The Labradorians
Lynne Fitzhugh’s The Labradorians is a hefty but accessible volume of Labrador’s regional history. In one book, Fitzhugh provides both a handy, well-put-together collection of Labrador voices and her own thoughtful, diligently researched celebration of Labrador’s social history. Altogether it makes for an valuable addition to any Labrador bookshelf. From a more critical perspective, the… Continue Reading →
Order! Order!
While preparing my Book of the Week posts, and more generally while reading Labrador books, I have noticed that several Labrador authors have been named to either the Order of Canada or the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador. So I thought that it might be interesting and worthwhile to compile a list of Labradorians who… Continue Reading →
History of Happy Valley
Alice Perrault’s History of Happy Valley is a small book, but an important one. It clearly and succinctly lays out the early history of Happy Valley from the point of view of one who helped establish it. Many of the details it records are difficult or impossible to find anywhere else in print—such as the… Continue Reading →
The Big Ship and HMCS Labrador
Whether one browses library books or web sites, one of the chief joys of wide reading is the appearance of unexpected connections. Or so I reflected, while leafing through Henry Larsen’s autobiography, when I happened upon a tidbit that may be familiar to followers of LILA Online. The Norwegian-Canadian Larsen was best known for being… Continue Reading →
Eukuan nin mats himanitu innu-iskueu
Participants in last year’s Labrador Research Forum were privileged to attend the launch of Sheshatshiu Innu Elder Elizabeth Penashue’s edited diary and memoir, Nitinikiau Innusi—I Keep the Land Alive—which surely must have been one of of the most eagerly-anticipated books in Labrador history. At the launch, Tshaukuesh (Penashue) mentioned her pride at having been one… Continue Reading →
Encounters
This week’s book is a relatively recent one, by anthropologist John C. Kennedy. Published in 2015, Encounters is an academic book, but it’s also fairly accessible, so don’t be too put off by that. It’s the book to read on its subject, and I was able to understand it, enjoy it, and learn from it,… Continue Reading →
On the Trail with Joseph Iserhoff, 1905
I posted a while back about Labrador diaries. Here’s a peek at one that I’ve had the pleasure to read: the 1905 expedition diary of Joseph Iserhoff, who one of Mina Hubbard’s guides on her famous trek from North West River to Ungava Bay. Hubbard’s diary from that expedition is well known, and you can… Continue Reading →
The Most (In)Famous Phrase in Labrador Literature
In this series, I do my best to keep readers guessing, by selecting books of all different kinds and eras. The idea is to showcase just how much Labrador material there is to read—but I should also probably make it clear that I’m not curating a “best of” list, by any means! Hopefully I will… Continue Reading →
Open Access Journals
Just as research has changed a lot over the years as the world moves online, so too has academic publishing! Scholarly journals still publish articles (or “papers”) written by experts in their fields—mostly university faculty and graduate students. They still peer-review those papers, which means that they send them out to other independent experts, not… Continue Reading →
Remembering the Years of My Life
Remembering the Years of My Life is the memoir of Paulus Maggo, an eminent Inuk Elder in Nain. Maggo’s account covers most of his life, from his birth at Salmon Bight in 1910 right up to the early 1990s, with a focus on details of day-to-day life, both for himself and for his community. The… Continue Reading →
Virtual Art Show
Over the past 40+ years, the Labrador Institute has been involved with many different kinds of community events, and a lot of them have left traces behind in our archive. I always find it a pleasure to stumble on these glimpses of what was on the go in Labrador in the Institute’s earlier days, long… Continue Reading →
Songs of Labrador
For the second week in a row, we’re looking beyond narrative into other kinds of Labrador books. This time, the topic is music. Songs of Labrador delivers exactly what its title promises—an anthology of Labrador songs. The book is the brainchild of editor and compiler Tim Borlase, a long-time Labrador educator who also had a… Continue Reading →
Mosquitos and More
As our weather warms up and our waterways beckon, the 2020 mosquito season looms. And as it happens, I recently received an email from Courtney White at the NL Mosquito Project, informing me that the lab results for the 2019 season were in! My daughter and I were among many citizen participants in the project… Continue Reading →
Taipsumane
Unlike the other Books of the Week that we’ve seen so far, Josephina Kalleo’s Taipsumane does most of its talking with images rather than words. Kalleo has been recognized and celebrated as an artist primarily for the drawings collected in this volume. You can find the scanned drawings online at the Heritage NL website, along… Continue Reading →
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