The Port Union Heritage District

Exterior of the Union Electric Building, 2013.

The Port Union Heritage District is both nationally and provincially recognized, and is thought to be the only union built town in the country. Now under the stewardship of the Sir William Coaker Heritage Foundation, this site has many architectural structures that are worthy of attention. During a recent visit, I took over 100 photographs of buildings in the district, and was amazed by the number of heritage buildings that are still standing. I was particularly interested  to see the row housing here, as this type of housing is virtually non-existent in other outport communities. While most of the historic homes are currently uninhabited and in need of restoration, the Coaker Foundation is actively working towards preserving these buildings in hopes of developing an active tourist industry. To help bring awareness to the district, I will be doing some work here, which will include sifting through their incredible archival collection, organizing the digitization of oral histories, and creating a booklet of photos and stories from the region. It is an exciting new project that will hopefully generate a bit of excitement around the built heritage of Port Union, and the legacy of Sir William Coaker. Click here to learn more about Port Union's history and architecture -- this paper from 2006 was compiled by Andrea O'Brien of the HFNL (jointly researched by Debbie O'Rielly of the Newfoundland Historic Trust).

-Lisa Wilson

Union row housing along the main street, 2013.

Interior of the former fish plant that will be repurposed by the Coaker Foundation, 2013.

How to Make a Pillow Top Frame

A few days ago in the ICH Office we tried our hands at making a small pillow top frame. The plan is to use the smaller frames in workshops, particularly with younger kids. It currently takes about 4 hours to complete a pillow top on the large frame. Using the small frame, the pillow top can be completed in about 2.5 hours, making this activity much more accessible. 

Our small frame turned out well and the end result is a cute little pillow top, with very fluffy pom poms, that can be used as a trivet or table topper. Several of these mini pillow tops could be sewn together to make a blanket.  

After receiving a few requests, I decided to put together this step-by-step guide for making your very own pillow top frame.

Materials:

• 8 pieces of wood measuring 8" long, 1-1/4" wide and 3/4" thick
• wood glue
• clamps
• 24 x 2" nails 
• 12 x 1-1/4" wood screws 
• power drill
• hammer
• ruler
• pencil

Step One: 

Take four pieces of wood and arrange to form a square. Add a layer of  wood glue and  place the other four pieces on top.

Step Two: 

Using the drill, insert screws into the end of each piece of wood, as seen in the picture below. Before this step you may need to clamp the pieces together and put aside while the glue sets. 

Front

Back

Step Three:

Using a ruler and pencil, draw a line down the middle of each side of the frame, lengthwise. Then along this line, mark off, in even spaces, where you will hammer in your nails. Space the nails about 1 inch apart. 

Step Four: 

Drill holes in each of these markers to make it easier to hammer in the nails. Hammer 6 nails into each side. Make sure they are even. Leave about half the nail sticking out of the frame. 

Once all the nails are all hammered in you can start weaving!

Here's the finished product! : )

If you have any questions about how to make your frame or are interested in having us put off a pillow top workshop in your community, feel free to get in touch with Nicole at (709) 739-1892 ex. 6 or via email at nicole@heritagefoundation.ca. 

Cable Avenue Exhibit and Oral History Project

As you may know, Bay Roberts has put in an application for Cable Avenue to become a provincially recognized heritage district. As a part of the designation process, I am currently conducting fieldwork here to collect stories about what life has been like for residents of Cable Ave. Though I have only met with a few people so far, I already have several remarkable stories from people who have lived on the street. Please stay tuned to hear some of these stories, many of which will be profiled at the Road to Yesterday Museum this summer. The exhibit we are putting together will help celebrate the 100th year anniversary of the district, and the history of Western Union in the town.

Lorn Kirby, long time resident of Cable Ave, reflects on raising children on this street.

90 year old Eileen Starr reflects on her time living on Cable Ave. beginning in the 1930s.

As always, please feel free to contact me with any information about the history of Cable Ave that you might have. I'd be particularly interested in seeing old photographs of the district or/and the people who were connected to it. Also, any personal objects that have a connection to the buildings here would also be wonderful to borrow for our exhibit. I'm very excited about this project, and look forward to many more visits with people who have memories of the cable company in Bay Roberts. lisa@heritagefoundation.ca, (709) 739-1892 ext.3.

-Lisa

Tuesday's Folklore Photo

"The Miner", depicting miner Billy Parsons, is one of a series of murals commemorating Bell Island's heritage. The iron ore mines were once the largest in the British Empire, extending more than 5 kilometres under Conception Bay. The abandoned #2 Mine was designated as a heritage structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2006. 

Lumber Woods Carvings from Botwood

I recently came across these hand carved, wooden, lumbering figures at the C.L.B Sunday Market. I was told by the seller they were carved many years ago by a man from Botwood who had worked in the lumber woods. If you happen to know anything about these figures or have any carved lumbering figures of your own, I'd love to hear from you.

