I’ve been turning up quite a bit of material relevant to my project on Archive.org and Google Books — including no shortage of 19th century writings on the Victoria Bridge and ship fever in Montreal.

This image is from page 65 of Hunter’s Handbook of the Victoria Bridge (1860) as found on Google Books via the University of Michigan. A previous reader — perhaps “Frederick Watson,” whose name is written on the cover in black ink — added figures of tiny people rappelling and sliding down the Black Rock monument.

What were Frederick’s motives? Perhaps he found the book to be boring — was it assigned for a college course? Was he making some sort of political statement about immigrants and the Irish Potato Famine? (Note the words “desecration” and “ship fever” are crossed out.) Or did he simply wish to practice his stick figures? They do look like they’re having fun.

Strange how digital sources can seem so inert until you come across an irreverent doodle from long ago. You’re reminded that this book is a physical object that exists somewhere, one that has traveled across time and space and has passed through many hands.

If I owned the book, I might respond with some scrawls of my own.  But alas, with PDF files, the hidden and anonymous community of readers bound over years by marginalia cannot flow forward.

Establishment of the Black Rock monument in 1859. Image from the McCord Museum (Creative Commons).

History tends to be interpreted in the form of a story with a beginning, middle, and end.  And so as I started to plan out my Goose Village documentary project, I created an outline laying out the area’s history in chronological order.

The shortcomings of this approach were immediately apparent.  Take, for instance, the Black Rock monument.  The rock relates to many periods of history and themes covered by my project, including the typhus quarantine sheds for immigrants in the 1840′s, the building of the Victoria Bridge in the 1850′s, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians’ annual marches in the present day.  Bones from the mass grave of immigrants have been continually unearthed and reburied near the rock, “a voice arising from the old clay,” as an Irish ambassador referred to them in 1942.  So the Black Rock does not belong to one moment in time, easily wedged into an outline under a single heading, but to a 150+ year period of history and memory. 

I dispensed with the outline and tried mind-mapping with a free trial version of MyThoughts:

A non-linear representation of thoughts!

This web of associations better suits the project than a list.  Main themes are branches, sub-themes are “child branches,” and arrows draw relationships across them.  Now the Black Rock grows out of quarantine sheds, but arrows link it to the Victoria Bridge and to the Ancient Order of Hibernians.  And I’ve only begun with this — I can add more branches and arrows as I go along without disrupting the whole structure.

The documentary itself will be constructed using Korsakow, a platform for non-linear web video.  (For an example of a Korsakow film, see Ceci n’est Pas Embres.)  In Korsakow, video clips need not appear in predetermined order.  Rather, they are linked by keywords, and the viewer selects which one to view.

When I first heard about Korsakow a few months back, I felt intrigued yet skeptical about its usefulness for history.  It seemed to me that the essence of history is “change over time.”  I worried that dispensing with a linear narrative would handicap my ability to make any sort of meaning out of historical material.

But the more I thought about Goose Village — the tangential associations of memory and the unexpected juxtapositions of the built environment, as with the Black Rock – the less a linear format seemed to make sense.  The history of the land over the last 200 years seems to me more like a cycle or palimpsest than a straight line.  And as I’ve learned from combing archives and listening to hours of oral histories, there is no single answer to the question “What was Goose Village?”  Different ideas about the past circulate, and they may all be “true,” though some memories conflict with others.

Furthermore, from an aesthetic viewpoint, a strict linear approach to the history of Goose Village would result in a Ken Burns-type documentary.  While I appreciate fiddle music and zooms into sepia-toned photographs as much as the next American history enthusiast, I find that Ken Burns’ movies come across a bit like textbooks: “This happened, then this happened, then this happened.”  Rather than a litany of historical facts in order of how they occurred, I’m aiming for more of an essay film.

A non-linear structure will best mirror the documentary’s themes of memory and evolution in the landscape, and this is now reflected in every aspect of the project’s organization.  The mind-map can translate directly to Korsakow.  Each “child branch” could be a video clip.  The clips could be linked by keyword to others on the same parent branch and by those connected by arrow.  And so the material will unfold in meaningful ways for the viewer.

