Canadiana

Subject: Canadiana
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 01:43 AM

Does anyone know whether there are on-line indexes to Edith Fowke's manuscript collection at U Calgary, or of Helen Creighton's at the Dartmouth NS Public Library? Thanks Jon

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Joe Offer
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 04:32 AM

Here's something on Helen Creighton, Tim. That page says the collection is in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia in Halifax, but everything from the archives that I could find on the Web has to do with their Mi'kmaq Portraits Collection (the collection includes some recordings by Creighton). In short, I didn't have much luck. I think this would make a good excuse for you to go and do your research in person....

I had better luck with the Edith Fowke search - click here to see what treasures I found.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From:
Date: 18 Oct 98 - 09:49 PM

The Public Archives of Nova Scotia also contain tapes of all the Atlantic Folk Festival concerts too, I am informed by informed sources.

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 05:19 AM

Thanks, Joe - nice to know UCalgary is up-to-date. I have a suspicion that helen didn't like union songs and chose not to publish what she found. I'd like very much to check it out, but halifax is a long way from New Westminster. Maybe a closer Mudcatter? Jon

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From:
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 09:39 AM

you might try cbc radio in Halifax.. they could probably put you in touch with Clary Croft whi is the authority on Helen. C. As for her being Anti Union.. I think your assumption an odd one as that is not what was considered "folk" in the thirties and forties..not by the collector and certainly not by the singers. Also. much of her work was done among fisherman and farmers and other rural folk who would not have had a history of Unionism.. Never assume in research that the absence of something is evidence of a dislike of it. Hope I don' t sound too preachy but I hate to see Miss c. maligned by such assumptions.

Aldus

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Joe Offer
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 12:10 PM

Say, can anybody over there give us a better idea of what's in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia, and where exactly we might find the Helen Creighton collection? The address I found on that site I linked to is:
Public Archives of Nova Scotia
6016 University Avenue
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Canada B3H 1W4
tel: [phone]
fax: [phone]

By the way, Helen Creighton's Songs and Ballads from Nova Scotia is available in paperfack from Dover Publications, $9.95 US.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From:
Date: 19 Oct 98 - 05:27 PM

She also collected ghost stories. Bluenose Ghosts was the name of the book, although it also encompassed spooks from New Brunswick and PEI. Don't know if it is still in print. I have often wondered if there wasn't a rural area anywhere in the UK or North America that didn't have a ghostly Grey Lady.

At one time some of her tapes were out on LP. Don't know if they are now out on CD.

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Jon Bartlett
Date: 01 Nov 98 - 04:22 AM

Thanks, Aldus, for the suggestion re C Croft. My suspicion re union songs was I think sparked by something I heard from one of the Men of the Deeps (coalmining choir). Coalmining was as much part of NS as fishing & farming, but I'd like to see what she did collect from miners, and (maybe) didn't publish. All honour to her, tho, for what did come out. Jon

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Dave T
Date: 02 Nov 98 - 10:08 PM

Tim,
I have the book "Bluenose Ghosts" by Helen C. I have an Acadian friend who grew up in Cape St. Mary's. I walked with him one day a few years ago off the back of his property. He told me the story of Sea King Cove. Rumour has it that the ship "Sea King" ran aground in a winter storm. The men on board tried to escape by climbing the cliffs where the ship came to rest. No one survived. They found some of the bodies in the morning frozen to the rocks where they tried to climb. I've often wanted to research the story further; it would make a great song don't you think ( maybe the "Songwriting" thread could use this tale)?
If you have any info, or care to swap some stories keep posting on this thread.
Dave T

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From:
Date: 03 Nov 98 - 07:15 AM

Never heard that one. The big one up my way was the Chaleur Phantom, a ghost ship of fire. It hasn't been seen in years, but quite respectable people used to see it. It has been explained as some kind of optical illusion similar to a mirage, and since there are next to no sailing ships any more that's why no-one sees it these days.

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From:
Date: 08 Jan 99 - 03:52 AM

IF whomever wants to e-mail me, I can forward your request on to Clary Croft regarding Helen Creighton.

