#FoodwaysFriday - How do you fence your garden?

Beach and gardens in Oliver's Cove, Tilting.
Photo by Gerald Pocius, 1989.

When we discuss foodways of Newfoundland and Labrador the first food that often comes to mind is the codfish. Cod has played a major role in everything from the province’s economy to its culture. It is featured in many traditional dishes however it is not the only food tradition in the province. Seafood and fish, caribou, seal, sea birds, berries, root vegetables, and imported products such as molasses and tin milk all play a part in the province’s food traditions. In celebration of the diverse foods harvested, grown, cooked, and eaten in Newfoundland and Labrador we will be doing a #FoodwaysFriday feature on the ICH Blog.

This week we are featuring a series of photos taken by Dr. Gerald Pocius in Oliver’s Cove, Tilting in 1989. The photos are of the gardens and picket fences found in the now abandoned community. Oliver’s Cove was once inhabited by William and James Hurley and their families but no houses exist there today, instead, you will find fenced gardens, root cellars, and a hay house (Mellin, Robert. 2008. Tilting.).

Looking over these photos of these fenced-in potato and cabbage gardens reminded me of this great video titled Wrigglin’ fence done by the MUN extension service in 1977. In the short film the Paddy Brothers of Port Kirwan build a traditional wrigglin' or riddle fence around their garden.

If you want to learn more about fence styles in Newfoundland and Labrador check out this document from the Heritage Foundation which features paling, longer, picket, wriggle/riddle, and wattle fences. Or if you want to see the full photo collection from Dr. Pocius on Memorial's Digital Archives click here!

Let us know how you fence your garden!

Share your stories and knowledge of food with the hashtag #FoodwaysFriday.

Cabbage growing in Oliver's Cove, Tilting.
Photo by Gerald Pocius, 1989.

~Terra Barrett

#FoodwaysFriday - Goats Galore

Trinity. Goat cart. (30 01 078) Rev. Edwin Hunt Photographs - Trinity.
Geography Collection - Historical Photographs of Newfoundland and Labrador on DAI.

When we discuss foodways of Newfoundland and Labrador the first food that often comes to mind is the codfish. Cod has played a major role in everything from the province’s economy to its culture. It is featured in many traditional dishes however it is not the only food tradition in the province. Seafood and fish, caribou, seal, sea birds, berries, root vegetables, and imported products such as molasses and tin milk all play a part in the province’s food traditions. In celebration of the diverse foods harvested, grown, cooked, and eaten in Newfoundland and Labrador we will be doing a #FoodwaysFriday feature on the ICH Blog.

This week we are featuring an interview from the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation interviews in 2005 with Mr. Carl Smith of Hant’s Harbour. In this video interview Mr. Smith talks about growing up in Hant’s Harbour, the games he played, going to school, and the traditional work in the area. He also discusses picking berries and growing vegetables. Tune in around 24:00 minutes to listen to Mr. Smith talk about keeping goats and telling the story of his sister’s surprise when she noticed the goats were missing only to be told they had eaten them!

If you want to learn more about Mr. Carl Smith’s life in Hant’s Harbour click here to watch the full interview!

Have you kept goats? What are you memories about keeping them?

Share your stories and knowledge of food with the hashtag #FoodwaysFriday.

~Terra Barrett

#FoodwaysFriday - What is your favourite game meat?

Assorted meat pies from Bidgoods Grocery Store in the Goulds. Photo by Sharna Brzycki.

When we discuss foodways of Newfoundland and Labrador the first food that often comes to mind is the codfish. Cod has played a major role in everything from the province’s economy to its culture. It is featured in many traditional dishes however it is not the only food tradition in the province. Seafood and fish, caribou, seal, sea birds, berries, root vegetables, and imported products such as molasses and tin milk all play a part in the province’s food traditions. In celebration of the diverse foods harvested, grown, cooked, and eaten in Newfoundland and Labrador we will be doing a #FoodwaysFriday feature on the ICH Blog.

This week we are featuring an interview from 1986 with Mr. Arthur Boyd. Mr. Boyd was 81 years old at the time radio broadcaster, Hiram Silk, interviewed him about growing up in the area of Little Bay Islands and Petries where he was born. Mr. Boyd discusses hunting rabbits and caribou, farming and selling veggies by the barrel and pound in Little Bay – potatoes, turnips, cabbage, the whole works.

If you want to learn more about the area of Little Bay click here to listen to the full interview!

What is your favourite game meat? Are you setting potatoes this year?

Share your stories and knowledge of food with the hashtag #FoodwaysFriday.

~Terra Barrett

#CollectiveMemories Roadtrip to St. Lawrence

Terra Barrett and Kelly Drover with the material to be digitized!

Last Thursday Dale, Kelly and I took a drive down the Burin Peninsula to meet with the St. Lawrence Historical Advisory Committee. When we arrived on Thursday afternoon we stopped in to their office in the town hall where we sorted through the material they needed digitized. We ended up taking 20 VHS, 21 CDs and DVDs, 4 cassettes, 4 Kodak slide carousels filled with slides and a small box of assorted slides. This material will be digitized over the next little while and will certainly keep Kelly busy. After this successful visit we drove to Burin in order to take a couple of photos of the designated buildings in the community. We also stopped in to the Heritage Café for a delicious supper.

Public meeting on oral history projects.

In the evening we met with community members in the St. Lawrence Public Library in order to discuss how to do an oral history project. Dale gave an introduction to oral history interviewing including how to focus the interview, reasons to conduct an informal “pre-interview” and the sort of questions to ask. We also ran through the basics of consent forms and how to process the material once you collect it. This included an explanation of tape logs and suggestions of ways to use the material such as booklets, audio clips, etc.

