Building your own fun

Have you ever made yourself a toy?

I bet you have. I bet you've made a kite, or a spinning top, or a model boat. I bet you've tied a loop of string for Cat's Cradle, or picked out a good stick for a bat before playing ball.

I made a top out of paper this morning. 

See? It spins and everything!

A few decades ago, in most of this province, toys weren't available in stores year round, if ever. Kids had to make their own.

Winston Fiander grew up in Coomb's Cove, Fortune Bay, and he had a few tricks up his sleeve when it came to making his own fun.

"We used to make these slingshots. (...) you'd take a piece of line (...) looped, and in the base of that loop would be a couple of pieces of line where you could support a rock. And so we would have it rigged so that you put your finger through a loop in the end of the line, and you caught a hold of the line with your finger and thumb, and you just put a rock in it, and you'd wind it round and round and round and then you'd let it go. (...) And it would go, geez, it's amazing how far the rock would go."

When we got to talking about hockey, he told me he and his friends had a puck to play with, but they made their own sticks.

"We used to make them out of wood. Well, you know how they used to make timbers for boats (...) you just go into the woods and you find a stick that looked like a hockey stick (...) bent already and you chop it off and bring it home and shave it down a bit and there you are, you got a hockey stick."

Paula Roberts, from Clarenville, did some quite ambitious building with her friends:

"Somebody threw out a baby buggy once, and I remember... we took the wheels off of that and made the wickedest go-carts."

And then, they hit the jackpot of scavenged building (and bouncing) materials.

"Somebody had thrown out a mattress, and we tore the mattress apart, and all the springs that were inside the mattress, we took and attached them to our feet, and made like bungee, springy things. (...) I'd say for about two weeks we were occupied by tearing up that mattress. But the wood that was inside the mattress we used for the go-carts."

If you'd like to take part in ICH's Hoist your Sails and Run project, or talk to us about toys or game equipment that you once made, please drop me a line here or by phone at 739-1892 ext 3.

Starting the New Year with play and games!

It's a snowy old day here in St. John's, and as I watch the snow blow in diagonals from the warm side of the windows in the quiet ICH office (Dale is being an Intangible Cultural Heritage rock star in ASIA, and I'm sure he'll tell you all about it when he gets home), I am thinking about how much I used to love weather like this. You remember: back when the snow meant sliding and snowmen and forts and snowball fights, instead of shoveling the driveway 3 times in a 24-hour period and falling down twice (TWICE!) on your way in to work.

The view from ICH today. Good luck out there, City of St. John's truck.

But then I got excited, because I realized that the good old days I was just thinking of are some of the same days that we get to talk about in the Hoist your Sails and Run project, and that project is just ramping up!

I've been doing some interviews with the folks who have already filled out our survey about play and games (you can too! Click here), and I haven't had one yet where we didn't talk about sliding. Everyone seems to remember sliding on the perfect hill, whether they were on a wood slide borrowed from their father, or a discarded plastic bag, or a pilfered pizza pan.

We're going to be meeting on Tuesday mornings in February at MacMorran Community Centre, and talking about sliding and any number of other ways we used to play!

If you're interested in becoming a part of this project, please email me or be in touch by phone at 709-739-1892 ext 3, and tell me your sliding memories!

Hauling Pinkston's Forge: Heritage Building On the Move in Brigus

I've written before about the Pinkston's Forge in Brigus, Conception Bay. The Brigus Historical Society has been working to document it's oral history and stories. The photo above, from July 28th, 2014, shows Muriel Pinkston Wells, John Pinkston, and interviewer Dale Russell Fitzpatrick --  you can read and listen to their interview on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative (DAI).

It has been important to the Brigus Historical Society to document what they can about the forge, because the building had to be removed from its original location. Yesterday, December 15th, was moving day. The building had been covered in plywood to keep it together during the move, and hoisted up onto a sledge made of long wooden poles. A local company was hired to facilitate the move, and a crowd gathered to watch the old blacksmith shop be hauled to its new home near the Brigus Stone Barn museum. The old forge squeaked over the little bridge near Hawthorne Cottage, with only inches to spare on either side, and was then dragged to the new concrete pad that had been erected to receive the forge.