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Joe Offer
Date: 08 Jan 99 - 04:09 AM

Hi, George - it would be great if you can get us a bit of information about the collection-
What's in it (in more specific terms than what's in this link), and how much access do the public have to it?
Location, hours, fees?
Anything available to us who live far away?
Any Internet access?
Publications generated from or about the collection?
Thanks.
-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 08 Jan 99 - 05:31 PM

Helen Creighton may not have been anti-union. Her interest was in traditional balladry, and thereby hangs a tale.

One afternoon in the early 60s, I say with Helen and Sandy (Dr. Edward) Ives in a restaurant in Newcastle, NB. Sandy was working on his research for the book he wrote about Joe Scott, north woods songmaker. He was searching for a particular song of Scott's, only a fragment of which had he been able to recover. He asked Helen if she had ever recorded it from one of her singers. He gave her the text fragment that he knew, and Helen replied (and this is an almost verbatim quote), "Oh, yes. Someone started to sing that for me at one time, but I knew it wasn't a folk song, so I didn't take it down."

I imagine she would have felt the same way about a miner's recently created occupational song. I do hope that in her later collecting she allowed her singers to give her whatever song they cared about enough to offer.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 08 Jan 99 - 09:38 PM

Now, if I can just get Joe to correct my typos and eliminate the double post. How the heck could that have happened, half an hour later??? I was playing a demanding game of Scrabble with my grandaughter by then, wasn't I?

Sandy

Joe sees at least one typo, but cannot figure out what the typist was attempting to type....

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 09 Jan 99 - 01:14 AM

I "sat" with her and Sandy Ives, Joe. I "say" very little in the presence of greatness. In this particular case, I listened, and was stunned! I can't imagine telling a traditional singer "No, thanks, I don't want that song." Gawdamighty, I've recorded seven or eight renditions of "Give My Love to Nellie, Jack" and I don't know how many versions of "The Drunkard's Doom," even when I was running low on tape and too broke to buy more (and miles from any place where I could have bought it). I just couldn't say to the singer, "Let's skip that one; I've heard it before!"

Thanks for cleaning up my typing, Joe. Barbara Blessings asked me why I was looking for a volunteer to type for my wife. It ain't that the spirit is less than willing, it's just that the flesh is so heir to error!

Sandy

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From:
Date: 10 Jan 99 - 08:48 PM

Ms. Creighton also got upset once at Pete Seeger for referring to Nova Scotia as "this neck of the woods." Maybe she was a little too old-fashioned just to see it as a figure of speech.

I wonder what was her definition of a folk song worthy of being collected. She collected Peter Emberlay, the author of which is John Calhoun.[Different versions put poor Peter's burial place at either Doaktown or Boiestown, and I wonder that someone just didn't go to the Catholic cemetaries in those places and check. But Calhoun was from Boiestown.]

Sandy, were you there for the festival of traditional song?

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: Sandy Paton
Date: 11 Jan 99 - 01:21 AM

You bet I was! Recorded Marie Hare, Alan Kelly, and Wilmot MacDonald, among others. Produced an LP of Marie Hare, which I later allowed the Canadian Society of Musical Traditions to reproduce up yonder as a cassette. Louise Manny helped with the notes, but I loved her even more after she sold me her copy of Ord's Bothy Ballads for $5 US! Ian Robb later opened that book to the frontispiece photograph and pointed to a chap in the front row. "That's my grandfather!" he says.

After one of the festivals, we came back by way of Joe Estey's place where he sang, among other ballads, a superb "Hind Horn," after which we stopped off to record some dandy songs from old James Brown. Wonderful stuff! Great singers! My debt to Sandy Ives is immense, and his is a friendship I truly cherish.

Sandy

Subject: RE: Canadiana
From: ALDUS
Date: 12 Jan 99 - 02:40 PM

You may wish to try the Spring Garden Rd. branch {Main Branch} of the Halifax regional Library... I don"t know the address but if you search Halifax Regional Municipality {n.s.} you"ll find the library listed there.