ThérèseSlaney and Dale Jarvis.

Reviewing Herb Slaney's plans.

The following morning we had an interview with Thérèse Slaney about growing up in St. Pierre, her move to St. Lawrence and marriage to Herb Slaney, a description of the first autopsy performed in the community and its importance to miners, an explanation of how the tradition of Mardi Gras started in St. Lawrence, and her husband Herb’s work engineering the cross and grotto in the community. Thérèse was a wonderful woman to chat with and described delicious French foods over a cup a tea in her kitchen.

St. Lawrence's grotto.

The cross in St. Cecilia Roman Catholic Cemetery.

After our interview with Therese we had a look at the community’s grotto and cross engineered by Herb Slaney and visited a couple of graveyards. Our last stop on the drive back to St. John’s was to the community of Petite Forte to photograph another designated building and take a look at the beautiful harbour. All in all a very successful trip to the Burin Peninsula!

Petite Forte

~Terra Barrett

Boxes Under the Bed? Digitization and Oral History

Grand Falls-Windsor Oral History Collection

Have an oral history collection you don’t know what to do with?  Need help digitizing these collections?
The Heritage Foundation is looking to help you out!

Maybe they’re in your storage room, or in your bottom desk drawer – those shoeboxes of cassettes, CDs or reel to reel tapes that were collected by a summer project, seniors’ group or JCP worker. These were the recordings that were going to preserve the voices of the past – but here they sit with no voice at all! You don’t know what’s on the recordings, you don’t know much about who made them – maybe you don’t even have the equipment to play them!

As part of the Collective Memories project the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador is looking to help community organizations, municipalities, and church groups digitize their oral history collections to make them accessible for future generations. Collected stories will be made available through Memorial University’s Digital Archives Initiative, which is a free, public website where the HFNL stores the photos, videos, and interviews it collects.

The Collective Memories project is part of HFNL’s ongoing Intangible Cultural Heritage program. The program works to safeguard the living heritage of the province for present and future generations everywhere, as a vital part of the identities of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, and as a valuable collection of unique knowledge and customs.

The Heritage Foundation has worked with several groups around the province to help digitize their collections. This includes the School of Nursing, and Grand Falls-Windsor’s Hiram Silk Collection. Keep your eye on Memorial University’s DAI for the Cape Race and Grand Falls-Windsor collections which are coming soon!

How can you access to those voices from the past? How can you preserve and use them? Contact the Heritage Foundation! If you would like more information on how your group can get involved please contact Terra Barrett toll free at 1-888-739-1892 ext. 6 or terra@heritagefoundation.ca.

~Terra Barrett

Thanks for a summer filled with meals of lobsters and glasses of slush!

Petty Harbour

Things have finally settled down (a little) so I wanted to stop in and make a final blog post to say thanks! Since I last wrote on the blog I finished my job with the heritage foundation, took a quick trip out to the west coast of the island, attended the fishing for folklore workshop, headed to Witless Bay for field school, and am currently making my way through courses at MUN.

My summer job as a heritage intern with the Heritage Foundation was definitely one of the highlights of my summer! The Oral History Project in Petty Harbour-Maddox Cove taught me a great deal about interviewing, photography, working with the media, metadata, and much more.

As a heritage intern I had the opportunity to assist with cemetery clean ups, gravestone rubbing workshops, and heritage district plaque ceremonies. I was able to interview a number of people from Petty Harbour about the community's social events such as card games, community concerts, and garden parties. I also learned about growing up in Petty Harbour and the children's games played in the area (pidley, rounders). I was told stories about folk beliefs and instructed not to whistle on the water, turn against the sun, or have the gangboards turned over in the boat. I was given meals of lobsters and glasses of slush, I attended community breakfasts, and met wonderful people. I would like to send out a huge thank you to everyone in the community who took the time to talk to me, send pictures or plays, stopped by the oral history booth, sourced out potential interviewees, and all in all made me feel like a part of the community.

If you would like to listen to the interviews from the Petty Harbour Oral History Project check out MUN's DAI. Here you will find links to the interviews and accompanying pictures of the lovely people I had the opportunity to meet. There are still a handful of interviews to be processed by the DAI so check back for more interviews at a later date. Also if you would like to learn more about the community events found in Petty Harbour there is a small article in the ICH Update for July 2014.

Last but not least I would like to thank everyone at the Heritage Foundation, particularly Dale and Lisa in the ICH Office for a fantastic summer!

In closing I've added a short video of Petty Harbour resident (and my uncle) Gordy Doyle doing a recitation of the Smokeroom on the Kyle.

Thanks,
Terra

P.S. Thanks to Lisa for suggesting I turn the recitation into a short video!

Tuesday’s Folklore Photo - Food Fishery

Courtesy of MUN`s Digital Archives Initiative

Today’s folklore photo is a photo of freshly caught cod being processed in Quidi Vidi during the food fishery. This picture was taken by folklore student Christine Blythe during the folklore field school in the fall of 2013.

I managed to get out on the water over the weekend and I figured this would be an appropriate photo given the ongoing food fishery. The fishery is open until August 10 and opens again September 20 to the 28.

Do you participate in the food fishery? Have you been out yet the year? Did you catch anything? Let us know in the comments below!

Bonus photo:

Breakfast is served!

Here is a picture of the lovely breakfast I was graciously served – including the freshly caught cod tongues and britches seen in the upper left hand corner.

Tuesday Folklore Photo: A Short Film about MUN's Folklore and Language Archive

Host Rob Pitt interviews archivist Peter Narvaez and assistant archivist Philip Hiscock of the Folklore Archive of Memorial University of Newfoundland about the archive and its collections. Created in 1983, this short film was created Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador's Education Television Centre.