Field School Part One

Julie Andrews takes the "field" in "field work" quite literally

Hello! I bet you probably thought you'd gotten rid of me. Alas, I'm not that easy to shake.

For some reason writing this blog post about field school has seemed so completely overwhelming to me that I've kept putting it off and putting it off... Well, that's fairly obvious. The last entry on here was nearly a month ago.

But here we are. And as completely daunting as I still find the notion, I'm here anyway to try to talk a little bit about Folklore Field School 2016. I'm going to split it into a couple posts because otherwise it would be waaaaaaaaayyyyyy too long.

First of all, what is a field school? It's when a group of grad students and professors are dropped in the middle of a small community in rural Newfoundland for three weeks for a crash course in how to document folklore - interviewing people, taking photographs, writing detailed field notes, etc.

The group size and location differ every year. We apparently had quite a large group this time with 12 grad students and 2 professors. We were given the theme of "work" and divided into teams to develop projects somehow related to that theme. And the community we were in is somewhat famous historically as the oldest English colony in Canada, founded back in 1610: Cupids.

Here's a view of the town from above...

See that tiny church on the far left? What looks like a cluster of white-ish buildings behind it to the right is the Cupids Legacy Centre, a museum where we met daily for classes. That photograph was taken from the top of Spectacle Head...

Yep, that huge rocky thing is Spectacle Head. And I climbed up there! Not once, but three times! Sorry... getting ahead of myself. The tan buildings below it belong to the fish plant, which one of the groups focused on for their project as it's a big part of work in the local community.

And here's the Legacy Centre a bit closer up...

But maybe I should backtrack a little. First of all, there aren't any huge hotels in Cupids. It's more of a "quaint bed and breakfast" type of town. So where were a bunch of students going to stay for three weeks straight? Well, the answer came in the form of what I've been told is a very Canadian staple for campers and vacationers: the gravel pit RV park.

Fortunately, Roaches Line RV Park had cabins as well as RVs. Very colorful cabins...

The camp store and office

Our cabins! (I was in the yellow one)

With the size of our group it worked out perfectly for each cabin to hold 2-3 people each. There were bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room area, and a bathroom ("washroom" in Canada) in each cabin. (Ours even had an enormous indoor jacuzzi that put me in mind of the prefect's bathroom in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire!)

Our first night in Cupids we were invited to the Orange Lodge where members of the community had prepared a traditional supper for us called Fish and Brewis. Those of you who know me well may remember that I generally loathe the taste of most creatures from the sea, but politeness ruled the day and I had a heaping plateful anyway. It was quite a salty dish, and you could tell it was prepared by a skillful hand, so the more savory flavors masked the "fishiness" that usually bothers me.

The Orange Lodge decor... living up to the name

Fish n Brewis

The next day we were given a tour of the Legacy Centre, which contains artifacts from throughout the 400 years the town has been in existence.

One of my favorite sections was set up like an old schoolroom

We were also given a driving tour of the community in classic cars owned by two local collectors!

Roy and Ross are the brothers who so kindly chauffeured us around

Qian and Ceallaigh enjoy the ride!

Getting a bit of history from Roy

A church steeple we saw on our tour

They also showed us a cool theatre where Shakespeare plays are performed during the summer. We grabbed the opportunity for a group picture on the stage steps. Unfortunately, it's not the greatest picture of many of us (myself included), but it's the main group shot I've got. So here we all are...

Top L-R: Tan, Grace, Ceallaigh, Cassandra
Middle L-R: Gerard, Qian, Jill, Emma, Marissa, Ema, Mahdi
Front: Nataliya

Since we were there during blueberry season, Ross extended an invitation for any of us who were interested to come and pick in the blueberry patch in his backyard. We soon understood the generosity (aside from just being kind, that is). With such an abundance of berries there was no way Ross and his wife could pick or eat them all! This experience also proved helpful as my group ended up focusing on the work associated with blueberries in Cupids for our final project.

SO. MANY. BERRIES. 

The view from Ross's front yard

The next day we continued learning about the history of Cupids with a visit to the Cupids Cove Plantation Site archaeological dig. Our guide Bill showed us around the place, explained some about the history they're in the process of uncovering and also the more recent history of the archaeological efforts themselves. It was fascinating to see a dig site in-progress. They've uncovered a lot, but there's still plenty more to find.

Cupids Cove Plantation Site dig

Sandbags and plastic to protect original structures

I included that final picture because (a) it shows the skeletal recreation of the house that would have once stood in that location, but also (b) it's one of the few pictures I have with both of our professors in it: on the far left is Jillian, and next to her in the red shirt is Diane. (I should put "Dr. Jillian etc..." but for the purposes of this blog I'm trying to stick to first names only, so just know that they both have fancy titles that I'm not including here.)

Can you see already how our time in Cupids was really jam-packed? It made for fun and interesting times, but also a great deal of exhaustion. In an effort to not exhaust you, oh intrepid reader, I will leave things here.

In the next installment (which I promise will be later this week and not a month from now): race cars, lots of hiking, even more berries (but a different kind!), greasy delicious food, boats, and more!