Showing posts with label baskets. Show all posts
Showing posts with label baskets. Show all posts

Friday, January 27, 2023

Living Heritage Podcast Ep224 Mentor-Apprentice Program: Spruce Root Baskets with Eileen Murphy and Sandi Yates

Sandi Yates and Eileen Murphy. Sandi is holding her spruce root basket.
Photo courtesy of Eileen Murphy. 
In this episode we talk with mentor Eileen, and apprentice Sandi who are two participants of Heritage NL’s Mentor-Apprentice Program. Eileen has been making spruce root baskets for 41 years and has both taught and demonstrated at workshops, festivals, in school settings, and with individuals. Mr. Anthony White from Shallop Cove, Bay St. George, was Eileen’s instructor and mentor. Sandi has experience weaving branches into tension baskets and also composes large scale sculptures using driftwood, seasoned birch and discarded found objects. Sandi is currently studying Fine Art through Memorial University: Grenfell Campus and works in the craft industry seasonally. She produces mixed media artworks about NL.

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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.


Friday, November 27, 2020

Living Heritage Podcast Ep195 Making Spruce Root Baskets


The weaving of traditional baskets using spruce roots is an Indigenous artform with a long and complex history. Renowned Mik'maq basket maker Anthony White, together with his son Danny, have been credited with reviving the tradition of Mi'kmaq spruce root basket weaving in Newfoundland. We look back at a 1981 recording of the Whites making baskets, and then features interviews with educator Eileen Murphy about the legacy of Mr. White, and with Jane Daly and her memories of her step-father, the west-coast basket maker Edward Young. 

Photo: A  round spruce root basket with diamond wrapped ears made by Anthony White of Bay St. George. Constructed c1960. Photo by Nicole Penney, 2012. 



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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.

Thursday, May 7, 2020

Wicker work and woven furniture in Newfoundland - Have you seen a chair like this?

I've been scanning some photos from North River and Halls Town in Conception Bay, as part of an ongoing project we have there. If you are on Facebook,  you can look at all those photos in the North River Halls Town Memories group.

One of the photos is scanned from a slide from the Baccalieu Trail Heritage Corporation, circa 1994. I have no information for it, but am assuming it came out of a house in North River, and was photographed when the Heritage Corp was doing heritage inventory work there in the 1990s. It shows a wicker rocking chair, painted white. I don't know if it was made locally or imported, but I'd love to have more information on it, or pieces like it.



Back in 2012, I photographed the woven bassinet below, owned by the Barnable family. It was purchased in 1959, and was made as part of a craft training program run by the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB). You can see more on that here.



If you have any pieces of Newfoundland (or Labrador) made woven furniture or basketry, or if these spark a memory for you, email me at dale@heritagenl.ca or comment below.

Friday, April 24, 2020

Basketry Summer School in the 1930s - Musgravetown and Bonavista

I recently came across the following photographs in Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative (DAI).  The first two are from Musgravetown, presumably in 1937. The photos are from the H.M. Dawe Photograph Collection of the United Church of Canada - Newfoundland Conference Archives.




The third photo is from Bonavista, taken two years previously. The photo is from the Maritime History Archive - Forbes Family Photograph Collection.




I'm not certain, but I suspect the Summer School in question was a training program for Newfoundland teachers, where they could acquire skills to take back to their classrooms in September.  Support for this comes from a clipping from the Western Star, 1936-05-06:



If you have information on this program or similar schemes to teach basketry skills in Newfoundland and Labrador, or photos of any baskets that might have been produced in this way, email dale@heritagenl.ca 

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Tuesday's Folklore Photos - The Trefoil Guild

Participants of the last presentation of the day.
Today’s Tuesday Folklore photos come from the Girl Guides of Canada’s 2016 National Trefoil Guild Gathering. The gathering took place at Memorial University from June 15th-19th. The opening ceremonies were held on Wednesday and there were workshops, and lectures on Thursday.

