The Music Of Our Burnished Axes

While well-known songs such as "The Badger Drive" and "Tickle Cove Pond" provide glimpses into the hard labour and rich culture of woods work in early twentieth-century Newfoundland and Labrador, little has been written about the lives of woods workers and the extent of their enduring cultural legacies. Songs, stories, recitations, poems, and instrumental tunes flourished in the woods camps. Many of them were created locally and reflect the people and experiences of woods work. Passed down by oral tradition in bunkhouses and at work sites, in family kitchens and at community concerts, these songs and stories address a gap in our understanding of this occupational culture and its history.This book is the first comprehensive collection of musical compositions, recitations, poems, and narratives written by, for, and about twentieth-century woods workers in Newfoundland and Labrador. It analyzes their significance--as both grassroots social history texts and creative and musical contributions--and creates a portrait of a culture shaped by the harvesting of timber. Inside you will find: a history of lumbering and logging; an exploration of the place of song and story in woods work and culture; musical transcriptions of 76 locally composed songs and tunes, with analysis of this musical tradition; complete song lyrics with contextual discussion; more than 70 archival photos; and a glossary of occupational words.

Music and dance in Canada today are diverse and expansive, reflecting histories of travel, exchange, and interpretation and challenging conceptions of expressive culture that are bounded and static. Reflecting current trends in ethnomusicology, Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada examines cultural continuity, disjuncture, intersection, and interplay in music and dance across the country. Essays reconsider conceptual frameworks through which cultural forms are viewed, critique policies meant to encourage crosscultural sharing, and address ways in which traditional forms of expression have changed to reflect new contexts and audiences. From North Indian kathak dance, Chinese lion dance, early Toronto hip hop, and contemporary cantor practices within the Byzantine Ukrainian Church in Canada to folk music performances in twentieth-century Quebec, Gaelic milling songs in Cape Breton, and Mennonite songs in rural Manitoba, this collection offers detailed portraits of contemporary music practices and how they engage with diverse cultural expressions and identities. At a historical moment when identity politics, multiculturalism, diversity, immigration, and border crossings are debated around the world, Contemporary Musical Expressions in Canada demonstrates the many ways that music and dance practices in Canada engage with these broader global processes. Contributors include Rebecca Draisey-Collishaw (Queen's University), Meghan Forsyth (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Monique Giroux (University of Lethbridge), Ian Hayes (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Anna Hoefnagels (Carleton University), Judith Klassen (Canadian Museum of History), Chris McDonald (Cape Breton University), Colin McGuire (University College Cork), Marcia Ostashewski (Cape Breton University), Laura Risk (McGill University), Neil Scobie (University Western Ontario), Gordon Smith (Queen's University), Heather Sparling (Cape Breton University), Jesse Stewart (Carleton University), Janice Esther Tulk (Cape Breton University), Margaret Walker (Queen's University), and Louise Wrazen (York University).

Musical media and the audio recording industry have an important and complex history in Newfoundland and Labrador: professional musicians, community songwriters, local institutions, and even politicians have gone on record. The result is a widespread body of work that undercuts the idea of recorded music as a cultural commodity and deepens the province's tradition of cultural activism. Drawing on contemporary testimony and over fifty years of interviews, On Record explores how recording projects have served as sonic signatures, forms of protest, homage, or parody of the foibles of those in power. Beverley Diamond examines how audio recording in Newfoundland and Labrador has been shaped not merely by creative individuals, but by such events as resettlement, residential schools, the cod moratorium, technological change, and disasters that have befallen those who live and work on the North Atlantic. A chapter by ethnomusicologist and musician Mathias Kom examines the widespread response to a unique annual "challenge" to make an audio recording. Spanning both commercial and community-oriented initiatives, this book reflects the vibrant, socially engaged, and resilient nature of communities that value simultaneously and equally the highest professional standards and the creative potential of every citizen. Encompassing music from both settler and Indigenous communities, On Record redefines the culture of a province that has most often been associated with traditional music, demonstrating that recording goes beyond the creation of a commodity: it responds to the present and to constructs of public memory.

Thirty years after its original publication, a special anniversary edition of Barbara Rieti's iconic work Strange Terrain: The Fairy World in Newfoundland.

"From boat-building to berries, from knitting socks to mending nets, Towards an Encyclopedia of Local Knowledge vividly presents the rich, place-based knowings and doings of more than one hundred knowledge-holders from the rural Newfoundland communities of Bonne Bay and the Northern Peninsula and Fogo and Change Islands. Renowned artist Pam Hall perfectly marries her singular artistic vision and her exhaustive community-based research in a stunning celebration and preservation of rural knowledge. These images and texts come together to reveal and revalue the local in a time when global monoculture seems overwhelming."--

Madman, tyrant, animal—history has given Adolf Hitler many names. In Mein Kampf (My Struggle), often called the Nazi bible, Hitler describes his life, frustrations, ideals, and dreams. Born to an impoverished couple in a small town in Austria, the young Adolf grew up with the fervent desire to become a painter. The death of his parents and outright rejection from art schools in Vienna forced him into underpaid work as a laborer. During the First World War, Hitler served in the infantry and was decorated for bravery. After the war, he became actively involved with socialist political groups and quickly rose to power, establishing himself as Chairman of the National Socialist German Worker's party. In 1924, Hitler led a coalition of nationalist groups in a bid to overthrow the Bavarian government in Munich. The infamous Munich "Beer-hall putsch" was unsuccessful, and Hitler was arrested. During the nine months he was in prison, an embittered and frustrated Hitler dictated a personal manifesto to his loyal follower Rudolph Hess. He vented his sentiments against communism and the Jewish people in this document, which was to become Mein Kampf, the controversial book that is seen as the blue-print for Hitler's political and military campaign. In Mein Kampf, Hitler describes his strategy for rebuilding Germany and conquering Europe. It is a glimpse into the mind of a man who destabilized world peace and pursued the genocide now known as the Holocaust.

Creating a University is a collection of memoirs by more than 30 former faculty and staff of Memorial University -- a series of "MUNographies,"-- about personal and professional experiences working at Newfoundland's only university. It is something of a Memorial University family reunion, without a drunken uncle. In the years covered by this volume, primarily 1950 to 1990, few Memorial faculty were Canadians, let alone Newfoundlanders. These "come from aways" arrived in the middle of a post-colonial cultural renaissance, which saw a movement toward new interdisciplinary studies, and laid the groundwork for many of the programs and courses that are offered at the University today.

One of the earliest great stories of English literature after ?Beowulf?, ?Sir Gawain? is the strange tale of a green knight on a green horse, who rudely interrupts King Arthur's Round Table festivities one Yuletide, challenging the knights to a wager. Simon Armitrage, one of Britain's leading poets, has produced an inventive and groundbreaking translation that " helps] liberate ?Gawain ?from academia" (?Sunday Telegraph?).