It seems somehow radical to step outside of outlines and strict chronology for a history documentary.  For me, this project is becoming a grand experiment, a strange overhaul in my usual thought-process.

A still from today’s footage: the Farine Five Roses flour mill sign overlooking Goose Village.

Today I tested the camera equipment I’ll be using for my Goose Village documentary.  Now that my fingertips have thawed, I can blog about my high-def adventures!

I studied filmmaking in college, but back then I only worked in standard definition on miniDV tapes.  Now I have access to an HD camera through the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling here in Montreal.  Having no experience with the fancy 1080i HD format, I wanted to make sure it would work with my video editing program.

With a tripod and camera bag heaved over my shoulder, I walked down Bridge Street to the parking lot and rubble yard where Goose Village once stood.  I gathered footage from around the area, including some of the World War II memorial, which is practically all that is left of the neighborhood, plus some of the Black Rock.  I shot until my fingers went numb from the cold, then I came back and whipped up a clip. 

Here it is!

Goose Village Documentary Test Clip from Kate D on Vimeo.

(The music is from ccMixter, a Creative Commons music database — I know it is not entirely appropriate to the memorials!)

Here’s what I learned today:

• It was a really good idea to test the process out, as I ran into strange technical hurdles from the import of raw footage into Final Cut Express to the export to Vimeo.  In the end I got it working, but far better to experience catastrophic failure with test footage than after an interview I’d have only one chance to get right. 
• I need to use a tripod with a pan-and-tilt head.  Accidentally borrowed one without!
• To get the most out of the HD camera, I must master all of its different settings.
• There is nothing quite like a bowl of hot tomato soup.

When the days grow longer and warmer, I will return to Goose Village to shoot some more footage.  (And maybe at night?  Some footage of car headlights zooming by the Black Rock might be interesting.)

All said, I’m extremely happy to be making movies again!

A 1907 map showing Goose Village. The neighborhood was to the east of the train tracks, between Mill Street and the St. Lawrence River. (Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec)

When I arrived in Montreal, my main challenge was to decide on a site to study for my Fulbright project.  I was looking for a place that had been somehow abandoned but that remained alive in peoples’ memory.  A many-layered place, perhaps one that had experienced radical physical and social changes from pre-colonial times to the present.

In my wanderings, I visited a local history museum, the Centre d’Histoire de Montréal.  There I encountered the Quartiers Disparus exhibition on Montreal neighborhoods lost to urban renewal projects between 1950 and 1975.  These included the Red Light, Faubourg à m’Lasse, and Goose Village.  The exhibition featured interviews with former residents as well as urban planners, weaving together different perspectives on the communities to explore what happened to them and why. 

Quartiers Disparus ranked among the best local history exhibits I had ever seen, and it touched directly on my research topic.  But those neighborhoods’ stories had now already been told, or so I thought.  So I kept casting about, looking for a different area to explore.

Finally, I met with my project supervisor, Steven High, who suggested taking another look at Goose Village.  I combed through some newspaper archives, old maps, and archival photos, and I soon realized that the demolition of the neighborhood in 1964 was only one point in the long and varied history of these twenty-odd acres of land.

Goose Village children, about 1910. (McCord Museum)

Today Goose Village is a parking lot and industrial brownfield, but over the centuries, social, cultural, and economic processes have repeatedly transformed its urban landscape.  Common land where people hunted geese gave way to quarantine sheds where Irish immigrants died by the thousands; the working class neighborhood of Goose Village evolved, isolated from the rest of the city by railroad lines and industrial sites; the entire neighborhood fell victim to urban renewal, demolished to make way for an Expo 67 stadium; and the stadium itself lasted little more than a decade.

Few vestiges of the geese, neighborhood, or stadium remain today, but a sliver of social life perseveres.  For one thing, the former Goose Village fire station is now a glass arts studio.  History continues in this isolated pocket of the city.

Railroad tracks to nowhere near Goose Village.

