Rock the Sure Shot : June 2013

Memorial University's Department of Folklore and the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador are hiring a researcher to work on their “Traditional Knowledge of Springs and Wells in the St. John's Area” project. The project is designed to map locational information and to collect oral histories about wells, springs and natural water sources within the St. John's Area. I work with the Heritage Foundation and while we're waiting for our hire, I thought I'd do a little bit of research on water supplies in the province.

VA 92.236; Getting Water at the Spring: Woman with young child filling water barrels [1932]
The Rooms Provincial Archives

I also work a part time job at The Rooms Provincial Archive and on slow days I like to familiarise myself with our collections by researching various topics. I started my search on wells and springs by searching "wells", which gave me lots of hits, but mostly for the surname. Then I tried "spring" and got way too many hits for the season. Finally I tried "water supply" and voila!

I found lots of great stuff for HFNL, but I also found some neat pictures of a tool I'd love to learn more about. The item (pictured below) is a hoop and bucket combination for carrying water. I'd like to find out why the hoop was used. Did it help with balance? Did it make the buckets feel lighter and easier to carry? Was this just used in Newfoundland and Labrador or was it a common tool for carrying water? If you can lend some insight, feel free to get in touch.