Sunday September 20th, 2009 First Nations Legends

When I was little, I used to spend a part of every summer at my neighbour’s camp at Sandy Beach. I loved it there. We kids would spend most of the day in the lake (until we turned blue) and then after dinner, we’d sit around a huge bonfire burning marshmallows and listening with wide-eyed fascination to the grownups recount the same yarns that they had spun so many times before. Somehow, the repetition never bothered us and we’d often request “retells” – usually the ones about the Sleeping Giant – again and again. When I grew older, I realized that these enchanting stories were traditional, First Nations tales that had been passed down and shared orally through multiple generations and I was very excited to find that several of my most beloved had been documented and published so that I could read and enjoy them as often as I wished. I also discovered that quite a few could be found at the Thunder Bay Public Library ! Here are some of my personal favourites and I sincerely hope that they will stir your imagination and spawn an abiding interest in indigenous peoples’ folklore in the same way that they did for me.

LEGENDS FROM THE FOREST TOLD BY CHIEF THOMAS FIDDLER; ED. BY JAMES R. STEVENS. c1985
The premier storyteller of this book, Thomas Fiddler, was the last traditional, hereditary chief and a patriarch to the people of Sandy Lake. He was one of many elders who remained strong in his tradition despite the changes wrought by the 20th century. The tales that he relate often predate the 19th century and many reach back to Stone Age time. All are shaped by the boreal forest and centuries of forest survival, uninterrupted until recently by sedentary living, technology and Judeo-Christian concepts of life.


INDIAN MYTHS & LEGENDS FROM THE NORTH PACIFIC COAST OF AMERICA BY FRANZ BOAS; EDITED AND ANNOTATED BY RANDY BOUCHARD AND DOROTHY KENNEDY. c2002
This amazing historical resource, translated from its original German, is lauded as “a stunning legacy” and one of the richest collections of First Nations mythological texts which will “serve the Native and academic communities” for a long time. All true, but it is also hugely entertaining, informative and an invaluable asset to anyone seeking the real essence of British Columbia.



NORTHERN TALES: TRADITIONAL STORIES OF ESKIMO AND INDIAN PEOPLES. ED. BY HOWARD NORMAN. c1990
NORTHERN TALES, is a collection of folktales from the far North amassed from the tribal peoples of Greenland, Canada, Russia, Alaska and the Polar Region. It is meant to include indigenous peoples worldwide, who lived or still live a hunting and fishing life and who have predicated much of their cultural self-definition on ancestral, sacred, “tribal” beliefs.


TALES OF THE ANISHINAUBAEK BY BASIL H. JOHNSTON; ILL. BY MAXINE NOEL. c1993
“Anishinaubaek” (pronounced nish-NAH-bek) is an Ojibway word, translating literally as “the good beings”. Here is the spirit of the Anishinaubaek – legends of mermaids and medicine women, thunder spirits and wendigos – set against an elemental backdrop of wind, river, flower, forest and sky. Retold by Basil Johnston and Sam Ozawamik, and exquisitely illustrated by Maxine Noel, this book is a favourite of mine in large part due to Noel’s beautiful artistic renderings.

THE MANITOUS: THE SPIRITUAL WORLD OF THE OJIBWAY BY BASIL JOHNSTON. c1995
Once again, Basil Johnston, a noted scholar and leading expert in the Ojibway culture, records a spell-binding collection of tales, tribal teachings and native legends derived from the earliest oral tradition. Simple in narration, complex in ideology and wonderfully rich with incident and detail, they explain the mysterious ways of the natural world using the insight and wisdom of an ancient tribe.




The library also offers a selection of First Nations legends that have been worded and illustrated specifically for younger children such as the Nanabosho series written by Joe McLellan and his wife, Matrine. I especially like a collection of stories called GIVING: OJIBWA STORIES AND LEGENDS BY THE CHILDREN OF CURVE LAKE because, as its title indicates, it is written and illustrated by children for children. Today, with the advent of the Internet, First Nations culture and mythology is available to a much broader, more diverse readership and it remains wonderfully and inextricably interwoven into the fabric of our Canadian heritage.