I got in touch with the Centre d’Histoire, explaining that I hoped to build on their work.  In response, not only did the museum staff give me access to all the raw materials they had gathered on Goose Village for their exhibition, but they offered to link to my work from their web site!  The public/digital history aspect of my project will complement the museum’s exhibit and Goose Village walking tour.  I’m really, really excited to be working in tandem with this local organization.

So, for the rest of the year, I will focus on creating two things:

1. An article on the history, geography, and collective memory of the area once known as Goose Village.  This will be a macro-history in terms of time but micro-history in terms of place. 
2. A multimedia, web-based public history project incorporating the many different histories of Goose Village.  I’m envisioning this as a documentary created using Korsakow, an open-source program that that allows for interactivity and non-linear storytelling in web videos.

So there you have it!  My project is underway.  Onward into the new year!

Aerial view of the Jeffrey Mine in Asbestos, Quebec. Photo by Susana Ferreira Machado. Used under Creative Commons license.

Today I would like to share an example of a creative Quebec history project that has really inspired me: Asbestos, PQ: A Graphic Novel.  It draws together history, art, and sounds to illustrate the relationship between the town of Asbestos, Quebec and its chrystotile asbestos mine, which is the world’s largest.

I first heard about Asbestos in a class on the history of Quebec that I audited this past semester.  We read a chapter from Jessica Van Horssen’s dissertation on the dynamics of asbestos mining in the town and its environmental impact at local and global levels.  Then we looked at the graphic novel version that she created in collaboration with her friend, artist Radha-Prema McAllister.  Though the two works are very different in terms of the level of detail they offer, the complexity and importance of the story comes through in both. 

A few days later I came across an article by Dr. Van Horssen in which she described the result of putting her work online in graphic novel form:

To my knowledge, the graphic novel has been used extensively in high schools to teach history, especially in alternative schools for at-risk youth. It’s part of reading lists for environmental literature courses at several universities. It is certainly on many of my course outlines, and those of others teaching environmental history. Most surprisingly, it’s on a lot of union websites in Canada and the United States, and Lung Associations have used it in their anti-asbestos trade campaigns.

These are forums where my more traditional scholarship wouldn’t have reached, and the process of “going graphic” with my dissertation, especially from looking at the history of Asbestos from the perspective of the mine, really added to the approach I have since taken in my more traditional scholarly activities, including writing.

Her work is reaching all kinds of different audiences.  That is excellent!

She also quotes from J.R. McNeill’s article, Drunks, Lampposts, and Environmental History:

…the most urgent duty of environmental history is to abandon the shelter of ivory towers for the blood-spattered arena of public discourse and the dangerous task of infiltrating the corridors of power.

Yes!!  Into the breach!

These issues of public engagement have been on my mind quite a bit.  For one thing, my Fulbright project is intended to merge scholarly and digital public history work.  It’s good to see examples of others who have successfully accomplished this.   For another thing, I am applying to PhD programs this month, and I’m heartened to hear of dissertation research that has extended beyond academic circles into the wider world.

I will be keeping the example of Asbestos, PQ: A Graphic Novel in mind as I continue in my own work.  Thank you, Dr. Van Horssen, for this excellent project!

The Wellington Tunnel. Photo from Ville de Montréal. Gestion des documents et archives.

I’m here in Montreal studying ruins, including their histories and the often-unsanctioned things that happen inside them.  And since I took a radio production workshop that tasked me with recording ambient sounds from somewhere out in the world, I decided to head down to the old, abandoned Wellington Tunnel with my audio recorder. 

Built in the 1930′s, the tunnel began as a route for cars under the Lachine Canal.  After a bridge replaced it in the 1990′s, it became a graffiti gallery.

Photo by Pierre-Alexandre Garneau. Used under Creative Commons license.

My husband Erik and I arrived at the tunnel after dark only to find its front gates locked.  Just as we were about to give up, we heard voices from deep inside.  I shouted “Hellooooooooo!” and received a wolfen whoop in response.

It turned out that a group of artists was preparing for a performance in the tunnel.  They invited us to come back in an hour for their show.

