail.com.

Origin Stories

The exact origin of this two-handled, splint style lunch basket design is unknown but research has pointed to a couple of possibilities. In her article, “The Multiple Roles of the Millworker's Lunch Basket in Central Newfoundland”, Jane Burns suggests the baskets were originally factory made imports that resourceful Newfoundlanders deconstructed and learned to make themselves. Research also suggests that the lunch baskets were sold right out of the pulp and paper mills, possibly starting in Corner Brook and carrying over to the others. The mill in Corner Brook opened in 1923 and the oldest lunch basket documented so far is dated 1928, belonging to Doris O’Dell of Corner Brook. O’Dell inherited the basket from her father who used it when he worked in the mill. The basket is factory made, purchased from the Peterboro Basket Company in New Hampshire. This company dates back to 1854 and it's possible the mill in Corner Brook purchased these baskets to sell to employees.

Others, like Wayne Green, also of Corner Brook, feel the baskets may have been originally designed by female basket makers of the Nova Scotia Mi’kmaq tradition. He recalls a woman and her two daughters who would stay with his family when he was a child. Green recounted that the women would come from Nova Scotia, riding the Newfoundland Railway, stopping where the trains did in order to sell baskets of all sorts. His father would take orders from this basket-maker before her arrival and Green remembers the mill lunch basket was always a very popular item. 

 One thing we know for sure is that there were Newfoundlanders who eventually began making the baskets themselves. One of the most prolific and well-known mill lunch basket makers was Angus Gunn Sr. of Grand Falls-Windsor. He began making baskets in the early 1950s and is said to have made hundreds of lunch baskets for local mill workers.

Show us what you've got!

Poster design by Graham Blair, check him out at grahamblairdesigns.com

Come on out to "Tea 'n' Baskets" and show off you mill basket and share your memories. We provide the treats!

A biscuit a basket

This coming March we're coordinating "Tea n' Baskets", an event to bring together those who have a mill lunch basket of their own. Whether you worked in the mill yourself or the basket was handed down from a family member, we welcome you to come out and show your basket and share your stories.

 

A mill lunch basket belonging to Kevin Gunn, which was made and used by his father, Angus Gunn

A mill lunch basket belonging to Julie Rideout, handed down from her father, Gerald Crawley. This basket was made by Julie's grandfather, Angus Gunn

 A mill lunch basket, belonging to Bob and Tina Houston. Tina acquired it from a former employee of the Abitibi Mill in Stephenville. Tina cleaned, repaired and painted the basket, added the fabric lining and repurposed it as a potato basket

Join us on Sunday, March 18th from 1-3pm at the Glynmill Inn in Corner Brook and on Sunday, March 25th from 1-3pm at the Mount Peyton Hotel in Grand Falls-Windsor. 


We provide the tea and biscuits!