Robyn Pike will be live-tweeting the Youth Heritage Forum! Follow along at #YHF2015

Our Youth Heritage Forum 2015 starts tomorrow, and we'll be live tweeting the event. You can follow along using the hashtag #YHF2015, and follow our @ICH_NL twitter account. 

To do this, we have recruited a pro to help us out!  Robyn Pike will be the person behind the tweet stream tomorrow, and we are delighted to have her help. Robyn is the President of the Newfoundland and Labrador Historic Trust. She received her B.A. from Memorial University in History and Newfoundland Studies. She's currently enrolled in the University of Victoria's Diploma in Public Relations program. Robyn works as a Social Marketing Consultant with Eastern Health's Health Promotion Division. 

We asked Robyn why she is passionate about heritage:

I spent five summers working as an interpreter at the Rorke Stores Museum in Carbonear and the Newman Wine Vaults Provincial Historic Site while I was attending MUN. Getting to share the stories of this place with visitors from here and abroad during my first summer encouraged me to pursue a History major and it all just went from there. I was employed by the Trust when I worked at the Newman Wine Vaults and I joined their board of directors a few years later. Holding on to our built heritage and adapting it for new uses during a period of huge economic development is near and dear to my heart.

Tune in tomorrow!

Children's Songs and Rhymes

Sandra Antle (second from left) tells onlookers Don Antle, Andrea McGuire, Sharna Brzycki and Marg Connolly about a game she used to play. Photo by Jillian Gould

During the final Hoist your Sails and Run session, tradition-bearer Sandra Antle set down to remember some of the songs that she and her friends used to sing. Rhymes were part of skipping, clapping, and ball-bouncing games. She remembers this one about quarreling mothers:

My mother and your mother 
Lived across the bay,
And every night they picked a fight 
And this is what they'd say:
Icka Backa Soda Cracka
Icka Backa Boo
Icka Bakca Soda Cracka
Out goes you.

And this rhyme with a nautical theme:

I'm a little Dutch girl
Dressed in blue.
Here are the things I
Like to do;
Salute the Captain;
Bow to the Queen;
Turn my back
On the submarine.

Some circle games require the players to reenact the song. Take, for example, The Farmer in the Dell:

The farmer in the dell,
The farmer in the dell,
Hi-ho, the daireo,
The farmer in the dell,

The farmer takes a wife...

The wife takes a child...

The child takes a dog...

The dog takes a bone...

At the beginning, one person - the "farmer" - stands in the middle of the circle, and then chooses a "wife" to come stand in the circle with them. The "wife" chooses a "child," and so forth. As the song continues,

The farmer leaves the wife...

The wife leaves the child...

The child leaves the dog...

The dog leaves the bone...

the players step back into the outer circle one by one as they are called. Finally the player who has been chosen as "the bone" is left in the middle and the game can begin again.

What rhyming or singing games do you remember?

The launch of the booklet Looking Back; Games We Played will be at MacMorran Community Centre at 10am on Tuesday, March 24th. All are welcome. Please be in touch with me at 739-1892 ext 3 or by email for more details on the Hoist your Sails and Run project.

Two community approaches to oral history programs - #oralhistory

I'm always keeping an eye open to see what other community organizations and towns are doing with oral history and the collection and sharing of local stories.

Today, two different oral history projects ended up in my inbox, and I figured I would share them.

The first is from the community of Waterford, Ontario. Local freelance writer Brenda Dredge has been collecting local stories and writing them up in the community newspaper. In a February 27th article entitled "Oral history of bygone Waterford businesses," Dredge documents how she sat down with two residents, Bob and Marg Mason, to talk about the history of small businesses in the Southern Ontario town. She writes,

"While I have always known Waterford was once a thriving little business centre - thanks to stories told by my late maternal grandparents - I did not fully realize just how thriving it really was. The Masons were able to 'walk' me down Main St. and list all of the businesses that once operated there."

You can read Dredge's full article here.

Meanwhile, in Orlando, Florida, the College Park Neighborhood Association’s Historical Committee has been busy organizing what they call "Oral History Nights." College Park is a a distinct neighborhood within the city of Orlando. It derives its name from the many streets within its limits that were named for institutions of higher learning such as Yale, Princeton, and Harvard. Journalist Michael W. Freeman explains that,

 "Oral History Nights are special events sponsored by the committee, when they invite longtime residents to gather and talk about what the neighborhood was like in past decades, and recall College Park as they remember it growing up."

You can read the full article about Oral History Nights here.

I love the idea of Oral History Nights, which is very similar in some ways to the "Mug Up" program developed by our colleague Martha MacDonald at the Labrador Institute.  

If you know of a community in Newfoundland and Labrador doing something creative with local oral histories, give me a shout at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

Youth Heritage Forum 2015 Guest Speaker - Aimee Chaulk

 Guest Speaker: Aimee Chaulk

Aimee Chaulk is the editor of Them Days magazine, an oral history quarterly about Labrador, and the de-facto archivist at Them Days Archives. She received her Hon.B.A. from the University of Toronto, in English and Medieval Studies. She also attended Ryerson University’s Magazine Publishing program. Aimee is on the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives Executive, is a co-founder of the Tamarack Camera Club, and organizes community events in her spare time. You may have seen her breastfeeding and canoeing at the same time in Metrobus shelter ads.  

Why are you passionate about heritage?