Not knowing what to expect, we returned to join a number of other people at the tunnel’s mouth.  When a low tone droned from the opposite end, someone whispered, “Follow the sound!” and we processed together into the darkness.  Finally we reached a dead end, where blinking lightbulbs illuminated 20 minutes of dreamlike and erie music featuring a French horn, clanking metal things (a la Einstürzende Neubauten), and layers of electronic loops.

My camera phone failed to do the event justice:

But of course, I also recorded audio.  So enjoy some sounds!

Download: wellington-tunnel.ogg

After the show we met some of the others present, including a woman who wore moon boots, a polka dot jumpsuit swathed in electronics, and a helmet topped with an antenna.  She explained she had broadcast the performance using the antenna as an FM transmitter.

Photo by Bob August. Used under Creative Commons license.

When the powers that be give up on a place, it opens up a pocket of relative anarchy where anything can happen. And that evening, what happened was a DIY noise-art spectacular.

Peppers at the Jean Talon Market. Photo by Tim Giebel. Used under Creative Commons license.

Today is Thanksgiving in Canada, the zenith of the harvest season here.  And so it seems appropriate to write about my favorite place in Montreal thus far: the Jean Talon Market.

Jean Talon is the largest open-air market in North America, and it happens to be two blocks from my apartment.

I go almost every day, and the scene is always one of novelty.  Each stall displays its own wonderland of food, most of it produced by farmers in the Quebec countryside.  Eggplants and colorful peppers gleam in the sun.  Infinite wheels of soft cheese sit behind glass at the fromagerie.  There are hearty cuts of meat.  Barrels of apples.  Garlic hanging in bunches.  Steamy spiced sausages and savory lunch crepes. 

Certain vendors now recognize me, since I have a few favorite stalls I go to again and again. Whether they realize it or not, they’re helping me practice French, and I am able to understand more of what they say every week.

Buskers take turns working the market crowds.  One day you might see a clown making balloon animals for kids.  The next day there’s a folk guitarist with a cat on a leash, belting out sovereignty anthems.

After I’ve strolled a few aisles, I’m usually smiling from the simple joy of being a flâneuse at the market.  A regular grocery store cannot compete.  A grocery store is more or less always the same, whereas the Jean Talon market changes with each day and with every turn through the arcades.

The air is now crisp, and the market’s green rows have given way to piles of yellow-red gourds and squash.  And so today I filled my sack with autumn treats, including Quebec apple cider and a pumpkin.  I felt the comforting warmth of my baguette through its paper bag.  Had an urge to wear flannel and corduroy and listen to old-time music.

In winter the market will be smaller and enclosed.  I will trudge through the snow for potatoes, apples, and fresh meat pies.  And I’ll know that spring has truly arrived when the market bursts open again with greens, flowers, and music.

I’m really going to miss this when I’m back in the U.S., aren’t I?

Ah well — I’ll enjoy it while I can.

Now off to steam some sweet carottes!

Montreal’s Lachine Canal in autumn. Photo by Artur Staszewski on Flickr. Used under Creative Commons license.

J’aime Montréal!

I spent my first few days here figuring out How Canada Works, as least as far as the mundane details of life go.  Now I’m pretty well settled in.  Spending loonies & toonies as appropriate.  Asking for cheese in “gramme” units (and in ever-improving French!).  Riding the metro like any regular person who knows how the card readers work.

Then there have been more complex things to take in, like the political landscape. 

My husband and I arrived in Montreal on the eve of Quebec’s provincial elections.  As we pulled up to our apartment building for the first time and started to unload our boxes, a procession of students came down the street banging pots and pans, shouting “Villeray désobé!”  Political posters near our building had been defaced.  Neighbors flew fleur-de-lys flags from their balconies.  The next day Pauline Marois of the Parti Québécois (the Quebec sovereignty party) won the election, someone apparently tried to assassinate her and ended up killing someone else, and people were wondering if another Quebec sovereignty referendum would be introduced.

Sign on boulevard Saint-Laurent.

