A trip to Mosquito Schoolhouse, Bristol's Hope, Newfoundland

On a fabulously sunny 16th of July, I travelled to Bristol’s Hope to meet with members of the heritage committee who are currently working on the restoration of the historic Mosquito Schoolhouse.

One of the last of its kind in Newfoundland, the building is a rare example of what wooden schools in outport communities looked like in the 1800s. A local minister by the name of Kingwell built the school, possibly between 1818 and 1828, to serve the needs of the 360 people inhabiting Mosquito, as Bristol’s Hope was then called. In June 1988 the building was recognized as a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador

We started at the school, where I met with Richard Johnson, Don Skinner and Cal Penney, who are all involved in different facets of the project. Richard gave me a tour of the building, and brought me up to date on the ongoing restoration work. Over the rest of the building season, work will continue on corner boards, clapboard, installing proper heritage windows, and replacing the wood shingle roof. One of the interesting interior features that the committee plans on restoring is an old cast iron kerosene lantern chandelier, which can be raised and lowered to light or extinguish.

After the tour, we all went back to Richard’s house, where we discussed plans to embark on an oral history project centred around the school. While the building has not been used as a school for some time, there are still people in the community, and those who have moved away, who remember going to school in the building, and who have stories and memories of teachers, classmates and pastimes.

As I said to the gentlemen of Bristol's Hope, it is a great project, as it is one where we can clearly show the link between the two facets of the work we do here at the Heritage Foundation: the conservation of historic structures, and the safeguarding and documentation of traditional knowledge. I'm looking forward to helping with the project as it unfolds.

As a first step, the committee is working to compile a list of possible people to interview. If you have a memory of the old Mosquito School, I’m sure the organizers would be interested in hearing about it! You can email me with your contact information at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

- Dale Jarvis

Folklore Photo - Ocean Pond Well

This week's folklore photo is courtesy of Jessica Cahill, who gave us a tour of her property in Ocean Pond last Friday. Jess contacted us via Facebook when she heard we were working on a wells and springs project, and had a great example of a hand dug well to show us. Jess had a lot of stories surrounding the property and the well that came from the previous owners, and was informed that it was dug by the grandfather of the last owner in the 1930's. When she first bought the property, there was a wellhouse covering it, but was too deteriorated to be left standing. The well is circular, hand dug and rock lined, and is incredibly well preserved despite its age. The well itself is just over 13 feet deep, and the water is clear enough to see all the way to the bottom.

Jess has a cover over the well right now in case nighttime explorers come across it without realizing it's there, but would like to eventually see if it could be used again. Jess said she would like to incorporate it into the cabin water lines when construction begins, as long as the well would still be intact. "We want to use it if we can, but if it would damage it then we'd rather just preserve it, because it's so fantastic" she told us. Until then, it's a gorgeous example of old hand dug wells from one of the original properties in Ocean Pond.

We here at the Heritage Foundation's Intangible Cultural Heritage office will be drilling the community for water stories all summer, so if you have any memories, photos, stories or know of any old wells and springs, we would love to hear from you! Please contact me at the heritage office here.

- Sarah

Great Finds in New Perlican

Last month, on the 22nd of June, I traveled to New Perlican to help out with a local cemetery clean-up project. This ongoing initiative, headed by the New Perlican heritage group,  aims to help preserve a historic cemetery that has been under threat from neglect and encroaching ATV trails. A great deal of research has already been done in the area, and before beginning the clean-up, it was believed that some previously unrecorded headstones may be buried throughout the site. The clean-up portion of the project, which accounts for the first phase, has been in the planning stages since last year. Next will come a post and chain fence that will provide further protection to the area.

Several community members turned up to help with the removal of the tall grass and shrubbery that had been hiding a cluster of  headstones. With so many hands busy at work, the area was cleared very quickly and the task of searching for fallen headstones could begin. Right away community members began making discoveries. In just a few short hours, around 13 headstones were unearthed, most of which were from the mid-19th century. Each were treated with care, and in time, a plan will be put into place where some will be put into the ground once again. While not all are in good enough condition to do so, it will be quite interesting to see some of these newly discovered headstones added back to this historic landscape.

Congratulations to New Perlican Heritage for your wonderful discoveries and good luck with the next phase of your preservation project. Special thanks to Eileen Matthews for inviting me to watch this project unfold, and for her unending dedication to heritage work in her community.

-Lisa

New Perlican Heritage, busy clearing the land.

Cemetery clean-up helpers read an epitaph on a newly discovered headstone.