The Trefoil Guilds are found across Canada and are groups for active or retired Guiders aged 30 years and older who want to stay in involved with Girl Guides. If you would like to learn more about the Trefoil Guild listen to Dale’s interview with Pat Burton as part of the Living Heritage Podcast.

On Tuesday morning Dale emailed me to ask if I would be able to give 4 presentations of an hour and fifteen minutes at the Trefoil Guild’s gathering. Due to the weather on the coast of Labrador he was stuck in Makkovik at the Nunatsiavut Heritage Forum for longer than anticipated and he wouldn’t make it back in time.
My kind of event - folklore, basket making, and rug hooking all on one floor!
I spent most of Tuesday pulling together a presentation on Newfoundland and Labrador History and Folklore and Thursday morning I headed to the university to present to the Guiders. There were workshops on rug hooking and pillow tops, square dancing and basket making, as well as healthy habits and computer techniques.

I gave a brief overview of Newfoundland and Labrador history and then moved into the basics of folklore, forms of folklore practised in the province, who the Heritage Foundation is as well as some of the programs the Foundation offers. As a long-time (19 years!) Guider myself I finished the talk by discusses how forms of folklore can be found in guiding through ghost stories, camping tales, adapting songs to fit the guiding program, and spontaneously making up new verses for songs. It was a long day of presentations but the lovely women I met made it most enjoyable!

~Terra Barrett

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Videos on Mi'kmaw basket making


Photo: A round spruce root basket with diamond wrapped ears made by Anthony White of Bay St. George. Constructed c1960.


I got a call today, from a woman in St. George's looking for information on where she could find a copy of a video called "Making Spruce Root Baskets." The video was made in 1981 by the Memorial University of Newfoundland "Traces" project. This video focuses on Mik'maw spruce root basket making, in particular basket maker Anthony White. The video shows White collecting spruce roots, peeling and splitting the roots, collecting wild raisin and finally weaving the basket.

That video is on Memorial University's Digital Archive Initiative, here.

Another video we came across while doing research on Mik'maw basket making is this one, featuring Cape Breton elder Rita Smith, which we posted with permission of her family. It shows the process of ash basket making, which was a type of basket made in the Maritime provinces, and then traded by Mik'maw basket sellers, who travelled from community to community by train in Newfoundland.


Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Tuesday's Folklore Photo: English Picnic Baskets


A woven basket owned by Neal Wells of Grand Falls-Windsor
A woven basket owned by Patricia Mchuge of Grand Falls-Windsor
Last year the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office undertook a collection project focused on basket making in this province. We documented several basket styles, including what we believe to be two English picnic baskets. Beyond that we know very little about these baskets and would like to figure out exactly what they are woven from. We suspect the baskets to be made of willow, as this is a very common material used by English basket makers. Also, both these baskets seem to constructed using the randing weave, which is a common style of English willow weaving.

If you happen to have any idea what these baskets are made of  please get in touch with the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office, we'd love to hear from you! Contact Nicole at 1-888-739-1892 ex.6 or email at nicole@heritagefoundation.ca 



Wednesday, May 30, 2012

A 1950s trout basket, bought on Water Street, St. John's.


I couple days ago, I got an email from Leslie (Les) Winsor, of Mount Pearl. He had seen some of my posts about the basket research we were doing, and had a trouting basket to share.

Les's father Francis (Frank) was from Central Street, his father before him from Carbonear. Les didn't have a lot of information on where the basket originated. It was probably bought in the late 1940s or early 1950s at the Sports Shop on Water Street, one of the few places to buy that type of equipment, according to Les.

If you know anything about this type of basket, or have a memory of buying one on Water Street, email me at ich@heritagefoundation.ca







Sunday, May 20, 2012

Just in time for Victoria Day Weekend: A Newfoundland trout basket





This year, we've been doing some research on basket making traditions, and yesterday, I got an email from Dan Mercer, who was looking for someone to repair his father's old trout basket.

The basket was purchased from Leckie's LTD here in St John's "in the very early 1970s."



The basket is fairly typical of other designs I've seen, such as this one from Tor's Cove, this one from Flat Bay, and this one from Pouch Cove.

