Friday, October 7, 2016

Booklet Launch - Memories of City of St. John’s Volunteers

City of St. John's Volunteers and Heritage Foundation employees.
Booklet Launch - Memories of City of St. John’s Volunteers
The Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador and the City of St. John’s Community Services Department present a booklet launch at the Public Council Meeting in the Foran Green Room, St. John’s City Hall on Tuesday October 11, 2016 from 4:30-5:00pm.

A Life-Changing Experience: Memories of City of St. John’s Volunteers is the first booklet in the Collective Memories Series produced by the Heritage Foundation. This booklet focuses on the experience of five City of St. John’s volunteers and their reflections and advice on volunteering in the community.

“This is an excellent opportunity to showcase some of the City of St. John’s volunteers, and to learn from their experience,” says the foundation’s folklorist Dale Jarvis. “If you are interested in learning more about volunteering this booklet is a wonderful little resource.”

The volunteer booklet is part of the foundation’s Collective Memories Project. This project is an initiative of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Office of the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador, with funding provided by the Department of Children, Seniors, and Social Development. The Collective Memories Project invites seniors to record their stories and memories for sharing.

The booklet launch is open to the public and there will be copies of the booklet available at the launch as well as a PDF version which will be placed online. For more information on the booklet launch or for information on how your community can get involved with the Collective Memories Project please go to www.collectivememories.ca or call Terra Barrett at 1-888-739-1892 ext. 5.

Thursday, October 6, 2016

Living Heritage Podcast Ep056 Nurturing Tomorrow’s Cultural Custodians



Sarah Wade has worked for the Museum Association of Newfoundland and Labrador (MANL) since June 2011. Prior to working at MANL, Sarah attended Memorial University of Newfoundland where she received a Bachelor of Arts with a double major in Archaeology and History in 2009. Sarah also obtained an Honours Diploma in Advanced Museum Studies from Algonquin College in Ottawa, Ontario in June 2011. Sarah is also an active member with Youth Heritage Newfoundland Labrador, a group that works to create a network for youth and heritage professionals within the province.

In this episode of the Living Heritage Podcast, Sarah talks about how young people can start to develop a career in heritage through education and volunteerism, the importance of employers developing meaningful internship opportunities, networking, the role and mission of Youth Heritage NL the youth mentorship speed-dating model, how institutions can better utilize the skills of youth, social media, and workshop opportunities.

Tuesday, October 4, 2016

Folklorists Dale Jarvis and Kristin Catherwood on the SaskScapes Podcast


I'm just back from a great two-week trip to Saskatchewan, teaching workshops and giving lectures on intangible cultural heritage.

While there, Kevin Power of SaskScapes Podcast interviewed me and folklorist Kristin Catherwood about our work, and you can listen to us here!

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Living Heritage Podcast Ep055 Secrets of a Hooker



Ruth has been a mat maker since 1995. She works primarily with wool yarn to create mats which capture Newfoundland and Labrador past and present especially as it relates to her connections to places throughout the province. Though her works vary in size, Ruth particularly likes large scale mats. Some of her larger pieces include Portugal Cove c1920, Quidi Vidi c1900, the Battery c1960 as well as modern day Quirpon and Fortune. Her works have been exhibited at the Battle Harbour National Historic Site of Canada, the Arts and Letters Competition, the Bonavista North Museum Gallery, the Kildevil Fair and Auntie Crae’s. Ruth and her work have also appeared in a Parks Canada promotional video. Her works hang in private collections across Canada. She has taught mat making for the Provincial Museum, the provincial Youth Heritage Forum and to private students.

In this episode of the Living Heritage Podcast, Ruth talks with folklorist Dale Jarvis about her introduction to mat making, explains the process being making a hooked mat and the materials involved, different styles of designs, the role of place, family, memory and history in her work, and the differences between hooked and poked mats, with some comments on braided mats.

Listen on the Digital Archive:

Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Department of Folklore Field School Presentation - Work in Cupids


In the second week of September Dale, Heather, and I spent several days in Cupids with the new folklore students. Each year Memorial University's Department of Folklore holds an intensive three-week field school for the incoming MA and PhD students to focus on fieldwork techniques. This year the students were in the community of Cupids, Conception Bay North and they focused on occupational or workplace folklore.
Dale describing good interview techniques.
During the students' first week in Cupids, Dale spent two days teaching them interview techniques, showing them the basics of working with recording equipment, and doing a staged interview. I also gave a short presentation with suggestions of how to use the material collected in oral history interviews for blogs, articles, audio and video clips, booklets, etc.
Gerard and Emma taking field notes during the Targa Newfoundland Races.
Heather and I also joined the students in class to learn more about fieldwork techniques and how to take better field notes with folklorist Bonnie Sunstein. Bonnie teaches nonfiction writing and ethnographic research at the University of Iowa and gave the students a presentation on how to take field notes and how to work with the field notes taken to produce a piece of data that can be used in future writing. She stressed the need to be descriptive and suggested the students do double entry notes - using one side to describe the situation and the other to describe their feelings and reactions to the situation.