A portion of one of the discovered headstones,  next to its footstone. Many burials in this cemetery had both a head and a footstone.

Memories of Quidi Vidi

So often in our line of work people tell us, "I don't know if I have anything to tell you," or "I don't know anything about that." People tend to underestimate their knowledge of the topics we are interested in until we begin to talk. Sitting down with someone, like I did earlier this week with Agnes Bragg, you soon realize that they are a wealth of knowledge on exactly what they said they were not sure about.

Agnes Bragg moved to St. John's when she was 18 years old. It was here that she met her husband, and Quidi Vidi native, Jim Bragg. She spent many days in Quidi Vidi Village in the years leading up to their marriage, when she was 21 years old, in 1949. She then moved to the Village, raised a family of seven children, and continues to live there to this day. "If I won the lottery tomorrow," she told me during our interview, "I wouldn't move. I wouldn't change a thing." 

She reminisced about her time spent at Landrock, a jutting piece of land, that separates what Villagers know as The Gut, that is the outer harbour, and the Atlantic Ocean.  She said "We spent a lot of time down there. Just sitting around and talking. Any pictures I have of myself was taken down there."

Agnes Bragg, age 18, at Landrock. (Photo courtesy of Agnes Bragg)

This was a dating ritual in Quidi Vidi, where courting couples would spend the days hanging out at Landrock, sometimes crossing the narrow ocean passage in a rodney, to spend a day walking on "The Hills" on the northside of the harbour. Often times, couples would have a boil up dinner as part of their day on The Hills.

Jim Bragg, age 25, on the northside of Quidi Vidi Harbour, also known as "The Hills." (Photo courtesy of Agnes Bragg)

Having raised seven children in Quidi Vidi Village, Anges recalls her children sliding on the hills that surround the valley of the Village. "On the hill there, it's all grown over now because there's no kids anymore," she said as she pointed to the rolling hills below what is now Regiment Road, "if you got something, like a television or something, and you had a big box, the kids would take that and would be sliding there in the summer! With their slides in the winter, but with cardboard in the summer!"

It is moments like these that I live for as a folklorist. That moment when a persons face lights up in remembering the particular occasions that make up the memories of their lives. Agnes' children are all living in the St. John's area, and I will be speaking to each of them in the coming weeks. Their stories will add to their mother's memories and show the changes in the Village throughout the generations.

Check back next week for more interview excerpts and pictures from the Village!

- Joelle

Heart's Content to receive provincial heritage district designation

On Saturday afternoon, July 20th, 2013, as part of Heart’s Content Heritage Day, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) will celebrate the designation of the Heart’s Content Provincial Registered Heritage District and will unveil a plaque recognizing this designation.

“Historic districts are geographically defined areas which create a special sense of time and place,” says Frank Crews, Chairperson, HFNL. “Above all, a historic district of provincial significance must have a ‘sense of history’, minimal intrusive elements, and the district's historic characteristics must predominate.”

The origins of the Heart’s Content heritage district date to 1866 when a transatlantic communications cable was successfully landed in the community. Included in the district are staff houses built by the Anglo-American Telegraph Company and Western Union Telegraph Company as well as buildings associated with the development of the community such as Heyfield Memorial United Church, the Methodist School and the Society of United Fishermen (SUF) Hall.

The application for the designation of the district by HFNL was made jointly by the Town of Heart’s Content and the Mizzen Heritage Society. The plaque will be unveiled on the grounds of the Mizzen Heritage Community Museum at 2 o’clock pm on July 20th.

The event will also serve as the launch of the “So Many Stories, So Many Traditions” oral history booklet that was compiled between fall 2012 and spring 2013. The booklet launch will take place at a reception at the SUF hall following the plaque unveiling.

The event is free and open to the public.

Photo: A vintage photograph of boys from the community including

Lloyd Smith, Art Button, and Art Cumby.

Folklore Photo - Bowring Park Horse Trough

This week's folklore photo is of the Bowring Park horse trough, sent to us courtesy of Gayna Rowe, Office Administrator with the Bowring Park Foundation. The horse trough once stood on Water Street, to service the working horses of the day. Over time, as the use of horses declined, the trough was used less and less, and eventually was moved to Bowring Park, where is today. Currently, the park has plans to revitalize the trough, and may convert it as a drinking fountain for thirsty dogs out for walks with their owners.

We here at the Heritage Foundation's Intangible Cultural Heritage office are thirsty for memories, photos, stories and locations of old wells and springs. If you have a memory of a spring or well, let our researcher Sarah Ingram know.