Dan says he's used the basket for many years, and it is now in need of some repair work. If you have any leads on who might be able to do that sort of work, email me at ich@heritagefoundation.ca.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

In which a folklorist develops a fondness for vinyl siding.


In the heritage community in Newfoundland and Labrador, the general consensus is as follows: Vinyl Bad; Wood Good. We've seen a lot of fabulous heritage buildings in the province covered up with vinyl, resulting in a loss of heritage character and fine wooden detailing. Vinyl, to some architectural historians anyway, is The Enemy.

For every rule, there is an exception.  Today I opened an email from librarian Beverly Warford to find some pictures of vinyl siding that made me squeal with folkloric excitement. Yes. You read that right.

One of the things I love most about intangible cultural heritage is that it is in a constant state of evolution. Culture is not static; it is ever-changing. People adapt to changing times and materials, constantly. This is as true now as it was in the historical period. As a folklorist, it means there is always something new for me to study.

Over the past few months, followers of the ICH blog will know that we've been working on a project to highlight basket making traditions. In a sense, the culture of basket making in Newfoundland and Labrador is one of innovation. Mi'kmaw basket makers in Newfoundland were influenced by mainland Mi'kmaq, who in turn had been influenced by European settlers, as well as Black Loyalist and freed slave basket makers working out of African traditions. Mill workers in Corner Brook, Grand Falls-Windsor and other towns took English and American style baskets and made them their own, utilizing local materials. Inuit grass basket makers in Labrador were possibly influenced by Moravian craft traditions. The list goes on.

Mill lunch baskets were primarily made of woven wood, quite often birch, but Newfoundlanders, being Newfoundlanders, got creative with the materials they used. Once plastic salt-beef buckets were introduced in the later half of the 20th century, craftsmen started to cut strips of plastic for weaving. Others broke down hockey sticks to get the wood they needed.

And in the community of Pleasantview, near Point Leamington, the late Mr. Herbert Brett started using vinyl siding. His son, Rick, also carried on the tradition for a short time.

Mr. Brett's lunch basket is very similar in style to the wooden lunch baskets made by other Central Newfoundland basket makers like Angus Gunn and Alfred Menchenton, with the same curved wooden handles and hinged wooden lid. But instead of the baskets being fully wooden, Brett cut up different coloured vinyl siding into strips to weave the sides of the baskets, making baskets in a variety of styles: lunch baskets, round baskets, picnic baskets, even Easter baskets. We'll be adding all of these to our basket collection on Memorial University's Digital Archives Initiative. But for now, here are a few samples, with thanks to Bev and the Brett/Stuckless family for sharing! Love it or hate it, you'll never look at vinyl siding the same way again.













Sunday, March 25, 2012

Take a peek inside a Newfoundland mill worker's lunch basket.

"You would never go into another man's lunch basket."

It was a refrain we've heard more than a few times over the past few weeks from current and retired mill workers from Corner Brook to Grand Falls-Windsor. Lunch baskets were not something you would poke around inside, certainly not without the owner's permission. Doing so wasn't just considered rude; it could lead to blows if you were not careful.

This afternoon we hosted the second of our Tea 'n' Baskets events, with today's workshop taking place at the Mount Peyton Hotel in Grand Falls-Windsor. It was a great success, with lots of baskets, and lots of public sharing of memories and stories.

On this occasion, we were allowed to take a look inside the baskets, and indeed, people were delighted to let us do so. A couple folks went to the trouble of packing a lunch, wrapped up in what were known as "samples" - the ends of paper that men would take home from the mill.  I was even lucky enough to be given a bottle of moose by Mr Dave Peddle.

So have a peek below at what's inside a mill worker's lunch basket. Some are full, some are empty, but they each tell a story. Keep your hands off the moose, though, unless you are looking for a scrap. That's mine.







