Posts
as someone deeply immersed in halifax's early history for my cornwallis bio, i found the change to the mi'kmaq reading quite interesting.
my article for Bedford/Southender Magazine is below.
By Jon Tattrie
The next time you stroll in Point Pleasant Park, you can
tuck 13,000 years of human history in your pocket. The Point Pleasant podcast launched
this summer tells the tales of the trees, from the land’s role as an ancient Mi’kmaq
homeland to a British war base to a forgotten childhood backyard.
Deanna Wilmshurst, a public affairs coordinator for the
project, says all of the stories are live on Soundcloud and the map and transcripts are at PointPleasantPark.ca. Visitors can listen to
them at home, or those with smart phones can take a photo of the QR code on the
relevant kiosk or tour marker. She hopes it will eventually be on iTunes so people
can download it before heading out.
Each podcast has a different narrator and runs less than
five minutes. “We wanted it to tell a story and to have people with a tie to
the sites or the park tell the stories themselves,” Wilmshurst explains.
The kiosks also show a map of the park and have a small
display case offering a glimpse into the history of the area, like the Black
Rock Beach kiosk pointing to its old role as a summer getaway.
Wilmshurst says her team looked for curious locations, or
interesting stories.
“A site like Martello Tower is obvious,” she says, but
there are other locations that currently offer more questions than answers,
like Purcell’s Landing on the Northwest Arm. “Why is it called that? There is a
huge story behind that,” she says. “For over 100 years there was a ferry
service across the arm.”
The oldest history, the Mi’kmaq Cultural Site, starts with
drumming and a few words in Mi’kmaq. An older version of the script found on
the park’s website focused on the Mi’kmaq response to the British invasion in
1749. “The place where you are, where you are building dwellings, where you are
now building a fort, where you want, as it were, to enthrone yourself, this
land of which you wish to make yourself now absolute master, this land belongs
to me,” it read, quoting a letter from Mi’kmaq elders after Cornwallis landed. It
also shed light on a number of unmarked graves for Mi’kmaq warriors who died
and were buried in the land later turned into a park.
The podcast version instead focuses on later “peace and
friendship” treaties between the two people and their “complex and unique”
relationship, leaving out the Mi’kmaq-British war that defined early Halifax.
A fuller account is given of the European struggles in the
area, with detailed histories of the Point Pleasant, Cambridge, Chain Rock and
Northwest Arm batteries, the Prince of Wales (Martello) Tower, Fort Ogilvie,
and the Bonaventure and Sailor’s memorials.
Muriel Griswold (née
Fripps) grew up in the superintendent’s lodge at the entrance to
the park. She narrates the first tour marker, Point Pleasant Park Lodge and
Quarry Park. “For me, that was one of the most special ones. Here she is in her
90s, remembering living in the park. She had pictures of herself roller-skating
on top of Martello Tower,” Wilmshurst says. “It really makes it unique.”
Janet Kitz, author of a book on the park, reads the
introduction, and another section is read by a man who has worked in the park
for 30 years. A retired admiral narrates the naval sites.
Some of the park’s modern history is explored. Hurricane
Juan smashed the woods in 2003 and put it out of action for a year. When it
reopened, park staff left one area untouched. The Hurricane Juan Demonstration
Forest shows how the woods would naturally recover.
The conversational tone to the podcasts aims to make it an
intimate experience, as though you happened to run into the person while
enjoying the park. HRM is putting all the information, including transcripts,
online with an interactive map so people around the world can learn about the
park for research or curiosity.
The project has been four years in the making, and
Wilmshurst has been working on it since 2011. HRM did it internally, meaning it
took time to get it right, but they now have the skills in place for more
podcast programs. There are no hard plans for future sites, but staff are
considering locations like Sir Sanford Fleming Park or Hemlock Ravine.
“It’s a really important piece of our history, a piece of
who we are,” Wilmshurst says.
-30-
Factbox: Sites with podcasts:
Farm and Summer House
Fort Ogilvie
Bonaventure Memorial
Point Pleasant Battery
Sailor’s Memorial
Northwest Arm Battery
Purcell’s Landing
Hurricane Juan Demonstration Forest
Cambridge Battery
Mi’kmaq Cultural Site
Chain Rock Battery
Point Pleasant Park Lodge and Quarry Pond
Prince of Wales Tower