Jill Otto, Library Technician

Sunday September 13th, 2009 Download Audiobooks

Download Audiobooks Anytime, Anywhere
Enjoy popular titles from the comfort of home

Thunder Bay Public Library is proud to offer you a new collection popular audiobooks, accessible 24/7. We are excited to announce this at-home or on-the-go service for a new way to enjoy your library. This collection is brought to you by the Ontario Ministry of Culture, through Southern Ontario Library Service (SOLS) and Ontario Library Service-North (OLS-North).

With hundreds of popular and classic titles to select from, our OverDrive digital collection is guaranteed to have something for everyone. Offering popular fiction and non-fiction, our “Virtual Branch” has over 2600 titles, covering a wide range of genres and including juvenile and young adult titles.

OverDrive makes it easy to find something you like. You can browse by category. Audiobooks are divided in to eleven fiction categories (including drama, horror and romance), and 13 non-fiction categories (including business & careers, family & relationships and science). You can also easily search by collection, such as New Releases, New Additions, Hot Titles and May We Recommend. If you have a specific title or author in mind you can do a quick search. Advanced search gives you more ways to find good audiobooks, including format, language, publisher, subject and awards.

Getting started is easy! Visit our website, www.tbpl.ca, and follow the path Find Books / eBooks / OverDrive. Install the free software, browse the collection, and add titles to your cart. Check out with your library card number and PIN and download titles to a personal computer or laptop. When the download process is complete, you can enjoy titles on your Windows or Mac computer or transfer to supported devices, like an MP3 player. Many audio titles can be burned to CD to listen in the car. OverDrive is also accessible to visually impaired patrons, and is compatible with screen reader programs, such as JAWS for Windows and Window-Eyes.

So what’s the catch? There is none. Digital downloads are easy to check out and download, and the best part is- there are never any late fees because your titles are automatically returned at the end of the lending period.

How many downloadable audiobooks may I borrow at once?

You may sign out up to five OverDrive audiobooks at a time.

If the audiobook I’m interested in is signed out, can I put a hold on it?

Yes, you can place a hold on any signed-out audiobook. You will receive an email notice when the audiobook is available for you. It will be held for three days.

Can I renew an audiobook if I’m not finished with it?

No, renewals are not possible within OverDrive. However, if no one has placed a hold on the audiobook, you are welcome to sign it out again.

What is the loan period?

You can choose to borrow an audiobook from OverDrive for either 7 or 14 days.

What happens when the book is due?

The aduiobooks is automatically returned when it is due. Part of the agreement OverDrive has with the audiobook publishers states it is your obligation to delete the audiobook from any device you have transferred it to, once the loan period is finished.

Can you recommend a good MP3 player?

The OverDrive site has a link to “Supported Portable Audio Devices” which organizes MP3 (and other) players by make, model, price and storage. This is a great place to start your search for a portable audio device that will work with OverDrive.

What if I need help or have questions?

Our friendly staff is always happy to help! Call 345-TBPL (8275) to reach all locations, use AskON, the chat reference service accessible from our Web site (www.tbpl.ca), email commserv@tbpl.ca, or visit the About TBPL / Contact Us page on our Web site.

Joanna Aegard, Head of Virtual Library Services

Sunday September 6th, 2009 Backyard History

The Thunder Bay Public Library is just wrapping up another busy summer full of visits from local history and genealogy researchers. For anyone who has ever attempted the gauntlet that is local history research, you are fully aware of how difficult it can be to piece together a story that is only remembered by those who lived it. For the personal, and often complicated, history of the area there is often no better resource than the wealth of local authors and historians living and working in Thunder Bay.

Instead of pestering the neighbours with questions, you could pay a visit to the Library and spend some quality time with the large variety of titles by local authors. Our collection is constantly growing and offers a unique and interesting look at the history of Thunder Bay. If it’s the shipping industry that floats your boat, check out BEACONSFIELD, MOHAWK AND THE RED BARGES by Gene Onchulenko and Skip Gillham. To get on the right track with railway history, try THUNDER BAY TO GUNFLINT: THE PORT ARTHUR, DULUTH AND WESTERN RAILWAY by Elinor Barr. Want to know which type of crime was most common in 1912? Sneak a peek at the THUNDER BAY QUIZ BOOK: 101 FASCINATING QUESTIONS ABOUT OUR HISTORY.