CBC has story on the move, and you can check out some photos on YouTube.

Exploring placemaking, the fishery, and traditional games

In the December 2014 edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador: the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) explores membership with the Inter-City Intangible Cultural Cooperation Network (ICCN); some thoughts on placemaking; the Outer Battery’s Charles Pearcey is designated as a Provincial Tradition Bearer; HFNL Announces Three Fisheries ICH Projects in Cupids, Pouch Cove, and Labrador; and Sharon King-Campbell declares war! (Don't worry, it is just a game.)

contributors: Dale Jarvis, Sharon King-Campbell

The newsletter is available here in PDF and other formats

Photo: Children playing “World” in Southern Harbour, Placentia Bay, 1987.

Photo courtesy Delf Maria Hohmann.

What was your favourite childhood game?

ICH has a new project, and it's all about fun!

Not quite two weeks ago, Dale was kind enough to bring me on board as coordinator for Hoist your Sails and Run, a project linking up senior citizens with young people to get them talking about play and games in Newfoundland and Labrador. 

The young people in question are on loan to us from Dr. Jillian Gould and the Department of Folklore at MUN, and we'll introduce them to the folks who volunteer to have a yarn about the fun they had as youngsters. We have some help recruiting volunteers from MacMorran Community Centre, who are also offering us space to meet, eat and chat. We'll get together a few times in February to talk and share a meal, and then the students will put together a booklet about traditional games using the stories, photos and quotes that they collect from their interviews.

If you, dear reader, have some stories about your favourite childhood pastimes that you'd like to share, please consider filling out this questionnaire about play and games!

Watch this space for updates on the project, send me an email if you have any questions or want to get involved, and keep an eye on the horizon for the latest Heritage Foundation publication, coming out in March 2015!

Cheers!

Sharon

Sharon King-Campbell
Project Co-ordinator, Hoist Your Sails and Run Project

Playing games, putting up ice, and a trip to Paris

In this edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador: the ICH office heads to Paris for UNESCO meetings; more from our Petty Harbour oral history project with memories from twins Gussie and Jimmy Kieley; Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador board member Doug Wells shares memories of cutting ice in Harbour Breton; the fall 2014 overview of ICH activities; introducing our "Hoist Your Sails And Run" project bringing together youth and seniors to talk about games; and the schedule for the 2014 Mummers Festival.

Download the newsletter in various formats here.

Contributions by: Dale Jarvis, Terra Barrett, Doug Wells, and Sharon King-Campbell.

Youth Contest for Aboriginal Arts and Stories

Aboriginal Arts & Stories is a national educational initiative that invites First Nations, Métis and Inuit youth (ages 11-29) to submit creative writing or two-dimensional artwork about their culture and heritage. Participants have a chance to win up to $2,000; a trip to the annual awards ceremony, and have their work published or exhibited. Finalists are selected by a jury comprised of celebrated Aboriginal writers and artists, including Shirley Moorhouse, Kent Monkman, Maxine Noel, Lee Maracle, and Drew Hayden Taylor, among many others.

The contest is an opportunity for youth to share stories of their families, communities, ancestors, as well as personal stories, with an audience across the country. Now in its 11th year, more than 2,000 youth have participated in the contest to date. This year’s deadline is March 31, 2015. Visit www.our-story.ca for full guidelines, prizing information, previous winning submissions, and to submit an entry.

Aboriginal Arts & Stories is a program of Historica Canada, a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting Canadian history and heritage.

HFNL launches 10th Anniversary Poster Contest. $1000 for top NL school

Looking for Labrador Nalajuit!

Are you a Nalujuk? Have you dressed up for Nalujuk Night before? If yes, we would like to meet you. The Mummers Festival is doing some research about Nalujuk Night and would like to know more from the people who know best. How does it feel to be a Nalujuk? What do you wear? What do you do? These are just a few of the questions the Mummers Festival would like answered. If you have 30 minutes to spare, could we meet with you?

Please contact Ryan Davis, Mummers Festival Coordinator at (709) 697-8722 or by email at info@mummersfestival.ca