Saturday, March 24, 2012

Meeting Mr. Menchenton, Norris Arm basket maker


One of the interesting parts of the research we've been doing on baskets and basket makers is getting to know more about the real men and women behind the baskets.  Here in Grand Falls-Windsor, we've learned about basket makers like Angus Gunn and Everett Janes, and this week, we met the daughter of Mr. Alfred Menchenton.

Alfred Menchenton was a name we'd come across before, and we even have one of his baskets already documented on Memorial University's Digital Archive Initiative (DAI). He was a jack-of-all trades: a woodsman, a carpenter, a builder of logging camps, model-maker, and a prolific crafter of lunch baskets for workers at the mill in Grand Falls.

In the September/October edition of "The Rounder" for 1981, reporter Glen Fiztpatrick wrote, "Over the past couple of years, Mr. Menchenton has become an expert. He made 250 baskets last year and sold them all and could have sold more if the time was available to make them."

The same reporter had found Mr. Menchenton's baskets in the Grand Falls tourist chalet, and had gone looking for the creator. He tracked him down at his shed in Norris Arm North.

"He was in the process of preparing the long narrow strips of birch and pine which were hung along the walls, in readiness to be made into baskets later this winter," wrote Fitzpatrick. "His equipment included an electric table saw and an electric planer, necessities, he said, to produce the smooth strips used to construct the sides. He assembled the saw himself, building the table in which it was placed, and bought the planer second hand."

Over thirty years later, Mr Menchenton is no longer with us. But his daughter and her husband drove us out to that same shed, and there, untouched, was the scene as the reporter had described it. All his tools were still in place, and pieces cut out, ready to make a new basket. Strips of wood were fixed into a form to provide the curve needed for basket ends and handles.  The table saw he built was still sitting inside the door, and the walls were festooned with tools, jigs, pieces of wood, and the snowshoes he had also apparently been adept at creating. One expected Mr. Menchenton himself to walk in, and pick up his work where he had left off.

Mr. Menchenton won't be about our Tea 'n' Baskets event tomorrow at the Mount Peyton Hotel in Grand Falls-Windsor, where we are inviting owners of baskets to come, show, and tell about their histories. Even though he won't be there, we are hoping some of his baskets will be.










Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Cape Breton Mi'kmaw elder Margaret Pelletier on the Spirit of Basket Weaving







"I think with me, there is a spirit within me that makes the basket. I always told my mother that. It's like I can make the basket, I'm just the physical form. You probably feel like that if you are a basket weaver. You are just the physical form that is there, but you have to have that spirit within you that moves your hands and makes the basket, and you're not actually making it yourself. And I think if we had more people that felt like that, I think we'd have so many basket weavers. But I really would like to increase as many basket weavers as we could, because it is really such a fine art, and it is so nice to do."

 - Clip from an interview with Margaret (Margie) Pelletier, a Mi'kmaw elder and basket maker from Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada. Recorded at Grenfell Campus, Memorial University, Corner Brook, Newfoundland, Canada, on 17 March 2012 by Dale Jarvis.


Monday, March 19, 2012

Mr Roy Oke's Baskets, Corner Brook, Newfoundland


A photo of Mr. Roy Oke, retired millwright, Corner Brook, circa 1980s, with his mill lunch basket under his arm, carried the traditional way men would carry their lunch baskets. This was Mr Oke's second basket, which he purchased for $15 from a man from Humbermouth. His previous basket, with a fully woven bottom, had started to wear out, so he bought this second basket, which had a wooden base. More photos below, including folklore co-op student Nicole Penney posing with Mr Oke's daughter, Paula Price.




ICH Roadtrip Day 3 - A Corner Brook Mill Recitation by Terry Penney


Yesterday was the first of our two "Tea 'n' Baskets" events, where we invite owners of traditional mill lunch baskets to come out and share their stories.  One of the participants was Mr Terry Penney, who brought along a vintage mill lunch basket (which he still uses to carry his lunch).  Mr Penney also shared a recitation he wrote, entitled "Continuous Production." Give it a listen!

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Tea 'n' Baskets today in Corner Brook! Bring your mill basket, we'll bring the tea.



