The Rooms

We got such an early start this morning that we got to The Rooms before it opened at 10 am, so we walked across the street to visit the Basilica Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist. Built in the shape of a Latin cross, the church is noted for its statuary, ornate ceiling design and stained glass windows. Building of the Cathedral began in 1841 and it was consecrated in 1855.  It was meant to be the principle symbol of the Church in Newfoundland and was the spiritual home to the huge population of Irish immigrants.

Quite an imposing building built high on a hill.

I tried to get the ceiling, but the picture does not show the rich detail.

Then it was back to The Rooms - a museum, art gallery and archives dedicated to the history of the province.  It is a stunning building and was built to resemble a cod processing building which was made up of many "rooms".  It opened in 2005 on what was the site of Fort Townshend, an 18th century military fort that was eventually buried underground.

The design resembles three buildings, two cod processing buildings, the plain wings with red roofs seen above, and the a strikingly contemporary central building that contains the archives, auditorium, classrooms and administrative functions. 

This is Gabriela Estrada who gave us a brief orientation to the building and a little bit of history about the province.  Gabby, with a streak of green in her hair, is originally from Mexico City (the population of Mexico City is larger than the entire population of Canada) who came to Newfoundland to attend art school at Memorial University, Grenfell Campus in Corner Brook.  She considered RISD, but it was too expensive.  

We spent a great deal of time in the cultural museum. The province is Newfoundland and Labrador and there are four aboriginal peoples: Inuit, Innu, Mi'Kmaq and Southern Inuit. This is a ceremonial jacket and a woman's hat of the Mi'Kmaq.

Inuit on the right and Innu on the left.

There were many exhibits that featured various aspects of both aboriginal and livyers (When Europeans in Newfoundland and Labrador were asked where they were from they would respond - "we live here" and it was shorten to just "livyers". So non-native peoples are called livyers.) This exhibit has artifacts relating to travel in winter.  Travel on land was best done in winter. Sleds, dogs and special gear were used until the 1960's when snowmobiles were introduced.

There was a whole section with many exhibits dealing with spirituality. For Aboriginal peoples no sound is ore powerful and culturally significant than the beating of drums. There are several drums in this exhibit.

These are canoes of the Mi'Kmaq and kayaks of the Inuit.

There was a fair amount of information about the Irish. From 1670, ships going to NL from England stopped in Ireland for food. Eventually young Irish men went on these ship to fish in the Newfoundland waters during the summer and returned to Ireland in the fall. But after a time, they just stayed in Newfoundland. In the 1838 census, roughly 1/2 of the inhabitants were Irish, the majority were Catholic. There were 400 settlements, most with fewer than 15 houses. The English, arriving before the Irish, settled in better harbors. Irish immigration, from 1700 - 1850, was highly localized, mainly from Waterford, Kilkenny and Wexford. In fact, the Penrose family, from Waterford, in the 1750's dominated the salt pork export trade to NL. In 1783 George Penrose used profits from the Newfoundland trade to start a glass factory. 1784 export records show Waterford glass was being exported to NL.

On the island ofNewfoundland are found some of the most Irish places in the world outside of Ireland. 1/2 of the modern population are Irish decendants and most arrived before the potato famine in 1845-50.

Another floor of the museum focused on the flora and fauna.  We finally saw a caribou. But, there are no moose in the exhibit because moose are not native to Newfoundland, they were imported into the province to provide food.

Other native species.

The skeleton of the Great Auk, now extinct.

Here you are, Bill. The next three pictures are for you.  Spear and arrow heads of the Palaeo-Eskimo Pioneers - 4,000 years ago and the Dorset Palaeo-Eskimos - 2,500 years ago. An ancient group of aboriginals, the Beothuk people, have become extinct because of European diseases. The Inuit arrived in Northern Labrador 600 yrs ago. 

This is a replica of an ancient soapstone quarry located in Fleur de Lys on the Baie Verte Pnninsulsa. 

The great polar bear.

The archives located at The Rooms.

View of St. John's harbor from The Rooms observation deck.

Some of the many shore and seabirds. See the gannets on the upper right?

Close up of the puffins, the official bird of Newfoundland.

A Narwal tusk (on the right).  A bit taller than the one in Special Collections.

There are no pictures of the art galleries because photography is not allowed. Most of the pictures were contemporary works by Newfoundland and Labrador artists in which the land and fishing are dominant subjects.  There were two special exhibits - one featured the work of Rockwell Kent who visited the Burin peninsula in 1910 in search of the dramatic landscapes of the North, and lived in Brigus from 1914 - 15.  The other exhibit -- Rhode Island connection!!! - was by Pam Hall entitled Housework(s). Pam Hall is an installation artist who engages the community in her artistic practice. One of her works on display was entitled, Providence Prayer Blanket. Using strips of linen, Pam had people write out their prayers. She then took the strips to the Helping Hands Quilters' Guild in Plumb Point, NL, and they quilted them into a blanket. There was a mention of Providence, RI, in the description so when we were leaving I asked if there was someone who could tell me more about the work. Anne Pickard-Vaandering, Director of Museum Education, came out and talked to us about the work.  She could not remember where in Providence Pam engaged people in the writing of the prayers. Then as we were walking to the car, Anne came running after us to tell us that it was at the Brown/RISD Hillel House Gallery.

This is Anne Pickard-Vaandering.

As we were walking to the car I smelled lilacs.  Here they are, blooming in Newfoundland in the middle of July.

It was early afternoon and we had to hurry over to the Johnson Geo-Center, which was a fabulous Center that houses interactive exhibits that describe the earth's geologic history with special attention paid to local rock formations, which are some of the oldest in the world. The mostly underground center is an exhibit itself; constructed in a basin to take advantage of natural rock walls, it is heated by six 500 foot-deep geothermal wells. 

There were many very interesting exhibits but this one struck me. The tall column on the right is 210 feet high and is filled with sand, each grain of sand represents one year of the 4,550,000,000 years of the earth's existence. The column just to the left holds sand, each grain of sand represents the 65,000,000 years since the extinction of the dinosaurs. The next column, with the little dab of sand in the bottom, each grain representing the 9,000 years since Signal Hill was covered by glaciers. Finally the far left column hold 75 grains of sand, one for each year of the average life span of man. Very impressive!

At 5 pm the Center closed and we had to leave before we were half finished with the tour.  We have run out of time in St. John's - we leave tomorrow.  What a great place - so much to see and do!

Out in front of the Johnson Geo-Center are statues of the two great dogs of Newfoundland and Labrador. Frederick is scratching their ears and they are loving it.

We couldn't leave St. John's before we tasted some traditional Newfoundland food. This is The Mallard Cottage in Quidi Vidi, a village in St. John's.  We both had cod.

If we learned nothing more in St. John's and where we have visited so far, it is that Newfoundland is all about cod fishing.