Two notable authorities pooled their talents to compile this popular collection of 93 Gaelic folksongs from Cape Breton. First published in 1964, it has been reissued for a new generation of folklore enthusiasts, music lovers, and Gaelic scholars. The songs were recorded by Helen Creighton in the original Gaelic, which was transcribed and translated by the late Calum MacLeod, professor of Celtic studies at Saint Francis Xavier University. The texts accompanying the musical score of each song include the Gaelic lyrics, the English translation, and detailed explanatory notes.

Gaelic Songs in Nova Scotia

Literature & Fiction

Creighton, Helen

MacLeod, Calum

Poetry

Canadian Museum of History

Gold Rush!: El Dorado in British Columbia (Souvenir Catalogue series, 14ISSN 2291-6385)

History

Bridge, Kathryn

Americas

Discover one of the most fascinating and mysterious stories in the history of exploration. 
In 1845, Sir John Franklin led a British search for the Northwest Passage. Two years later, the expedition had not returned. Searchers took more than a decade to establish that all crewmembers were dead, and their ships lost. How and why it happened, however, remains a mystery to this day. 
In this souvenir catalogue, iconic artifacts recovered following the Expedition?s disappearance are featured with more recent finds and images, including the discovery of HMS Erebus and Terror. Step into the perilous world of 19th century Arctic exploration and see the conditions aboard the Expedition?s vessels ? from the voyage?s confident beginnings to its tragic end. Discover the critical role played by Inuit in revealing the Expedition?s fate through artifacts and oral histories ? crucial pieces in a story that continues to capture our imagination, more than a century and a half later.

Death in the Ice: The Mystery of the Franklin Expedition (Souvenir Catalogue series)

Ryan, Karen

Europe

The covenant chain is the symbol of a pledge of friendship. Historically, it represented Indian-European alliances in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New England and New York. Symbolically, it has come to mean much more. This exhibition and its catalogue shed new light on a previously unexplored aspect of the fur trade in North America. In presenting a different perspective on eighteenth-century Canadian silversmiths, we can see the far-reaching implications of the fur trade. Also revealed are the close links between the sophisticated colonial craft of silversmithing and the evolving material culture of the North American Indian.

The Covenant Chain: Indian Ceremonial and Trade Silver

Fredrickson, N. Jaye

Gibb, Sandra

Religion & Spirituality

The Canadian Museum of Civilization

MacDonald, George F.

Alsford, Stephen

This richly illustrated book recounts the stories behind the magnificent totem poles and traditional houses on display in the Grand Hall at the Canadian Museum of Civilization. The stories that surround the human, animal and supernatural figures that appear on Native totem poles, in housefront paintings and in sculptures are vividly retold and interpreted according to their symbolic meaning. The importance of myths today is explored: because myths represent archetypes, or patterns of life and thought, they are universally valid, and reveal the dynamic processes at work within the human psyche. Raven`s Village gives insight into the traditional lifestyle of the six cultural groups represented in the exhibition - the Coast Salish, Nuu-Chah-Nulth, Central Coast, Nuxalk, Haida and Tsimshian. The book also describes the reconstructed archaeological dig at the far end of the Grand Hall. The dig represents over 5,000 years of Native habitation, and illustrates many strong cultural traditions that continue to find expression in the modern world.

Raven's Village: The Myths, Arts and Traditions of Native People from the Pacific Northwest Coast

Arts & Photography

Ruddell, Nancy

History & Criticism

Baskets made from coiled spruce roots once were commonplace items in many Dene homes. The craft died out, however, in the nineteenth century, as copper kettles became available through trade with Europeans. By the end of the twentieth century, all that remained to attest to this ancient tradition were a few baskets in museum collations. In 1999, Suzan Marie, a Dene with a passion for the traditional arts of her people, saw a photograph of one of these baskets and initiated a project to reintroduce the lost art of spruce root basketry to small Dene communities. This book tells the story of this modern revival of a traditional skill, and of the museum collections that were essential to the process. It is richly illustrated with photographs of baskets - both those collected in the nineteenth century and those made recently by a new generation of Dene basket-makers. Also included are detailed descriptions and illustrations of the processes involved in making a basket, from harvesting of spruce roots to coiling technique. This book will be a resource for anyone interested in Dene culture and heritage. It will also serve as a practical guide to artisans wishing to make a Dene spruce root basket.

Dene Spruce Root Basketry: Revival of a Tradition (Mercury Series (0316-1854))

Crafts, Hobbies & Home

Thompson, Judy

Narue, Suzan

Crafts & Hobbies

The rural post office in Canada was once a vibrant institution of sociability and communication in Canada. Its impact was both tangible and inescapable. Everyone who lived in a rural community was touched by it, no matter how far you lived "out of town." The mail brought books, magazines, and newspapers that helped to shape the politics and culture of the country. It brought letters, sometimes money, from friends and family away at work or at war. It brought parcels and care-packages containing good things to eat. The local mailbox provided access to the growing national economy, via the convenience of the postal money order, the postal savings bank, and the mail-order catalogue. Country Post strives to recreate the postal world of the period 1880 to 1945. Never before or since have postal communications had a more immediate impact on the lives of Canadians, transforming rural life well into the 20th century. Based on thorough archival research, Country Post is also enriched by the insightful perspective of twenty-eight postmasters from all regions of Canada who were interviewed for this study. The smooth operation of the rural postal service was very much the result of their efforts.

Country Post: Rural Postal Service in Canada, 1880 to 1945 (Mercury Series (0316-1854))

Willis, John

Amyot, Chantal

Faced with systematic discrimination in Canada, early Chinese immigrants had little choice but to create their own economic niche. From the turn of the twentieth century through the Second World War, a majority of Canada's Chinese immigrants were laundry workers in towns and cities from coast to coast. Although the hand laundry was not a traditional trade in China, laundry work required little capital, and could be performed despite a lack of familiarity with Western languages and financial systems. The hours were long, the work was physically demanding, and most chinese laundry workers lived a marginal existence - as poignantly evoked in this important new work. With the advent of modern laundry equipment and synthetic fibres in the 1950s, and the aging of the laundrymen themselves, the chinese hand laundry came to an end. To generations of Chinese-Canadians, however, it remains a symbol of hard work, sacrifice and enduring hardship.

Enduring Hardship: The Chinese Laundry in Canada (Mercury Series (0316-1854))

Hoe, Ban Seng

There is not a single culture - and by extension not a single cultural identity - which is not the "product of blending and cross-pollination": the result of our "openness to the other." The Lands within Me has been conceived as a space for creation, reflexion and personal testimony about cultural métissage. In effect, this work addresses the fact that we are all culturally mixed beings in a perpetual state of becoming, and teaches us as much about ourselves as about others. At a time when ethnic and religious membership is used for political ends - often with devastating effect - it is important to realize that cultural identities in the contemporary world are both myriad and complex. It was with this awareness that The Lands within Me was created - a chant d'amour to the culturally interwoven worlds of the imagination. Today, whether in Beirut, Paris, Algiers, Port-au-Prince, Montreal, Cairo, Toronto, Colombo or Trinidad, promising new and creative identities are being built - identities that must be developed, nurtured and preserved. This is the message transmitted by the artists and authors of the Lands within Me.

The Lands Within Me: Expressions by Canadian Artists of Arab Origin

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Books by Canadian Museum of History