Today, Sunday, March 18th from 1-3pm at the Glynmill Inn, Corner Brook, HFNL will be hosting an event called “Tea ‘n’ Baskets”. This event is an opportunity for those who still have mill lunch baskets to come out and show your basket and share your memories. 


Bring your basket, we’ll provide the refreshments! HFNL staff will be on hand to photograph mill baskets, to become part of an educational website.

ICH Roadtrip Day 2 - Baskets and more baskets!


Day 2 - Corner Brook

We had a day full of baskets and interviews. Nicole Penney did two interviews in the morning, one on a fabulous Mi'kmaw storage basket, and one on a mill basket. Then we headed off to the NL Emporium, who had a fantastic selection of mill baskets (some shown above), root baskets, ash baskets and even Labrador grasswork.

Last night we held our public symposium on traditional basket making, "Rooted In Tradition," with local basket makers Eileen Murphy and Helge Gillard, and visiting Nova Scotia elders Della Mcguire and Margie Pelletier. We had a fantastic session, and then Della and Margie showed the crowd the baskets they've been working on with local aboriginal women.

We've got hundreds of photos, lots of great audio, and hopefully some video that we'll be posting once we are back in St. John's. Stay tuned.

Today is the first of our "Tea 'n' Baskets" events, at the Glynmill in Corner Brook, where we are inviting people with mill baskets to come, share stories, and have their baskets photographed for Memorial's Digital Archives Initiative ICH collection.

Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Wooden Baskets, Tin Grave Markers, and Steam Whistles


In the March 2012 edition of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Update for Newfoundland and Labrador: we announce workshops on oral history and folklore interviewing in Corner Brook and Grand Falls-Windsor; a public lecture on Acadian and Mi'kmaw basketry; an unusual tin grave marker from Bonavista Bay; and a research project on the Corner Brook mill whistle.

Contributions by Dale Jarvis, Nicole Penney, Patrick Carroll and Janice Tulk.

Download the PDF

More photos of tin grave markers here

Rooted In History: The Tradition of Acadian and Mi’kmaw Basketry



Saturday, March 17, 2012
7pm
Arts and Science building, Room 379
Grenfell College


In Newfoundland and Labrador traditionally-made baskets come in many shapes, sizes and styles and can be crafted from a variety of materials. On the west and south coasts of Newfoundland, traditions included Acadian and Mi’kmaw style baskets.

“Baskets once served a very utilitarian role in the province, used for carrying items such as fish, potatoes, eggs and berries,” says Dale Jarvis, a folklorist with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL).

To celebrate that history, the Heritage Foundation is organizing a public talk around the tradition of basket making.

On Saturday, March 17th, at Grenfell College in Corner Brook, HFNL will be hosting a special talk and presentation on Mi'kmaw and Acadian spruce root and ash baskets, with visiting Mi’kmaw elders Margaret Pelletier and Della Maguire, traditional ash basket makers from Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland basket makers Eileen Murphy and Helga Gillard.

The talk will take place from 7-9pm in the Arts and Science building, Room 379, Grenfell College.

Margaret Pelletier was born on the Waycobah First Nation in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Basket weaving has always been a part of her life for as long as she can remember. As a child, Pelletier helped make baskets as a source of income to help support her family. At the age of 18, she entered nursing school in Sydney, NS and three years later started a career as a nurse. Pelletier joined the Maine Basket Maker’s Alliance as a board member which caused her to begin thinking about basket making as a fine art.Throughout the next 20 years, basket and quill work became a hobby for Pelletier, who enjoys creating one of a kind works of art. The natural materials vary in color and texture and Pelletier does the weaving free hand without the use of molds. Her baskets are woven with black ash splints, decorated with curlique designs, and are finished with braided sweet grass. As each basket is delicately woven, each piece takes its place as part of a unique creation made up of intricate designs and artistic forms.

