Equipment suggestions for doing oral history fieldwork in Newfoundland

A couple people have recently asked for information about what equipment to get for doing oral history interviews in Newfoundland and Labrador. I’ve got a couple recommendations which I’ll present here, which are intended primarily for community groups doing basic interviews. I’ll stick to equipment that I think is easy to use, available in the province, and affordable for small groups working with small budgets. I’m also going to focus on audio interviews, primarily. If you are collecting people’s memories, family stories, or community history, audio might be all you need. If you are documenting a craft skill, or a performance tradition like dancing, video might be better.

For basic oral history interviews, we’ve used a couple different digital audio recorders here in the ICH office. We’ve bought most of our equipment locally through Long and McQuade and have had good service from them. They also rent equipment, fairly affordably, if you are looking at a short term project.

Two simple recorders we’ve used from them are the Zoom H2n and Roland R-05 recorders. Both those are in the $180-$200 range, and are easy to use and set up. The work a lot like a digital camera, with a memory card you can pop out and into a card reader on your computer. They also sell a Tascam recorder, slightly cheaper, which has decent reviews, but which I’ve never used.

We’ve also just purchased a new slightly higher-end Roland - 6-channel Digital Field Audio Recorder, which retails for around $500. It is still easy to use, and has the large XLR jacks for more serious external microphones. If you are going to be doing a lot of recording, and have a budget for a better recorder with more options, it is a good, locally-available machine. If you are just starting out, and have a smaller budget, you will still get good recordings with the Zoom and Roland R-05’s built-in mics.

If you are going to be embarking on a project with our ICH office, and want your information shared on Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative (DAI), we’d recommend that you purchase an external USB harddrive to backup your media and data files. This will make it a lot easier when the time comes for us to help you upload your community collection. We have a variety of them in our office, most of them purchased through Staples or Costco. The prices of these are always changing, and I don’t have a particular recommendation for brand, but expect to pay anywhere from $100-$200 for a 1 or 2 TB drive. If you are doing a lot of photos, audio interviews, or video, pay a bit more and get larger than you think you’ll need. The prices are always coming down, and now 2 and 3 TB drives are pretty available at reasonable prices.

So, for $300-$500 you can get a good audio recorder and external harddrive. If you are looking at buying something for a project, call me at 1-888-739-1892 ext 2, or email ich@heritagefoundaiton.ca and I’ll help you out as much as I can. We love seeing community oral history projects done right, and want to help communities get their collections online. We can help you get your project set up, and help you sort out what information you will need to collect along with your photos and audio, and even get you started with a spreadsheet to track it all and get it ready for upload to the DAI.

If you are REALLY into audio, I’d highly recommend you check out the website maintained by Andy Kolovos at the Vermont Folklife Centre. It has great reviews of a lot of different equipment. And I’m dying to know what he thinks of his wife's new Tascam iM2 mic for iPhone! Tascam, anytime you want me to do a product review, let me know!

- Dale Jarvis

Battery Voices – We Need Your Stories!

Do you have a story about the Battery? Or a memory you'd like to share linked specifically to that place? We'd love to hear anything and everything about the Battery for an audio project that combines storytelling, audio art, and location-based narrative.

We need contemporary voices speaking about what's happening in the Battery today as well as older memories, legends, tales, jokes...

Perhaps you stopped in to one of the twine stores down by the water, or had an interesting interaction during a solo sunrise walk. Perhaps you jog down Battery Road every morning on your way to the trail, or remember a time when the Battery was considered a rougher area of town.

Your story could be woven into a multi-layered acoustic documentary composition accessible through a gps-triggered smartphone app free for all users. Listeners will explore an immersive, user-controlled interactive experience while walking through the landscape. Cool, eh?

If you've got a story and would like your voice to be a part of this audio cartography, you can contact either myself, Annie McEwen (annierosamcewen@gmail.com), or Chris Brookes (radio@batteryradio.com).

We look forward to hearing from you!

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: All Towns Great and Small

When I moved to Newfoundland last summer, I arrived with the hope of many wonderful adventures to come.  That said, I did not expect to feel as though I had stepped into the pages of Gulliver’s Travels.  In my first week on the island, though, while driving The Irish Loop, I encountered settlements that were decidedly Lilliputian.  I came across this diminutive but active wharf by the side of the road near Mobile.  Later that day, I found a town within a town – a tiny recreation of the resettled community of Oderin, on a small pond in St. Mary’s.  These works of art, so full of love and life, captured my imagination.  I would love to know if there are more communities of this nature around the island.  If you have any stories or pictures you’d like to share please send them to claire@heritagefoundation.ca.