After the students classes in research, writing, and field techniques they went out into the field and conducted their own interviews and research. This Thursday September 29 the students will be presenting their research results to the community. This event is open to the public and everyone is invited to come out and learn more about work in Cupids!

~Terra Barrett

Monday, September 26, 2016

The City of St. John's Volunteers: Lossie Trask



Lossie Trask was born and raised in Port Blandford. She moved to Grand Falls at age 15, where she met her husband and started a family. Eventually they moved to St. John’s for work, where they lived together until her husband passed away. Shortly thereafter, Lossie began to receive brochures in the mail to volunteer for Senior’s Outreach. At first, she wasn’t sure.

“I said “I don’t want to do that!” But my daughter kept pushing me, and she said “Come on, let’s go!” So she got me out and before I knew it I was in it. And I never stopped.”

“It’ll maybe make your life a bit longer by being out around people. You almost have a lighter step. You feel good, you go into your house that you spend many days in, and you feel better about coming in and looking at your surroundings. I do, I know I did, because there was a time when I came in and said ‘I don’t want to be here’.”

Lossie is an upbeat, open person; it is hard to imagine her any other way. It is clear that she is the type of person to make the most of every day, and that she believes in the power of volunteering.

Thursday, September 22, 2016

The Folklore of Corn Dollies with Donna Thompson. #FolkloreThursday



I am currently in southern Saskatchewan, teaching a series of intangible cultural heritage workshops with my colleague Kristin Catherwood for the Museums Association of Saskatchewan.

Earlier this week, we were in the community of Indian Head, teaching a two day workshop, and we were fortunate enough to have tradition bearer Donna Thompson as a participant, who talked to us about the tradition of English Corn Dollies, and then gave us a demonstration of how to weave a corn dolly using wheat straw.

Here, Donna talks about the folklore behind the craft, and tells the story of the spirt in the grain field.












Living Heritage Podcast Ep054 Memory Maps



Marlene Creates is an environmental artist and poet who lives in Portugal Cove. Underlying all her work is an interest in place—not as a geographical location but a process that involves memory, multiple narratives, ecology, and language. Her work has been presented in over 350 exhibitions and screenings both across Canada and internationally, and is in many public collections, including the National Gallery of Canada.

In this episode of the Living Heritage Podcast, folklorist Dale Jarvis sits down with Marlene to discuss how she got her start in art, how she found herself in Newfoundland, her work in Newfoundland and Labrador on place, the importance of place, several recent projects including her memory maps and important place awards, and her new book “Brickle, Nish, and Knobbly: A Newfoundland Treasury of Terms for Ice and Snow”.

Listen on the Digital Archive:
http://collections.mun.ca/cdm/singleitem/collection/ich_oral/id/686/rec/1



Wednesday, September 21, 2016

#CollectiveMemories - Main Street Memories

Stewart's. Photo courtesy of Carmel Barry.
Yesterday morning started with a chat with Carmel Barry about Stewart’s store on Main Street in Windsor. Carmel worked with George Stewart for 47 years. She spent one year working part time and another full time on the floor packing shelves and doing whatever needed to be done but most of the time she spent in the office doing the bookwork. Carmel vividly remembered the money system that was in place in the store which allowed money to traverse the store from the office to the cash. She also remembered the wood stove that heated the store and how George would head in to the store before the staff and have the fire burning so it would be nice and toasty when they arrived. Carmel clearly loved the store, the work, and the staff and she exclaimed that she would still be working there today if she could. Unfortunately George Stewart died in 20008 and the old store was torn down a couple of years ago.

In the afternoon we had two interviews. One was with Boyd Cohen whose family moved from the Ukraine and Poland. His grandfather moved from what is now the Ukraine to London, England in the 1890s to work for a clothing company. Between the years 1904 and 1906 Simon Cohen, Boyd’s grandfather, moved to Newfoundland to work for a Newfoundland Clothing Company which was being established by a firm out of England. Following the First World War the family moved to Grand Falls-Windsor and opened a general store. This store sold “anything from hardware and nails to ladies hats”. Boyd also discussed the move from Main Street in Windsor to High Street in Grand Falls and how he got into the furniture business and into real estate.
Cohen's bus.  Photo courtesy of Boyd Cohen.
One memory Boyd shared was of the bus his father ran between High Street, Grand Falls and Main Street, Windsor between 1928 and the mid 1930s. Listen to the clip below.
Our next interview was with Mary Kelly. She discussed growing up in Grand Falls-Windsor and spending time on Main Street, Windsor. Mary had many fond memories of Riff’s where her aunt Helen Kelly worked for years and years. She described going to the store and the magic of Main Street in Windsor. Mary fondly remembered the generosity of the Riff family and how they sent Christmas cards to the family long after her aunt had passed away. She described how after one of Riff’s buying trips to Montreal her family would eat bagels for weeks which were brought back from Montreal from Mr. Riff.
Riff's Christmas party. Helen Kelly and Marie Penney. Photo courtesy of Mary Kelly.
Listen to Mary’s memories of Main Street in Windsor.

Here Mary describes going into Riff’s on Main Street.
Let us know your memories of Main Street, Windsor! Email terra@heritagefoundation.ca or call 1-888-739-1892.

~Terra Barrett