                               

You can reach Nicole via email at nicole@heritagefoundation.ca  or call (709) 739-1892 ex.6.

Tuesday's Folklore Photo - Dan Snow's Stone Wall

Dan Snow, a traditional stone wall maker and artisan from Vermont, has been visiting English Harbour on the Bonavista Peninsula for several years. He is a regular instructor with the English Harbour Arts Centre, and teaches dry stone wall techniques.

This is one of the walls he worked on in English Harbour in 2010. You can check out his website at www.dansnowstoneworks.com.

East-European Easter Eggs

Easter is this weekend and I thought that I would share some photos of East-European Easter Eggs created by two people I had the pleasure of talking to: Martina Krskova and Jindra Maskova. As well as some examples of Pysanka (Ukrainian Easter Eggs).

 

Handpainted Easter Egg by Martina Krskova (from Slovakia)

 

 

 

 

 

Handpainted Easter Egg by Martina Krskova

 

Easter Egg decorated using onion peel by Martina Krskova

 

 

Easter Egg decorated using Easter themed tissue paper by Martina Krskova

 

 

3D Pernicky (Ginge bread) Easter Egg made by Jindra Maskova (from the Czech Republic). The 3D eggs are hollow on the inside so that you can put small items in the egg like a ring or a message.

 

 

 

Pernicky (Gingerbread) Easter Eggs by Jindra Maskova

 

 

Handpainted Easter Eggs by Jindra Maskova

 

 

Handpainted Easter Egg by Jindra Maskova

 

 

 

Pysanka (Ukranian Easter Eggs) Source: Pysanka 

 

 

 

 

 

Photos taken by Christina Robarts and Nicole Penney



Tuesday's Folklore Photo

Despite its fairly small size, Bell Island has at least 12 different cemeteries. Some of these are considered new, while others are historic, dating back to the 18th and 19th centuries. The cemetery pictured here is by far the smallest--it has a single headstone, carefully fenced off, on the side of a hill. It can be seen from the road when you are  driving onto the island from the ferry. One can't help but speculate as to why it is up there all alone. This single grave site surely has a story. Who is buried here? Why is this grave in this location? While I've heard a few stories about the person buried here, I'd be interested to hear your version. So, if you know anything about this little hillside graveyard, please email: lisa@heritagefoundation.ca. I look forward to hearing from you, and I'll be sure to write another post sharing people's answers to this query.

-Lisa

UPDATE: 
This information was provided by Ed Kirby who has roots on Bell Island. This is an interesting account, and it also points towards a mystery around the actual burial site connected to this headstone (pictured above).

"It’s that of Greg Normore, who supposedly was the first permanent resident of Bell Island, settling there around 1740. The headstone was moved to its current location in the late 1950s or early 1960s. I think it had previously been somewhere else on the hill, possibly in the old Anglican graveyard on the east hand side of the Beach Hill Road, or near the tram track to the west of the road. The tram, which was located between the road and the cemetery, moved people up and down the steep hill to the Beach ferry before Beach Hill Road was built. My mother’s family – both sides of it – were from Bell Island, and there was some skepticism that the site from where the headstone was moved was actually his burial site. The adults in the family said Normore’s actual burial site was unknown, and that the headstone was erected in an arbitrary spot overlooking the bay. The current site of the headstone is near the Catholic cemetery where the ground is about half rock and half clay, fit only for grazing and burying."

Swastikas and Star of David in vintage Newfoundland ad

One of the great resources for historical and cultural research we have here in Newfoundland and Labrador is Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative (DAI). For several years now, the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) Office has been adding to the ICH Inventory on the DAI, building collections on things as varied as Newfoundlanders working high steel, to concerts and times, to bonfire night.

In addition to the ethnographic material we've been adding to the DAI, the initiative also houses a large amount of digitized newspapers, which is a fantastic resource to anyone doing Newfoundland-based research.

While looking for something completely unrelated, I happened across this intriguing advertisement for L.M Trask and Company on Water Street in St. John's, the "Oldest and Largest Dealers in Engines Mill Supplies and Boat Equipment."

The advertisement ran in the St. John's Daily Star of 3 March, 1920. And while it is interesting for what it is selling in terms of mill equipment of the day, what is more eye-catching to the modern reader is the printer's use of swastikas (and one lonely star of David) as a border.

For those of us who grew up post-World War II, the swastika is an immediate reminder of Nazi Germany. But before that, the swastika had a long and honourable tradition, and was a symbol of the sun, life, luck, eternity and various other concepts for a wide variety of cultures throughout Asia, Europe and indigenous North America. In the early twentieth century, when the Daily Star ran its ad, the swastika was a not uncommon symbol in North America, and was used in a wide variety of logos, advertisements and printing applications.