Canadians seem ready to engage in discourse about American politics at a moment’s notice.  Yet we Americans, genrally speaking, choose to remain in a state of ignorance about Canada.  During the chaotic events of election week, I tried to fill in gaps in my own understanding by asking questions and reading all I could about current affairs.  I don’t feel provincial politics or linguistic conflicts in my bones as someone from Quebec might — I remain a neutral bystander.  But at least now I have a better context for the things that happen.

(For instance, I had heard about the student protests before arriving — but I did not know about the “casseroles” or about Bill 78.)

I suppose this process of learning how Canada works is the whole point of Fulbright and its cross-cultural exchange mission.  Here I can set aside all the classic Problems in American History for a moment to consider paths not taken and other ways of being.  It’s an opportunity I feel lucky to have.

A view from the ferry during my final ride out of Tenakee.

Today I write not from Alaska but from Montreal, where my summer of chaos draws to a close.  To recap: I finished my masters degree in American history, got married, then moved to Tenakee Springs, Alaska for a two-month museum job.  Once back in Philly, my husband and I had a few days to vacate our apartment and drive a jam-packed rental car up to Quebec.  We will reside here in Montreal this academic year as I work on my Fulbright project.

At this point I’m ready for life to settle into a routine involving local history and top-shelf fromage.  But before I begin blogging about Montreal, I must conclude the story of Tenakee Springs — a place I started missing the moment I boarded the ferry out. 

First, the job aspect:

My supervisors asked me to propose an exhibition development plan for the future museum, including interpretive themes and a design.   Having no prior experience in this branch of museum work, I wasn’t sure where to begin.  How should a band of volunteers go about transforming a tiny, one-room liquor store into a history exhibit?

Next summer, this will be a museum.

Immediately I faced a basic but important question: What was the point of the museum?  Should it be a repository of amusing anecdotes?  A forum for local controversies to be aired?  A place for long-time residents to register their memories?  An introduction to the town for visitors?

I took my cue from the Tenakee Historical Collection’s newsletter, The Store Door.  The Store Door is edited by Vicki, president of the board, and a few years back it won an award for being the best historical newsletter in the state of Alaska.  Vicki packs each edition with colorful tales of Tenakee’s past.  Issues have featured historic photos of “Red, the Beer-Fetching Dog,” articles about old-timers researched and written by school students, artifact identification contests, and in-depth histories on topics like the canneries of Tenakee Inlet (now shuttered but once a major source of jobs).

The museum could likewise take a collage approach.  An exhibit following a strict linear timeline would work against the idiosyncrasies of the collection.  Meanwhile a more flexible framework would allow the staff to put forward a range of objects and photos, perhaps loosely organized around themes like leisure and transportation.  The collection’s miscellaneous nature could provide a platform for both light-hearted vignettes and serious reflection.

Also, one wall of the museum could serve as a temporary exhibit: a space for experimentation, sustained focus on one topic, and/or projects by guest curators, such as local artists or students from the school.

The overall aim of the museum would be to spark curiosity about Tenakee and how it came to be the way it is today.

As for the museum’s design, I used a free web app called Floorplanner to draft a layout.  Not bad for a beginner?

Later I held a workshop on collections management basics for about ten museum volunteers.  I tried to make it more of a conversation than a lecture, all based around a box of musty, uncataloged objects that I pulled from the storage attic.  To begin, participants “voted” on which objects from the box to accession, using a draft of a collections management policy for reference.  I talked a bit about cataloging and the PastPerfect database.  Then a member of the audience came up and helped me demonstrate lightly brushing and rehousing a few of the objects in acid-free materials.  People seemed to enjoy the workshop– they asked good questions, and later a few participants told me they wanted to get more involved with the museum.  Success!

On my last day of work, Vicki helped me load all the collections material I’d sorted onto a trailer, including more than 300 cataloged objects and photos, three small paper collections, and a jumble of items recommended for deaccession.  Just then it stared to rain.  In true Tenakee fashion, neighbors dashed out to help us cover the collection with a tarp.  (Thanks, Pete and Karen!)

We laid the collection to rest on an old bed that proved too big to remove from the attic storage space.  Real shelves someday!