-Claire McDougall

Bay Roberts Event: 100 Years of Cable Avenue

On Friday afternoon, August 2nd, 2013, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) will be helping to celebrate the 100th birthday of Cable Avenue in Bay Roberts. The ceremony will include speeches to recognize Cable Avenue as a Registered Heritage District, the presentation of a Registered Heritage Structure plaque to the Western Union Cable Station, and a cake cutting to celebrate the Avenue’s birthday. 

According to Frank Crews, Chairperson for the HFNL, "Historic districts are geographically defined areas which create a special sense of time and place." They also must have provincial heritage significance and demonstrate minimal modern intrusion. 

The Cable Avenue Heritage District dates back to 1913, when construction of staff housing by Western Union Telegraph Company began along the street. The designation includes the houses on the east and west sides of Cable Avenue, the house on the corner of Cable Avenue and Water Street, Western Union Cable Building on Water Street and the grounds associated with these structures. Other principal physical elements of the district include the set-back sidewalks, curbs, original streetlights and the chestnut trees which line the street. 

This event will also serve as the launch of our “Celebrating 100 Years of Cable Avenue” exhibit in the Road to Yesterday Museum. The display will feature material gathered during an oral history project about life on the Avenue and for employees of the Western Union. 

The event is free and open to the public. It will take place at 3:30 pm, Friday, August 2nd, at the Road to Yesterday Museum in the Western Union Cable Station.  Hope to see you there!

Photograph of Western Union employees, provided by Jack Hambling.

Wells and Springs along the Southern Shore

On Wednesday I spent the day with Andrea along the Southern shore, meeting some interesting people and visiting and recording some excellent wells and springs. We had a really busy day planned, and started out meeting with Jim Foley, a local man who took me down to the shore and showed me a natural spring he had been using for years to drink from. The spring comes right out of the rocks, and is used predominantly in the summer and fall, as during the winter it gets covered with rocks and ice. He said occasionally some sea water will get into the spring, but there is such a consistent water flow that it never effects the taste or clarity of the water. He said that fishermen used to stop and use it years ago to drink from.

The cement enclosure around the spring was an addition added in recent years by Al Roche, who Jim was kind enough to introduce us to. Al told us that he tried to make it safer to get down there by adding rock steps as well, however the last couple years has seen some deterioration along the shore, and the steps have since let go. There used to be a “spring” sign to show visitors where they could get a cool drink, but has been taken down for safety reasons.

We then met up with Tony Dunn, who had a lot to both tell and show us. He first took us to his own well, which shares space with several other large wellhouses. He told us that at one time there were over 13 houses being served by these wells, which equaled up to 50 people! His well was one of the shallower ones we've seen so far, and he said that he's never seen it run low. There was over three feet of water on Wednesday, and it was also incredibly cold and fresh. He then took us to his brothers well, which was rock lined and protected by heavy plastic siding. Tony also has a hidden talent - he can find underground water with wire! He showed us how it worked, and let us try it ourselves. We both had success, and below you can see Andrea finding some water with wires!

Finally we went and spoke to Andrea's family, Andrew and Dot O'Brien. Over tea and banana bread they shared some great water and well memories with me, including carrying water to the house with hoops, a barrel well in their front yard, cleaning wells, and communal tin mugs left at a community water source for everyone to enjoy. Andrew then took me up to his well, which was by far the biggest one yet, and is shared between several homes in the neighbourhood. It was a great day out in the field!

We are still looking to hear any memories people have about wells, springs, water dowsing, and I would love to hear from you! You can contact me at 1 (709) 739-1892 ext 7, or email Sarah@heritagefoundation.ca. 

The Heart's Content Plaquing Ceremony

On July 20th, 2013, community members of Heart's Content, alongside the HFNL, the Town, and the Mizzen Heritage Society, gathered to celebrate the newly designated Heart's Content Registered Heritage District. We started the event with a series of speeches that featured Mayor Don Blundon,  Frank Crews (Chairman of the HFNL), MHA Charlene Johnson, and author Ted Rowe, who aimed to highlight local heritage and commemorate the district. We then watched as Blundon and Johnson officially unveiled the bronze plaque, which now stands proudly on the Mizzen Community Museum property. It was a very exciting day for those involved with local heritage!

