Two ICH Workshops - Pillow Tops and Memory Maps!

This November, the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador is offering two workshops related to intangible cultural heritage:

November 3, 2012 - Weaving in the Woods with Elizabeth Murphy
November 10, 2012 - Making Memory Map with Marlene Creates
Weaving in the Woods: Recreating a Lumberman’s Pastime with Elizabeth Murphy
Saturday, Nov. 3rd, 2012
1pm - 4pm
Cochrane Street United Church
Registration fee: $20
What are pillow tops? Woven with wool on wooden frames, these Newfoundland textiles were traditionally crafted by lumber camp workers to be gifted to their sweethearts or sewn onto pillows, used as throws or even placemats. Today this handcrafted tradition is being carried on by Elizabeth Murphy of the Burin Peninsula. She grew up in a house where crafting pillow tops was a winter pastime and learned to make them from her parents in the early 1960s. This is a skill which she has gone on to teach for several years.

Making Memory Maps with Marlene Creates
Saturday, Nov. 10th, 2012
1pm - 4pm
MMaP Gallery, Arts and Culture Centre
Registration fee: $20

Memory maps are subjective drawings based on personal experience in, and perception of, a specific lived place. This is a device Marlene Creates has used in her teaching and in her own artwork for over 30 years. Drawing memory maps can help you remember, record, interpret, investigate, and communicate both present and lost attributes of local places and everyday life –– ones not normally registered in the larger historical record. This is an excellent device to stimulate conversation for anyone doing oral history research.

For more information on both workshops please visit www.mun.ca/ich
Pre-registration is required for both workshops. To register, please contact:

Nicole Penney
Heritage Foundation Newfoundland and Labrador
nicole@heritagefoundation.ca709-739-1892 ext 6

From weaving in the woods to working high steel

In this month's edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador, folklorist Dale Jarvis gives an update on the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador's Avalon Folklore Project; news about two ICH workshops, one on making pillow tops and one on memory maps; Nicole Penney interviews Joe Lewis of Conception Harbour about working high steel; and an introduction to HFNL's newest staff person, Lisa Wilson.

Download the pdf

Every Building Implies a City, a talk by architect Bruce Kuwabara

Every building, whether consciously or unconsciously, embodies a vision of a city in an urbanizing world. The vitality of the city is dependent on what individual buildings and their programs contribute to the animation of streets and public spaces. The talk will focus on recently completed projects of KPMB Architects across Canada that expand on new strategies that will contribute to making better cities and communities.

Guest Speaker: Bruce Kuwabara
Topic: "Every Building Implies a City"
Location: Resource Centre for the Arts, LSPU Hall
Free Parking behind "Bluedrop Building" on Prescott Street

Date: Monday, October 22, 2012
Time: 7:00 p.m.
Free Admission, All Are Welcome, Reception to follow. 

Hosted by the Newfoundland and Labrador Association of Architects 

Mapping the legacy of resettlement in Arnold's Cove, Newfoundland

"Overall, some 307 communities were abandoned between 1946 and 1975, and over 28,000 people relocated. Captured in film, poetry, visual art and music, the response to resettlement was an important political thread in the province's cultural renaissance in the 1970s. The programme had a profound impact on the lives of those affected, and continues to resonate in the culture and collective psyche of the province today."

- excerpt from “No Great Future” Government Sponsored Resettlement

in Newfoundland and Labrador since Confederation

I had an interesting day today, with a trip out to Arnold's Cove to meet with representatives of the town's heritage committee. I was there to help provide some advice on project focus and preliminary project planning around a few ideas they have for future heritage projects.

I'm always encouraging communities to focus on projects that are somehow unique to their communities. One of the interesting facts that came out of today's meeting is that the town has a large number of buildings that were moved into the community from now abandoned Placentia Bay towns during the resettlement period.  A lot of communities in the province have resettled buildings, but the heritage committee has tentatively identified 71 houses still standing in Arnold's Cove, with a few additional buildings yet to be added to the list.  They are clustered, perhaps unsurprisingly, with people from the same home towns, with people setting up their houses in Arnold's Cove close to their original neighbours. You can see a rough version of a preliminary map above.

