Them Days Incorporated is a non-profit organization dedicated to the collection, documentation, preservation and dissemination of the history and heritage of Labrador. It was founded as a part of the Labrador Heritage Society in 1975 and then became a separate incorporated entity in 1980.
Them Days magazine is published quarterly and contains oral history interviews, archival documents, photos, and articles by academic researchers. The magazine’s target market is the Labrador general public, Labradorians who have moved away, and researchers interested in Labrador. Special issues and special publications have been completed in the past, such as Snowblind and Seal Finger (early medicine in Labrador); Grub (a book of recipes and Labrador food memories); Nunatsiavut; Labrador’s Veterans; Floaters, Stationers, and Livyeres; S.S. Kyle; Stories of the Mealy Mountains. Some of these have been made possible through IGA funding.
Them Days Inc. is an important regional archive in the province, and the only one in Labrador. Because of its shared borders and multicultural founding peoples, their archival holdings are also important to Nunavut and Nunavik, as well as Newfoundland. Their holdings of archives consists of thousands of negatives, photographs and 35 millimeter slides, a number of large lantern slides, over 1,000 interviews with Labrador residents on several forms of tape, disc, and digital of which about half are transcribed on paper; an extensive map collection; reports, letters, files and diaries, a genealogy collection, and an array of Labrador books and government records that date back to the late 1700s. Them Days Inc also has a wealth of documentation relating to the 1927 Privy Council Labrador Boundary decision, some of Captain George Cartwright’s journals and a number of private collections.
Every birth is a story. Over time, how that story has unfolded in Labrador has changed. In the beginning, there were traditional midwives, women and sometimes men who became skilled in attending deliveries. Then with the arrival of the Grenfell Association, midwives trained in England were stationed along the coast and in North West River. Then, as health services became more consolidated, birth has involved travel from home communities into regional centres like Goose Bay and St. Anthony. Midwives disappeared from the region less than a decade ago. Now, there is a resurgence in interest in midwifery and a demand for its services. Midwifery has since returned to the province, but not so much in the Labrador region, which had the longest, strongest ties to midwifery thanks to the Grenfell Mission.
Them Days has produced a special issue about midwifery in Labrador, looking deeper into the history of prenatal care, postnatal care and breastfeeding support, as well as labour and delivery. Many people have special connections to the midwives who caught them, and Them Days have examined those relationships as well. This publication involves looking at both traditional midwiferies as practiced by the Innu and Inuit of Labrador, and of the Grenfell midwives. As well as a collection of stories from the North Coast, South Coast, Straits, Upper Lake Melville, and archives in St. John’s, and put these stories into a book format.
Them Days have printed 1100 copies of the 192-page book, and the plan is to give 90 books to Labrador Grenfell Health, the Innu Midwifery Program, and the Healthy Baby Clubs. The IGA is honored to have helped make this publication a reality!
Check Out the publication at this link!
Check out the Blog regarding the process of this book!