Community members gather in the SUF Hall.

  

Mayor Don Blundon and MHA Charlene Johnson unveil the new HFNL heritage district plaque.

  

Members of Mizzen Heritage Society pose with the new plaque.

At this event we also had an opportunity to launch our new booklet of oral historical material from Heart's Content entitled, "So Many Stories, So Many Traditions: The Heart's Content Registered Heritage District."  Please visit the following link to view a copy of this booklet and help us to celebrate this new heritage district: http://www.mun.ca/ich/resources/HC_booklet.pdf

Congratulations to Heart's Content and thanks for coming out to celebrate heritage!

-Lisa

Memories of Quidi Vidi

Just a short post today as a follow up from my last. The following is an audio clip excerpt from my interview with Agnes Bragg. Part of the finished product for this project will be a Google map with landmarks highlighted in the Quidi Vidi area. My hope is that for each landmark a short audio clip will demonstrate the importance of these places in the lives of the people of Quidi Vidi Village. 

Enjoy!

-Joelle

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: Carrying Water

I recently visited the Logger's Life Provincial Museum in Grand Falls-Windsor to work with their staff to develop public programming around pillow tops. While there I spotted this piece of folk art on display in the bunkhouse. This little, wooden, hand carved figure depicts a logger using a square shaped hoop to carry two pails of water. The hoop was used to balance the pails of water and keep them from hitting your legs and spilling. The hoops were made of wood, sometimes alder branches, and were either square or round. They were an invaluable tool for those who had to walk great distances for water.

This water carrier ties in well with another project being worked on here at the ICH Office, which is a study of traditional water supplies in St. John's and surrounding areas.  For the next few months, archaeologist Sarah Ingram will be talking to people about wells and springs to learn where the traditional water supplies where in the area and how they were used and maintained. Sarah will also be collecting stories about why particular water sources were valued over others. Finally, all these materials will be made available on Memorial University of Newfoundland's Digital Archive Initiative. Stay tuned for updates on that project and many others!

-Nicole

A Call for the Brokenhearted - guest post by Annie McEwen

It will be two years this August since I had my heart broken. My boyfriend came home from a summer away and without warning told me he was through, packed up all his things, including the bed we shared, and drove away from an exceptionally solid, three-year relationship. I remember the first thing I did after he left was hurl a heavy roll of duct tape as hard as I could across the room, making a giant dent in the wall. Our wall. No, wait. 

I had never been so confused, so lost. In the preceding three years I had often been soothed by the firm belief that even if I had no idea where my career was going, or where I wanted to live, or who I wanted to be, at least I could count on the fact that he would be there. He had been my anchor, and when he cut free, I felt the great violent heave of the world around me. And I was terrified.

My instinct was to armour myself so no one would ever be able to hurt me like that again. For months I worked to add layers to a thick shell I could curl up inside to keep myself safe. I saw no way out and wanted no way out.

But slowly, somehow without me even noticing, one of the worst things that had ever happened to me started to become one of the most interesting, the most life-giving. I began to connect more deeply with those around me who had had similar experiences. I began to recognize how extraordinarily brave it was to have one's heart open enough to be damaged by another. And I began to realize that losing my anchor and having my heart broken might just be a precious gift.

I'm sharing my story with you because I would like to hear yours. I have recently been awarded a grant from the Newfoundland and Labrador Arts Council to make a radio documentary about broken hearts. I'm interested in your stories about the rotten end of love, the death of desire, the loss of a loved one—and how these experiences changed you. What is your life like post-heartbreak? Who have you become? What happens when a soul loses that by which it is defined? What do we do with the energy we once invested so heavily in another?

I am looking for willing participants, those ready to speak honestly and bravely about their experiences with heartbreak. Your experience does not have to, like mine, have been a life-giving one. Perhaps you are still curled up in your hard shell. Or perhaps you never felt the need to build a shell in the first place.

Jonathan Goldstein, writer and producer of the CBC Radio show Wiretap, once wrote (here— http://transom.org/?p=7028), “The eyes are not the window to the soul. The radio is.” I've chosen the medium of radio to explore this topic because I have learned that stories matter, indeed, they are at the heart of all things, and that nothing captures human life more intimately than the voice.

If this sounds like something you'd like to be a part of, please send me an email at annierosamcewen@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing your stories.

-Annie McEwen