All said I’m pretty pleased with what we were able to accomplish this summer.

Tonight from my Montreal apartment, where the sounds of traffic and French conversation drift up from the street,  Tenakee seems like another dimension entirely.  Strange to think that only a few weeks ago I lived in a cabin in a village in the forest, a continent away.  And while I’m excited about being in Quebec, I do miss the close-knit rhythms of Tenakee and the kind people I got to know there.

I’ll always remember picking berries and making jelly with Vicki…

Trash disposal as an aesthetic experience…

Singing with neighbors in the hot spring bath house…

The Billy Burns party and its infamous “juice”…

Walking all the way down the trail to check out a neighbor’s collection of maritime objects that washed ashore (and trying to guess what the mysterious holes in the woods near her property might be)…

Catching coho salmon (and seeing whales bubble-feed right next to our boat)!…

And so many other things — riding a seaplane through the mountains, feasting on crab with Linda and Stan, burgers at Rosie’s, salmon swimming upstream under the Indian River Bridge — the list could go on forever.

I’m grateful to the people I met in town.  They welcomed an outsider and enabled me to experience being part of a community unlike any other I have known.

Thank you, Tenakee.  I’ll be back someday.

Future museum: left side, bright red building in front of the bright blue building.

Last week a journalist from Sitka came and interviewed me about my summer job here in Tenakee.  I talked for a bit about my work preparing for the opening of the new history museum, showing her the attic of musty objects and papers.  I explained what “cataloging” and “rehousing” meant and described how organizing the collection would make it easier to work with and preserve.

After my spiel she offered a paraphrase: “So your job is to sort through boxes of old stuff?”

Yes.  Yes, that exactly!

As you might imagine, I’ve come across some pretty interesting local artifacts over the course of the summer.

Here are just a few of my favorites, starting with… 

…a water tank?

No!  It’s part of a real old-time moonshine still!

I wish we could refurbish it and sell History Hooch as a museum fundraiser.  Sadly, I’m sure John Law wouldn’t approve.

For more wholesome family entertainment, we have Golfer Ike.

I was on the fence about keeping Golfer Ike in the collection.  While the set could be used to illustrate how people in Tenakee have spent their leisure time, it’s not especially local, and some of the pieces are broken.

In the end I figured the concept of “puppet golf” needed to be preserved for future generations.

“Stand back, ladies — puppet golf with lifelike marionettes is a man’s game!”

We also have a good collection of historic photos.

I enjoy seeing the snappy outfits people used to wear in the Alaskan bush.  These days walking through Tenakee in stockings and pumps would raise eyebrows for sure.  Much wiser to don a pair of tall rubber boots.

Here’s a telephone with no dial — mysterious, no?

Tenakee residents owning these phones shared a party line back in the 1970′s.  Instead of dialing numbers, people would ring different patterns using the little lever on the side.  One short ring got you Dermott O’Toole, one of the town’s leading citizens.  Six long rings were the equivalent of 911, requiring a bit of patience of those dialing in emergency situations.  I’m told everyone eavesdropped on the party line, so you had to assume the whole town knew your affairs if you spoke over it.

Speaking of Dermott O’Toole, here’s a note signed by his son that I found:

Then there’s this cloth embroidered with a design of sea plane mail delivery.  I don’t know who created it, but the fact that someone decided to commemorate the mail this way gives one a sense of its importance in rural Alaska.

And finally, here’s an object that just came in today — a new donation!

The text reads:

WELCOME TO TENAKEE!

We who live here are mostly fishermen and retirees and our income doesn’t permit garbage pick-up at this harbor.  So please don’t dump refuse!  The only ones in Tenakee who like the unsightly and unsanitary mess is our over-size brown bears!  Thank you, enjoy your stay. The City of Tenakee Springs.

This sign greeted visitors for years until replaced with a more usual welcome message.  The donor found the old sign in the woods along the side of the road, covered with moss.  She saved it, and now it will be preserved in the museum.  Hurrah!

Want to see more?  Come visit the museum when it opens next summer.  Tenakee is only a six-hour ferry ride from Juneau!