We are talking about setting up a public workshop in Arnold's Cove around the topic of mapping cultural resources, using this as a case study, and possibly incorporating features from of one of our old Google map workshops. Stay tuned! If you'd like to be involved in some way, you can drop me a line at ich@heritagefoundation.ca

Resettlement Links:

• “No Great Future” Government Sponsored Resettlement in Newfoundland and Labrador since Confederation
• The Resettlement Program - “Resettlement Now While Resettlement Pays”

Folklore Fieldwork Guide: Getting interesting answers

I had a meeting today with a group looking to collect some oral histories from its pioneer members. I told them about a video from Traditional Arts Indiana about getting interesting answers from your informants.

You can watch the video here:



In the same series is this video on structuring interview questions.

I like the topics-based approach taken in this second guide, where the suggestion is that an interview ask questions based on five topics:  beginnings;  community; aesthetics; process; and, creativity/traditionality. It is a good idea for people doing any kind of folklore interview related to traditional and contemporary craft or practice.

Exploring a historic well hidden underneath a St. John's home.

I've been working with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL) since 1996, for much of it involved with HFNL's work preserving and promoting the built heritage of the province. In that time, I've poked around in more basements and attics of historic properties than I could attempt to count. But today I saw something new, even for me.

A while back, I posted on my personal twitter account (@dalejarvis) a link to a news item from Devon, UK, where a man found a 33 foot deep medieval well underneath the floor of his living room.

I thought this was pretty neat, and then got an note from local real estate agent Janet Kovich (@J_Ko__) saying she had handled the sale a property in St. John's that had a well under its floor. I, of course, wanted to see, so she arranged with the owner for me to go take a peek.

I don't want to give out the street address of the property without permission from the owner, but the house is relatively new, I'd guess having been built in the 1970s or 1980s. It is a curious house,  constructed in the Tudor Revival style, with a central stone-faced tower and spiral staircase. The house was built in a section of the city that would have been on the outskirts of town in the early twentieth century, in farming country.

I arrived at the house, Janet meeting me there and bringing me down into the low, partially finished basement. We ducked our heads under beams, past the base of the central tower, and made our way to the corner of the basement. There, we found a large wooden cover about 8 feet square slightly raised from the level of the concrete floor. Workmen doing renovations on the house assisted by propping up the cover, giving us a clear look at the structure below.

Sure enough, it is a well, circular in shape, about 6 feet wide. The well is constructed with dry stone walls, several feet deep. It very clearly predates the house, and for some reason the original owner of the building had kept the well intact, instead of filling it in. At the bottom of the well is set what looks like a metal barrel or oil drum, filled with rubble or silt. I'm guessing that the drum had been placed inside the well at some point to keep the walls stable.

The well is filled close to the rim with water.  The workmen said the level of the water in the well had risen lately, as had the level of the water in the tiny brook that runs along the boundary line of the property.

I don't know much yet about the history of the property, but will post more later if I find out anything. I suspect there was an old house or barn near the site of the present house.

I'm always interested in hidden architectural gems and oddities like this. If you know of hidden wells or passages in or around St. John's, you can email me at ich@heritagefoundation.ca as I'm always up for an underground adventure! Have you seen something like this? Or have any theories on this one? Drop me a note!

Life in Public Folklore - talk with folklorist Dale Jarvis @MemorialU

Life in Public Folklore
Join folklorist Dale Jarvis, Intangible Cultural Heritage Development Officer for Newfoundland and Labrador as he gives a presentation on the work of public and applied folklore in the province. What does a public folklorist do all day? Come and find out!

12 noon
Tuesday, October 16th
ED4036

Education Building, Memorial University

St. John's, Newfoundland

Tea & Baskets with folklorist Dale Jarvis

Coffee and Culture - Tea & Baskets

The Rooms Theatre

October 11th, 2012
2:30pm

Baskets remind us of a simpler time when made many everyday objects by hand. Join folklorist Dale Jarvis for tea (or coffee) as he displays historic baskets from Mi'kmaw traditions to mill baskets and tells us about the people who used them.

Free with your admission to The Rooms (and of course, tea is included!)