In addition to these works, the Gateway to Northwestern Ontario (which can be accessed through the Library’s Virtual Collection) provides you with historical photographs and images. The portions of this collection that focus on the shipping industry and the laying of the Canadian Pacific Railway through this region are particularly interesting to all local history buffs. Another option for finding information specific to the local area is to come by the Brodie Resource Library for our additional local history materials. We have newspapers on microfilm from Fort William and Port Arthur which date to the mid 1870s, as well as local history files and obituary indexes.

All this local talent is not limited to historical accounts alone, check out authors such as Ruby Slipperjack, the author of popular children’s and youth fiction. For the biography lovers, Charles Wilkins recently released IN THE LAND OF LONG FINGERNAILS. To find out more about these and other local authors, or to start digging around for information on your own family’s history, come to the Library and you might be surprised at what you’ll find.

Jesse Roberts, Acting Head of Reference Services at the Brodie Resource Library

Sunday August 30th, 2009 Dream Demons

I had that dream again last night, you know, the one where despite having finished school umpteen years ago, you’re supposed to be in a maths class but you can’t find the classroom; or it’s the end of the school year and you just haven’t done any of the work yet. I’ve had this dream countless times, and it’s completely disturbing, because I know it must be due to some sort of fear or guilt about my school life. Admittedly, I did, on occasion, write essays at 4 o’clock in the morning the day they were due, and I may well have feigned death just to get out of French. Time and time again, though, I’ve awakened from this dream in the middle of the night and sat up in bed, shaking my head, telling myself not to be so stupid, to just move on.

Well, I decided it was about time I faced my inner demons and found out what this dream and several other persistent ones mean. I quite often dream about frantically trying to pack all my belongings because of an imminent disaster, but I can never seem to get it all together. Then there’s the big house with the many, many rooms dream. I walk through one room and then, bingo, there’s another one I didn’t know about. I dreamt the other night that I actually had my own supermarket in my house, which was kind of cool, but it also meant that I had a stack of pesky neighbours feeling entitled to use it. As a kid I would dream of being chased, but my legs would go dead and I could barely even drag them along the ground. To solve this problem I would start flying through the air. This was fine until the sensation of falling fast from a great height would be so frightening I would wake up.

So, the logical way to deal with my dream demons was to consult the Thunder Bay Public Library’s catalogue to see if there were any dream interpretation books available. I’d much rather be dreaming about something totally and utterly delicious than fretting over things that should be well and truly buried by now. Give me something I don’t want to wake up from, or that makes me smile like a total goof the next day.

The beauty of dreaming is that potentially, anything goes. Dreams can be our ticket to however or whoever we want to be. They can help us solve problems, release tension, and realise our full potential – bold claims indeed, but as our dream guides explain, it’s all about control and building the skills to do so. As Penney Peirce explains in the Dream Dictionary For Dummies: dreams really are, in the truest sense, a door-way to greater self-awareness, knowledge, success, and the possibility of a rich full life.

This book is the newest edition in TBPL’s dream collection, and although most of our other titles are of an earlier vintage, their content is still valid. For example, All About Dreams: Everything You Need To Know About Why We Have Them, What They Mean, And How To Put Them To Work For You, by Gayle Delaney is a well worn, tattered and dog-eared book, but in my opinion, this means it has to be a most excellent read. Both this and Peirce’s guide also provide tips on how to remember dreams, something I personally grapple with. You can wake up feeling that you’ve dreamt something really important or interesting, but the moment you try to recall it, it’s snatched irretrievably away from you. There are ways to master this kind of dream theft, though, and although it may involve lots of practice, it’s well worth it.

So if you dream something totally weird and want to know what the heck it means, or if you need to exorcise some dream demons, a little investigation may lead you to some very useful information. For instance, did you know that dreaming about eating raisins means conflict with a neighbour, or if you’re eating celery, you can look forward to promising romantic experiences? Go figure!

Rosemary - Library Technician