Format: Essay
Thoughts while watching Mrs Miniver during a pandemic
By Janet Harron On the bulletin board in what was once my dining room and is now my work-from-home office there is a piece of paper with the following words…
I stayed in the have not province
BY Monica Walsh
I am a person who works in the arts and I decided to stay in my home province of Newfoundland and Labrador rather than move to the mainland for better…
What Links Here? Part 3 of a Wikipedia Series
By Jenny Higgins The pursuit of knowledge is not linear and tidy. It is a beautiful tangle that sprawls out in every which way: forever searching, forever pulling you…
From Newfoundland and Labrador to Sam Spade: A Wikipedia Travelogue
BY NQ
The second in a three-part series on Wikipedia By Jenny Higgins When Lewis Carroll published Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland in 1865, he forever changed the way we think about…
Libraries and Wikipedia: A Beautiful Friendship
BY NQ
by Jenny Higgins Encyclopedias have been constant companions in my life. Before I could even read my parents took special care to stock our bookshelves with them: Funk and Wagnalls,…
MAKING NEWFOUNDLAND’S SOLDIERS: THE NEWFOUNDLAND REGIMENT, THE BRITISH ARMY, AND TRAINING FOR BATTLE, 1914-1915
BY Dr Mike O’Brien
In early October 1914, the first contingent of the recently-raised Newfoundland Regiment left St John’s for England on SS Florizel, after having undergone a month of basic training at a…
False Armistice – November 7, 1918
BY Suzanne Sexty
In a diary filled with weather reports, dockside activities (“screwing drums” and loading fish), and ship movements, the entry for November 7, 1918 would have stood out even if it…
A Grand Time: NL Music at the Irish Traditional Music Archive in Dublin
BY Marie Stamp
“O’Hara would eventually make hundreds of recordings of the stories and songs of the people he met in Newfoundland. He did not have to insist too much to coax them to take the mic. “Sing a song or hum a tune, do a dance or leave the room! That’s what they used to say,” he remembers of his time in Branch.”
The Museum at the End of the world
BY Elizabeth Whitten
On the northeast coast island of Fogo lies a place of incredible geographical importance: one of the corners of the flat Earth. Long suspected by locals, the significance of the…
POWER/GRID: Graphic Depictions of War
BY Andrew Loman
“I chose a grid-system rather than free-form because it was a history. To me there’s something very stable about the nine-panel grid and I wanted that feeling for it.” So said the St John’s cartoonist Wallace Ryan, explaining the page design he has chosen for The Narrow Way, a graphic memoir about his grandfather’s experiences as a soldier in World War 1.
Costume Banks and Conjured Worlds
BY Eva Crocker
As we weave through the racks she tells me the history of specific pieces, like a donated Sherlock Holmes’ style cape and deerstalker hat that was worn during the Boer War. Each costume is a talisman for transformation and picking the right one can help summon a character, conjure a world.
Something of a Vigil: Saying Goodbye to Afterwords
BY Andrea McGuire
As David often said, “The book you need is right next to the book you’re looking for, which isn’t here today, but we’ll get it for you when it comes in.”
Good Country
BY Sharon Bala
Sharon Bala’s debut novel, The Boat People, exploring the experiences of a father and his son arriving in Canada on a migrant boat from Sri Lanka, was published this month….
Thirteen Ways of Looking at an Iceberg
BY Matthew Hollett
I’VE BEEN READING After Icebergs with a Painter, Rev. Louis L. Noble’s imaginative travelogue from a voyage around Newfoundland in 1859. It’s like following a jet-setting paparazzo’s Instagram – except instead of celebrity photos, it’s full of nineteenth-century prose portraits of icebergs.
The call of the Atlantic
BY Shannon Webb-Campbell
The Atlantic changes you. It’s tough love, but there’s nothing like it.
Clarence Birdseye Eats His Way Through Labrador
BY Matthew Hollett
OF ALL the animals Clarence Birdseye devoured during his three years in Labrador, lynx was the most memorable.
Souvenir Shopping with Smallwood: Newfoundland and Expo 67
BY Matthew Hollett
“I’M A SORT of tourist attraction,” Joey Smallwood quipped, late in his career. “Everyone who comes here wants to meet me.”
Your Greatest Hits (and Misses) Online
BY Ellen Curtis
READING THE GREATEST HITS OF WANDA JAYNES brought me back to 2014 and to all the times since when I have started my morning glued to a horrifying report.
“Walking Even Where No Flowers Grow”
BY Matthew Hollett
IF WE ALL walked a little more, how would the city change?
Art, Politics and a Government building
BY Drew Brown
I’M NOT GOING TO TALK about the politics in art. I’ll leave that for the tragically underemployed fine arts students. I’m going to flip that upside-down and talk about the place of art in politics. Right here, in Newfoundland and Labrador.