Looking back, my love of (obsession with) Laura Ingalls Wilder’s books was probably an indication that I would be editor of Them Days someday—they’re basically an extended Them Days story about the American Midwest. I’ve always been interested in people’s stories and the way things were done, in how those things have changed and how they’ve stayed the same. On a personal level, working in heritage has been a way to explore and deepen my appreciation for my roots. I love the way it has also widened my social circle—despite my youth, I’m practically an honorary member of the Friendship Centre’s 55+ club! Learning traditional skills is a great way to close the generation gap.

Want to hear more from Aimee? Join us for Youth Heritage Forum 2015!

Keep up to date, join our Youth Heritage Forum Facebook Event!  

Saving Our Stories - Oral History Workshop in Norris Point March 20th

The ICH office is hitting the road! I'll be running a community oral history workshop at the Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital, 2-6 Hospital Lane, Norris Point, on March 20th, 2015. The workshop is being organized in Norris Point by the Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital Heritage Corporation.

It is free to attend, but you need to register in advance.

Contact: Joan Cranston; Coordinator; 709-458-2875 (daytime); or 709-458-8032 (cell); or email jcranston@nf.sympatico.ca.

Facebook event listing here.

Jacks and Paper Dolls

This past Tuesday was our third and final session playing and talking about games at MacMorran Community Centre. While the folklore students peeled off to finish their interviews with tradition bearers, the rest of us took advantage of the pack of jacks, tiddlywinks and pick-up sticks that were brought in.

The knack of jacks came back to Martha Oliver pretty quickly. In fact, she schooled us with her opening moves. The trick in the video below was to determine who got to go first... whoever dropped the fewest jacks had the advantage.

Jacks, she said, was mostly played on the floor indoors, where the ground was flat and the ball wouldn't bounce off in unpredictable directions.

Also done indoors, especially in the lead-up to Christmas, was the making of paper dolls or paper angels. We found some paper, borrowed some scissors from the grown-ups in the office, and made a ton of them.

Student Sharna Brzycki displays her first paper angels. Not bad for a first try!

The students are now hard at work putting together for the content for Looking Back; Games We Played, the booklet that will come from these sessions and interviews. Keep an eye out for a launch coming up soon!

For more information about Hoist your Sails and Run, please phone me at 739-1892 ext 3 or email me here.

King William was King George’s son

I wrote an article in The Telegram a while back about traditional Newfoundland children's singing games.  It included a version of "King William was King George’s son." 

Colin Burke, now of Port au Port, sent me his version, which was sung in St. Jacques, Fortune Bay, circa 1950-1952.

King William was King George’s son,
Of all the royal race he’d won.
Upon his breast a star he wore
Pointing to the government’s door *
Come choose you east, come choose you west,
Come choose the one that you love best.
Down on this carpet you must kneel
As the grass grows in the field,
Kiss your partner if you please
Now you may rise up off your knees.

Burke notes: 

* (or maybe government store, which is what I seemed to hear)I was about six or seven years old, and there was a “government store” at the government wharf.

The King William in question is probably William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) - King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death, the third son of George III. The image above is William in dress uniform painted by Sir Martin Archer Shee, c.1800, from the book The National Portrait Gallery History of the Kings and Queens of England by David Williamson

UPDATE: 6 March 2015

Gloria Marguerite Bobbitt from Harrington Harbour, on Quebec's Lower North Shore, writes:

The people from Newfoundland must have brought the song/game over to Harrington Harbour when they came over here. We always played it in the summer time. Here is our version. 

King William was King George's son,
Upon the royal racy run,
Upon his breast he wore a star,
In the kissing time of war.
Come choose to the east,
Come choose to the west,
Choose the very one you love best.
Upon this carpet you must kneel,
As sure as the grass grows in the field,
Kiss your partner as your sweet,
Now you may stand upon your feet.

Brown Bag Lunch - Public Sector Folklore Panel Wed, Feb 25th.

Interested in what Memorial University graduates are doing with their folklore degrees? 

This brown bag lunch will be a panel with three public sector folklore graduates - Nicole Penney, Alanna Wicks and Crystal Braye Dinn, who were all part of the first cohort of MA students who graduated from the Department of Folklore's cooperative education stream in public folklore.

This panel is being organized by Dr. Jillian Gould of the Department of Folklore, and Dale Jarvis of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador.

The three Memorial alumni will discuss their experiences with the program, and how they have found employment since graduation.

The panel will take place Wednesday February 25th, 12:30-1:30 in Education 4051.

• Facebook event

Youth Heritage Forum 2015 Guest Speaker - Nicole Penney

Guest Speaker: Nicole Penney  

Nicole Penney is a folklorist and archivist living and working in St. John’s, Newfoundland. She has been working within the heritage community since 2004 and holds a BA in Folklore / English Literature and an MA in Public Folklore from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador. Nicole currently works full time at the MUN Medical Founders' Archive, part-time on The Rooms reference desk and sits as vice president and education committee chair on the Association of Newfoundland and Labrador Archives board of directors. She is a strong advocate of community-level projects and inter-generational activities and regularly assists with educational activities which combine art and archives.

Why are you passionate about heritage?

I'm passionate about heritage because of the potential it has in the areas of education and public outreach. People thrive on a strong sense of community and I enjoy bringing traditions that belong to a group back to them, in the form of workshops and public events. I have a particular interest in archives and public programming and firmly believe in their potential as a way to bring older and younger generations together. Our heritage teaches us so much about ourselves and the direction we are headed in, while also bringing us together to feel connected through a shared experience.

Want to hear more from Nicole? Join us for Youth Heritage Forum 2015!

Registration forms can be downloaded here! 
Keep up to date, join our Youth Heritage Forum Facebook Event!