Living Heritage Podcast Ep199 Growing up as a Lebanese Newfoundlander

Folklorist Wyatt H. Shibley interviews retired local politician Lorraine Michael about what it was like growing up with Lebanese roots in downtown St. John’s.

https://anchor.fm/living-heritage/episodes/Ep199-Growing-up-as-a-Lebanese-Newfoundlander-epl2lu

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

A history of the Lane/Heffern House in Salvage, Bonavista Bay

The Salvage Fisherman’s Museum (alternatively, the Lane/Heffern House) was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by Heritage NL March 20th, 2020 due to its historic and aesthetic value. Supposedly the oldest surviving home in the area, the museum building was constructed sometime in the mid 19th century by members of the Lane family who lived in Salvage by 1830.

Heritage NL has been working with the museum committee on documenting the history of the structure, which has proven to be more complicated than originally thought. It may be that the building was constructed in two phases, which would explain some of the quirks of the building itself.

You can download the full report in pdf format and get all the architectural gossip right here. 

Living Heritage on the Baccalieu Trail

It may have been "Stay Home Year" here in Newfoundland and Labrador, but that didn't stop the Living Heritage Podcast from exploring! In "Hidden Gems of the Baccalieu Trail," host Natalie Dignam takes you on an audio tour of the Baccalieu Trail region on the island of Newfoundland. Explore all the episodes in the series by clicking the pinpoints on the map.

Listen to Living Heritage Episode 198: Make Your Own Podcast. Natalie walks your through creating your first podcast!

Living Heritage Podcast Ep197 The Bowring Park Footbridge and Blanche Lemco Van Ginkel

In 2020, Heritage NL designated a concrete footbridge in Bowring Park as a Registered Heritage Structure, one of the first modernist structures in NL to be recognized as such. The bridge was designed in part by influential architect Blanche Lemco Van Ginkel, and it has been an object of fascination and study for Newfoundland architecture student Sarah Reid. Folklorist Dale Jarvis chats with Sarah about her interest in the footbridge, and shares some of the audio she recorded in conversation with Blanche Van Ginkel herself.

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Quick Reads in NL Vernacular Architecture: What is a Trunnel?

 

The photo above was taken underneath the Fisherman’s Museum in Salvage, Bonavista Bay, and shows the sill of the building, with a protruding trunnel. But what is a trunnel? 

A trunnel (also spelled treenail, trenail, or trennel) is a remnant of ancient building technologies which you can still see in some Newfoundland and Labrador historic buildings. A “treenail” is essentially that, a nail made from a tree: a peg or tenon.  Devine’s Folklore of Newfoundland defines it as “Corruption of trenail: a wooden peg, a foot or so long, used for fastening ships' timber, wharf sticks, etc.”

The use of wood as a fastener can be traced back over 7,000 years, and archaeologists have found traces of wood nails in the excavation of early European sites. When settlers arrived in Newfoundland, they brought their knowledge of trunnels with them, and used them in both house and ship building.  The Slade and Kelson Diaries, Trinity, for Monday 16th, April 1832, reports that a leak in the Caroline was found to have been caused by a “trunnel vacuum” - a hole left where a trunnel should have been driven in. 

Treenails are cut from a single piece of wood, and used so that the grain of the treenail runs perpendicular to the grain of the receiving wood. This adds structural strength to the joint. Hardwoods were preferred, and when they couldn't be found in Newfoundland, they were imported, as the P. & L. Tessier advertisement below, from the Evening Herald of 1892-06-22, demonstrates:

Salvage Fisherman's Museum - the mystery of the missing chimney

 

We've been doing some research in Salvage, helping out the volunteers at the Fisherman's Museum (the old Lane/Heffern House) to better understand the history of their structure.

Pictured above is the remains of what was once a large stone chimney/fireplace. What is visible is the back wall of the chimney, and if you look at the top of the photo, you can see hole where the fireplace used to be. There is a very heavy wooden beam that runs from wall to wall in front of the opening, which indicates how far out the fireplace once went. 

 

Above is a view of the back small bedroom, where you can see the outline of the original chimney, intruding into the floorspace of the room. It tapers upwards toward the ceiling.

Last week, we were able to explore the building more fully, and I was able to get up into the attic of the building. There, one can see the remains of the top of the original chimney:

In the photo above, you can see the remaining back wall of the chimney. A blower vent had been installed at one point, and is no longer connected.

We were also able to crawl under the house, where the remains of the original chimney foundation are still visible. These are large stones, measuring about 1.5m from the back wall of the house, and about 2m wide. 

Looking at the remains of the chimney help us better understand the history of the Lane/Heffern House. We suspect the building was rebuilt/expanded in the 1880s or early 1890s, and the chimney may have been removed at that point. The height of the chimney suggests that the roofline was much lower at one point, possibly with the house being only 1.5 storeys high. Other physical evidence in the building suggests it also occupied a small footprint, and would have been a roughly square building, likely with one room centred around the large gable-end walk-in or "inglenook" chimney.  Originally, it may have looked something like the image below, taken from D.C. Beard's "Shelters, Shacks, & Shanties" published in 1914:

There are still a lot of questions to answer about the history of the house, including when and how it was originally constructed, and when it was modified and why. Stay tuned! If you have any information about the building, or memories of it before it was a turned into a museum in the 1960s, email research@heritagenl.ca or comment below. 

Living Heritage Podcast Ep196 - Roger Tinney, furniture maker

 

Roger Tinney is a furniture maker based in Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Originally from Prince Edward Island, Roger inherited some of his skill as a carpenter from his father and grandfather, and then expanded his knowledge of furniture-making after moving to British Columbia. We chat about family origins, working with wood, finishes, and the importance of whimsey!

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Living Heritage is about people who are engaged in the heritage and culture sector, from museum
professionals and archivists, to tradition bearers and craftspeople - all those who keep history alive at the
community level. The show is a partnership between HeritageNL and CHMR Radio.
Theme music is Rythme Gitan by Latché Swing.

Report on the 2020 Salvage People, Places, and Culture Workshop

Monday, 2 November 2020, the Town of Salvage hosted a “People, Places & Culture “Workshop, facilitated by Heritage NL. The event was attended by approximately 15-20 individuals from the community on the first night and 20-25 the following day, Tuesday, 3 November 2020, including some partner and governmental organizations.  

The workshop comprised two parts: I) a cultural mapping activity that considered the community’s tangible and intangible cultural assets and; II) a session to explore opportunities for protecting, safeguarding and developing these assets that included representation from stakeholders.  The latter activity involved the ranking of themes and clusters of cultural assets that emerged from the mapping session. 

This report is a summary of what was discussed, and includes a number of recommendations, resources, and links from HeritageNL.

You can view the full report here. 

Visiting the Burgess Property, Whiteway, Trinity Bay.

Burgess Fishing Stage

The Burgess Property is a collection of 6 buildings in Whiteway, NL, dating to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and was designated a Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in 2020. Built and operated by an unbroken line of Burgess family members over six generations, the cluster of closely spaced buildings are part of a single family enterprise. Their continuity helps to imbue a sense of how the property was inhabited and operated for more than 100 years, and the diversity of buildings speaks to the variety of functions and income sources of outport family premises.

We visited the site yesterday, and are working with the Burgess family to document and better understand the history of the premises. Stay tuned for more info and photos on this group of structures in the weeks to come!

Burgess Dwelling House

Burgess Stable/Store (left) and sawmill (right)