Make and Break Engines at the Wooden Boat Museum

Charlie Donnelly (pictured far left) speaking two stroke marine engines to workshop participants.

On Saturday, June 29th, I drove to the Wooden Boat Museum to participate in a workshop on two stroke engines. My work last summer  focused exclusively on the make and break type of two stroke engine, but the Wooden Boat Museum has broadened their scope by including the jump-spark versions of these simplistic engines. 

About thirteen participants attended this first workshop which was really just a starting point for workshops to come. The museum wanted to get a feel for who was interested in attending workshops on the repair, restoration, and maintenance of these antique engines. The Museum hopes to generate enough interest that they will be able to  put off a series of day long workshops over the next few months and into the fall. Topics pertaining to the restoration of these engines, including pouring babbitt bearings and installation methods, will be covered.

With these workshops participants would start with the very basics of the engines and begin to get their hands dirty in the workshop shed. The main model for these workshops would be the Barnes engine (pictured left) which has been donated for restoration to the Museum. Barnes engines were made in St. John's, Newfoundland, and are very difficult to come by - even more so in excellent condition with matching paper stickers and all! This great find will be restored through the series of workshops lead by Charlie Donnelly, who hopes to have the Barnes engine running smoothly again once the workshops conclude. 

For more information on these two stroke engine workshops contact the Wooden Boat Museum by phone at 1-709-583-2070. 

Wells and Springs in Eastern Newfoundland

Lion's Head Spout from The Battery, 1975

Last month’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador mentioned that the job search for a new project on traditional wells, springs and water sources had begun. Well, the hunt is over, and I will be the researcher for this very interesting project over the next few months!

My name is Sarah Ingram, and I am an archaeologist by trade, just finishing up my graduate degree in Historical Archaeology at Memorial University. Although I have focused my career on archaeology I have always had a passion for folklore, local traditions, and how the past influences and effects the present. Traditional water sources are one of these things that can carry into the present, and are surrounded with lots of stories of where they were, which ones were better for making tea, and how throwing trout down into the well would help to keep them clean. In fact, old stories of a well in Ferryland, Newfoundland, where I did my graduate research, helped the archaeologists’ years ago find the lost well on the site!

This project has a couple of goals. The first is to gain a better knowledge base of the water resources that we have around here, some of which may not have been in use for years, and many of which are not publically known about. The second is to learn about the use and management of these local water sources, how they both were used and still are used, and how people in the community care for, clean, and maintain their water. The third, and the most easily lost aspect of knowledge we want to uncover surrounding water resources, are what people value about the wells and springs they remember and used, and what the community feels their significance was and is. We hope that this information can help to inform governmental projects, folkloric research, and community use of these traditional places!

I’ve been in the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador offices for a week now, beginning some preliminary reading, Internet scouting, and making myself as familiar as possible with any stories, traditions, or uses for wells and springs that I can find. Already I have come across some really great stories and images initially collected by Dale Jarvis from the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and Philip Hiscock from Memorial University.

Soon I will be contacting some people who have already expressed interest in sharing their stories with Dale and Philip, and hopefully learn much more than what is already recorded. Once I have gathered enough preliminary information, have spoken to some people about what they remember, and have some places in mind, I can get out in the field, look at these water sources, and hopefully get my hands dirty while recording them!


If you have any memories about using wells and springs, or know where there are some out in the community, I would love to have a chat with you! You can contact me at sarah@heritagefoundation.ca or give me a call at 739-1892 ext 7.

Do you remember the Grenfell Mission?

Do you remember the Grenfell Mission? If so, Heidi Coombs-Thorne would like to talk to you. 

Heidi is a postdoctoral researcher with Memorial University, working on a history of the Grenfell Mission in Labrador. She is looking at the relationship between the Grenfell Mission and the Inuit-Metis of Southern Labrador (1939-81). 

"I'm particularly interested in the 'patient perspective' of the Mission and the experience of living under such an influential organization," she says.  "Through my own earlier research, I noticed that most (if not all!) of the histories of the Grenfell Mission focus on the Mission's perspective and use exclusively Mission documents and sources.  That approach omits the patients' voice and leaves a huge untold part of the history. So I'm hoping to find out what it was like to be patients of the Grenfell Mission and how the people felt about the Grenfell Mission in general."

Heidi will be conducting interviews with people who remember the Mission in Happy Valley-Goose Bay, July 3-7 2013. If you would like to participate, please contact her at hthorne@mun.ca or 709-763-4416. 

Photo: Dr. Hare at Harrington Hospital from the Vashti Bartlett Photograph Collection