In March 1920, I doubt that L.M. Trask and Co. knew that, across the Atlantic, a fledgling National Socialist German Workers' Party would adopt the Hakenkreuz (hook-cross) as its official symbol the same year.

Two Great Talks

 This past week Julian Smith of the Willowbank School  visited Newfoundland to talk about contemporary issues and developments around cultural landscapes theory. Both of these talks had a fantastic turn-out -- over 40 people attended the Harris Centre's Synergy Session with another 40 people watching on-line through a webinar. In Bay Roberts at the Visitors Centre we had a wonderful group of over 30 people from at least 4 different communities. I think that this shows that the people of St. John's and surrounding communities really care about their physical and cultural environments, and want to learn as much as possible about how we can move forward with sensitive development in a booming Newfoundland. 

Leslie Harris Centre's Synergy Session, March 20th, 2013.

Julian Smith presenting at MUN for the Synergy Session.

The crowd in Bay Roberts listening to Julian Smith's presentation.

Many thanks to Julian Smith for coming out to speak to us about his work, and to all of the people who came out to our events. It was a great success for everyone involved. I'd particularly like to thank the Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development for organizing the wonderful session at MUN. I'd also like to thank Marilyn Dawe for all of her assistance in organizing and promoting Julian's talk at the Bay Roberts Visitors Centre. 

-Lisa Wilson

Newfiki at The Rooms

 

Last night The Rooms in collaboration with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, presented an evening of stories exploring the experiences of new Canadians. Dr. Mariya Lesiv (Memorial University) asked her guests questions on their personal experiences moving from their old homes in Eastern Europe to life in Newfoundland and Labrador. This event was part of World Storytelling Day, a global celebration of the art of oral storytelling, and the first of three events celebrating East-European cultures in Newfoundland happening this week.

 

Thaddeus Dreher, 94 years old, was deported from Poland after World War II and lived in South America before arriving in Newfoundland in 1959.

 

 

Inna Levchuk, a freelance reporter who moved from the Ukraine to come Newfoundland to do a degree in journalism in Stephenville later moving to St. John's.

Ioana Dobre, a grade 12 student who left Romania at the age of 6 with her family, lived in New Jersey until she reached junior high and then moved to Newfoundland.

Margarita Kane, a taxi driver who moved over to Newfounland from Bulgaria.

 

 

 

Don't forget that there are more Newfiki events happening this week. Tomorrow night there will be a Cultural Concert night event at Cochrane Street United Church starting at 7pm and is free admission. Please use the entrance on Bannerman Street.

 

Newfiki Cultural Concert Night

Friday March 22 7:00-11:00pm

Cochrane Street United Church

Free event

 

A celebration of music, song, story, poetry, and food, allowing people to experience different aspects of culture. Participants will be from Russia, Romania, Bulgaria, Moldova, Belarus, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Slovakia and Poland, demonstrating different aspects of their home culture.

 

 

If you have any questions please feel free to email me at christina@heritagefoundation.ca or call 1-888-739-1892 ext. 7

Tuesday's Folklore Photo (on a Wednesday!)

On a recent trip to South River, I had the pleasure of meeting Beauty. Beauty is a 31 year old Newfoundland Pony who is now retired and living the easy life with her pony friend, Kula. 

After meeting Beauty, I came across this image hung up in a barn belonging to another pony owner. Pulling the cart in this image is Beauty in her heyday. 

Indonesian instrument naming ceremony this Thursday

By Mandy Cook
Memorial’s School of Music will unveil the latest addition to its suite of instruments at a special event at the St. John’s Arts and Culture Centre.

Music lovers will be treated to the debut concert of the school’s new gamelan and a special naming ceremony for the set of Indonesian instruments on Thursday, March 21, from 4-5 p.m. on the centre’s upper concourse. The gamelan will be housed in the school’s Research Centre for the Study of Music, Media and Place, located in the Arts and Culture Centre.

It is Indonesian tradition to give a new gamelan its own special name through a ceremony called a selametan (“thanksgiving”). The ceremony involves sacred songs and special offerings of food (especially nasi Tumpeng – rice with saffron, drinks, fruits, and incense. Master gamelan artist Ade Suparman, who hails from West Java, will lead the ceremony and perform with gamelan expert and Evergreen State College instructor Dr. Sean Williams. Mr. Suparman is a specialist on kecapi (a stringed zither), and Dr. Williams is a suling (flute) player and vocalist.

The event will also be the debut of the MUN Gamelan Ensemble under director Bill Brennan, who is also a member of the Toronto-based Evergreen Club Gamelan. The student ensemble has been working together since January and has benefited from recent workshops with Mr. Suparman.