Della Maguire is of First Nation’s Mi’kmaq ancestry and grew up in a home of constant basket making. Her parents Abe and Rita Smith were known as the finest Mi'kmaq basket-making team in Nova Scotia. Unfortunately, she was not part of that process, as watching her parents making baskets seemed to her 'just a part of life' and never once did she realize that their basket making was a cultural form of art. Upon retiring in 2006, Maguire took part in a basket-making workshop and soon realized this was something she needed to pursue. She has taken the art of basket making very seriously and spends her time trying to improve with each basket. Maguire is passing down her skills to her grand-daughters,as she believes it is her duty to continue learning and honing her skills and to share this valuable cultural art. In 2011 she received a grant from Canada Council of the Arts to enhance her skills and currently teaches the craft through workshops of her own.

Eileen Murphy was first introduced to basket making when she attended a class instructed by Mr. Anthony White in 1980. At the time he had been asked to instruct a few students from the new Visual Arts Program, at what was then called the Bay St. George Community College in Stephenville, on the techniques he used in spruce root basket making. Murphy, who is from and still resides on the west coast, enjoys a career as an art educator, teaching for both the local school district and at the Grenfell campus of Memorial University. Her interests surround the fine arts and she enjoys painting and drawing. Textile art is a particular favorite, and Murphy has been weaving baskets from roots, twigs, branches, grasses, vines for the past 32 years. Her interests surround the fine arts and she has spent most of her life surrounded by artisans and crafts persons. Murphy particularly enjoys the traditional arts and crafts of Newfoundland and Labrador.

Helga Gillard grew up and was educated in Englee, White Bay and was the fifth of six children. She went on to attend Memorial University and received a Bachelor of Arts/Ed. Gillard is now retired and living in Main Brook with her husband. Gillard’s interest in baskets was intrigued by locally made birch plaited baskets that were in her home growing up. She is a self taught basket maker, supplemented by basketry workshops held in various Atlantic provinces and interactions with other skilled basket makers. Gillard and has been making baskets since 1988 and joined the Nova Scotia Basketry Guild in 1999. While Gillard has woven many styles of baskets, her primary focus is on rib and split baskets. She also has a keen interest in utilizing materials from her natural environment, such as spruce root and red osier dogwood.

HFNL’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program was created to celebrate, record, and promote our living heritage and help to build bridges between diverse cultural groups within and outside Newfoundland and Labrador.

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For information contact:
Nicole Penney
ichprograms@gmail.com
Telephone: 709-739-1892 ext 3
http://www.mun.ca/ich/events/

Monday, March 12, 2012

Two Corner Brook events celebrate the history of basketmaking


In Newfoundland and Labrador traditionally-made baskets came in many shapes, sizes and styles and can be crafted from a variety of materials. On the west coast, traditions included Acadian and Mi’kmaw style root baskets, and the popular mill lunch baskets.

“Baskets once served a very utilitarian role in the province, used for carrying items such as fish, potatoes, eggs and berries,” says Dale Jarvis, a folklorist with the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador (HFNL). “Mill lunch baskets were once so popular nearly every pulp and paper mill worker in Newfoundland used one to bring hot meals to work.”

To celebrate that history, the Heritage Foundation is organising a series of events around the tradition of basket making in Newfoundland.

On Saturday, March 17th, at Grenfell College in Corner Brook, HFNL will be hosting a special talk and presentation on Mi'kmaw and Acadian spruce root and ash baskets, with local and visiting experts, including Mi’kmaw elders Margaret Pelletier and Della Maguire, traditional ash basket makers from Nova Scotia. The talk will take place from 7-9pm in the Arts and Science building, Room 379, Grenfell College.

On Sunday, March 18th from 1-3pm at the Glynmill Inn, Corner Brook and Sunday, HFNL will be hosting an event called “Tea ‘n’ Baskets”. This event is an opportunity for those who still have mill lunch baskets to come out and show your basket and share your memories. Bring your basket, we’ll provide the refreshments! HFNL staff will be on hand to photograph mill baskets, to become part of an educational website.

HFNL’s Intangible Cultural Heritage program was created to celebrate, record, and promote our living heritage and help to build bridges between diverse cultural groups within and outside Newfoundland and Labrador.