Santa’s Workshop, a 1940s era theme park in Wilmington, New York, is still pulling in “believers of all ages.” Dick’s Country Store, Music Oasis & Gun City, in Churusbusco, is: “A little bit of heaven for the bluegrass music fan who also loves to hunt, this ordinary looking building on Route 11 east of Chateaugay offers not only basic staples for neighbors but an amazing selection of guns, the greatest names in stringed instruments, and frequent live music jam sessions.” TAUNY (Traditional Arts in Upstate New York) Executive Director, Varick Chittenden, explains that the death of local shoe repairman Herbie Haven of Canton and the subsequent break up of his business, a local landmark, was the “eye opener” that lead to creating The Register of Very Special Places. RSVP offers audio tours of cultural landmarks in the Adirondack region, supplemented by a map, photographs, and site information. Visitors nominate well-loved or curious local sites and share their own memories of the sites already featured. The audio tours, hosted on North Country Public Radio Online and narrated by Varick Chittenden and Joel Hurd, weave together rich description, interviews, and environmental sound carrying listeners to places like Lloyd’s of Lowville, a classic local diner, and the Palace Theater with its historic organ. (Links do not take the visitor directly back and forth between the site listing and the audio tour so I suggest opening each as a tab in the web browser.) A slideshow provides a visual overview of local sites.
Photograph: Italian American Civic Association of Massena, “one of last ethnic social clubs in northern New York, where men of Italian descent gather for food and drink, recreation, and socializing.”
Can the Web contribute to building a sense of place that locates us in a wider cultural landscape? RSVP is a great resource for North Country residents, for newcomers moving into the region, and those planning a visit. Through documenting and promoting awareness of the region’s heritage, RSVP and North Country Folklore help to bring people out of their everyday worlds of work and home in order to connect with the cultural landscape. Newcomers to Lowville will likely feel more comfortable taking a seat at Lloyd’s after the warm North Country introduction. At the same time, TAUNY has produced a lively, engaging portrait of the region for those, like myself, at a distance.
RSVP is only one of the online resources featured on the North Country Folklore Web site. With North Country Radio, TAUNY has produced Meet the Masters, a series of audio documentaries profiling “people who have mastered and conserved a variety of family and community traditions over several generations in the North Country and who actively practice them today.” Tales of the River: Collected Stories of the St. Lawrence River Communities trace the struggles, livelihood, and tales of the region along the border with Canada. Folklorists interviewed over forty storytellers and the site features profiles and audio excerpts from many of these interviews. Good Food Served Right is a playful portrait of the intriguing food traditions – “whoopee pies, johnnycake, bullheads, michigans, crow’s nest, and dandelion wine”—of the region. Along with the fun, it provides a good overview of traditions related to producing, processing, and serving foods, supplemented by a curriculum guide for teachers. The ambitious folks at TAUNY promise to bring us new productions including: Folk Art of the North Country, Adirondack Music, and a Handbook of Real North Country Traditions.
Traditional Arts in Upstate New York (TAUNY) is a membership organization committed to “documenting, preserving, and promoting the folklore of New York’s North Country.” Varick Chittenden is a fellow graduate of the Cooperstown Graduate Programs of the State University of New York College at Oneonta.
[...] Country Folklore I discussed their Register of Very Special Places in an earlier post. Take a look at their many exhibits about place in the Aidrondacks region including “Food [...]