“The School of Music has been the recipient of a generous donation from the estate of Rita Love that has enabled us to complete our prestige string quartet, to establish a student scholarship and to commission an Indonesian gamelan degung,” said Dr. Ellen Waterman, dean, School of Music. “We are grateful to Derrick Hutchens, the executor of the Love estate, for his work in realizing these projects.”

A gamelan is a set of keyed metallaphones, similar to xylophones, and gongs found in Indonesian classical music. The various instruments are all made to order by a master artisan and are meant to be used together only in that particular gamelan. The School of Music’s gamelan was crafted by 75-year-old Tentrem Sarwanto, a renowned Javanese gongsmith who has supplied gamelans to several major universities in Europe and North America.

There are several different varieties of gamelan -- Javanese, Balinese, Sundanese – depending on what part of Indonesia they come from. Sundanese gamelan, or gamelan degung, the gamelan the School of Music has chosen, also includes double-headed drums, a bamboo flute (suling) and a zither (kecapi).

“Gamelan music is magical and exotic sounding,” said Dr. Waterman. “Interlocking layers of delicate bell-like sounds are interwoven with complex drum rhythms. Typically, these beautiful bronze instruments are housed in carved teak frames. Ours features gilded dragons! Up to 16 players sit cross-legged on low cushions to play the gamelan.”

Gamelan is particularly useful as the in-house world music ensemble at the School of Music, says Dr. Waterman, because it is a rhythm-based group activity that doesn’t rely on particular instrumental skills in order to play – any good musician can become proficient. She says it is “beautiful looking and sounding,” and is a common instrument that an ethnomusicologist might be expected to teach in a university program, and therefore a highly valuable experience to have.

Dr. Waterman says the ensemble will provide a highly visible “anchor” ensemble in world music for the ethnomusicology aspect of the School of Music’s undergraduate and graduate programming. As well, Acadia University in Wolfville, N.S., has a Sundanese gamelan, which will provide collaboration opportunities between Acadia and Memorial.

Photo: gamelan with its maker, Tentrem Sarwanto

Cultural Landscapes talk in Bay Roberts, March 21st

The Bay Roberts Visitors Pavilion

Don't forget to join the HFNL on Thursday, March 21st for our guest speaker Julian Smith. He will be giving a free talk on creating cultural landscapes in our communities. Everyone is welcome!

Time: 1pm-2pm
Date: March 21st, 2013
Location: Bay Roberts Visitors Pavilion, on the Veteran's Memorial Highway.

Brushing up on your Sheila folklore

Perhaps the most memorable of those occasions was on the night of 'Sheila's Brush,' which is to say the 18th of March. Newfoundland has two 'brushes,' Patrick's and Sheila's; that is to say, storms supposed to be connected with the birthday of St Patrick and that of his wife... The word 'brush' is not always used, however; you will hear Newfoundlanders say: 'We have our Sheila dis time o' year.'

- George Allan England, 1877—1936, Vikings of the Ice (Garden City: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1924) as quoted in the Dictionary of Newfoundland English. 

I'm waking up this morning to snow, reports of school closures in other parts of the province, and Twitter and Facebook status updates mentioning Sheila's Brush. In Newfoundland English, a brush is a "sudden gust of wind, a spell of wet weather; a [snow] storm." You can read up on more Newfoundland snow words on the DNE blog, Twig.

Most Newfoundlanders, I suspect, know that Sheila's Brush refers to a snowstorm after St. Patrick's Day. Some say it is meant to represent Sheila sweeping up after St. Patrick. Who Sheila is supposed to be, exactly, is something of a mystery, be she wife, sister, maid or mistress. 

For info on that other Sheila, check out Dr. Philip Hiscock's A Perfect Princess: The Twentieth-Century Legend of Sheila na Geira and Gilbert Pike.

Note on image above: Photo by rebfoto. If you know the name of the original mural artist, post a comment!

"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

Creating Cultural Landscapes: Including Culture in Development

On Wednesday, March 20th, from 12:00 to 1:30, Julian Smith will be leading a discussion on cultural landscapes as a "Synergy Session" put on by the HFNL and MUN's Harris Centre. While the session is now full, Julian Smith's talk will still be accessible as a free webinar. To learn more about this presentation, and to register for the webinar, please visit the invitation provided by the Harris Centre.

 
Julian Smith is an educator, architect, and planner. He founded the graduate program in heritage conservation at Carleton in 1988, and later helped create the joint Carleton-Trent Ph.D. program in Canadian Studies. He is currently Executive Director of the Willowbank School and Centre for Cultural Landscape in Queenston, Ontario. He is also a practicing architect and planner--his recent projects include restoration of the Vimy Memorial in France.  He is co-author of the 2011 UNESCO Recommendation on Historic Urban Landscapes.