Refreshing the Record & Keeping Stories Workshop

10:00 – 10:30 am
Tour of the Moose Jaw Art Gallery

10:30 – 11:30 am
Refreshing the Record: Heritage Saskatchewan’s Community Living Heritage Projects

Since 2017 Heritage Saskatchewan, a non-profit organization, has produced five community-based living heritage projects: Coal in Coronach (2017); Val Marie Elevator (2018); gee meeyo pimawtshinawn/It Was a Good Life: Saskatchewan Métis Road Allowance Memories (2019); Covid-19 Culture (2020); and Black and Rural Saskatchewan (2022). Incorporating tenets of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, the projects document living heritage in Saskatchewan communities. All the materials collected for the projects, ranging from oral and video interviews, associated transcripts, photographs, and finished documentary videos and written publications, have been donated to the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan (PAS) to ensure contemporary living heritage in the province has a place in the permanent record. The key to the success of these projects has been a strong emphasis on relationship-building and community outreach, particularly to underrepresented groups like rural and remote communities, Indigenous, Métis, Black, and Hutterite communities, to mention a few. This approach, and the vision of continuing to contribute to the provincial archives, serves to refresh and revitalize the historical record in Saskatchewan.

11:30 am - 12:30 pm
Lunch will be provided.

12:30 – 4:00 pm
Keeping Stories: The Art of the Oral History Interview

Workshop Description:
What stories does your community have to tell? Are you interested in learning how to properly document oral traditions in your family or community? In this workshop, participants will learn:

The basics of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) as outlined in the UNESCO Convention, and why
documentation of local history and traditions is so important
How to conduct an oral history/oral traditions interview
Proper recording techniques, including recommendations for digital recording equipment
What to with the data once you’ve collected it, including storage, metadata and how to utilize the material in projects.

Workshop itinerary:
Introduction to ICH and the importance of documentation
Equipment and technology outline
Recording techniques
Interview etiquette
Creating metadata and processing interview material
Proper storage of digital files
How to use the material in heritage projects
Mock interview

Instructor: Kristin Catherwood, Director of Living Heritage, Heritage Saskatchewan
Kristin is a storyteller, writer and folklorist. Raised on a family farm in southern Saskatchewan, Kristin is passionate about the cultural landscape of the rural prairies. Her graduate thesis resulted in "The Barn Hunter" blog which chronicled her cultural explorations of rural life. Trained in the methodology of the American Folklife Centre at the Library of Congress, Kristin is experienced in heritage documentation. In her work with ICH, Kristin uses storytelling as a tool to connect people with place, and believes in empowering communities to tell their own stories and curate their own heritage. She currently sits on the advisory committee of the CCUNESCO Memory of the World Documentary Heritage Register and holds a UNESCO Co-Chair in Living Heritage & Sustainable Livelihoods.