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Winnifred Marsh at Midland Library Eskimo art, customs recorded in paint by artist by Shirley Whittington When Winnifred Marsh came from London to Eskimo Point on the west shore of Hudson Bay in 1933, there were no coloured polaroid cameras. She recorded what she saw around her with water colours and c red slides of those painitees were shown to a large audience at Midland's Public Library last Wednesday night. Before her marriage to Reverend Donald Marsh, an Anglican missionary to the Padlimiut Tribe of the Caribou Eskimo, Winnifred Marsh taught art at a girl's school in London England. At Eskimo Point, an ar- cheologist inspired her to use her paints to recordd folk arts and customs that have largely disappeared over the past decade. Fascinated by the delicate beadwork em- broidery on deerskin parkas, Mrs. Marsh made a coloured record of the designs. She also painted the faces of the children that she taught in the Mission school, and of their elders, engaged in the work of the set- tlement. Mrs. Marsh brought some of her on the spot sketches to the library with her, and talked about her decade in the Western Arctic. "The autumn is a particularly cruel time up there,' she said. "There was not enough snow to build an igloo, and the people used to pull their caribou tents tighter and tighter in order to keep out some of the cold. They couldn't use ice for building, although Hudson Bay was frozen. It was just too cold." She remembered a day she spent inside an igloo sketching and fighting the melting drips of water that ran down the neck of her parka. "In the middle of the night,"' she said, '"'a group of people came running over to our house, shrieking with laughter. What was the joke? The joke was that the igloo in which I'd been painting all day had collapsed during the night." The igloos in Mrs. Marsh' paintings are not the symetrical doomed affairs of popular mythology. They look more like enormous snowdrifts, which was in fact what they were, with the addition of beams for roof support. They were never heated, and access was through a long tunnel. One of the most striking pictures was of a young Eskimo woman, _ in beaded parka, framed in an irregularly shaped porthole of snow. 'That was the day our whole house was covered with snow," said Mrs. Marsh. "When we opened the back door, it looked like a solid sheet of styrofoam."' Her husband dug his way out of the house, and created an opening in the snow outside the kitchen window, and this is how that particular picture was born. The folk crafts and ancient arts of survival are all gone now and Mrs. Marsh feels that the in- fluence of the white man has not been altogether good. "When we had the mission school,"' she said, Author and friends NOTICE VILLAGE OF ELMVALE RESIDENTS New waste disposal hours effective immediately. Waste disposal site will be open Saturdays only from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Don Hocken : Public Works Chairman __ For killing rete Tey. as-. =... + |. +. eS Se. ee ee an fertilizing lawns... Author-artist Winnifred Marsh discussed her paintings with two ad- mirers during last week's guest lecture at the Midland Public Library. Mrs. Marsh presented slides and talked of her experiences in Canada's far north. "we taught the children to read and write in their own language first. Then we taught them to write in English, and a little bit of arithmetic so that they could deal with white men." Later, government schools separated the children from their families. "This caused a terrible gap between children and parents,' she said. 'The children were educated in English and there was a language barrier as well." Winnifred Marsh's paintings have been collected into "The People of the Willow" a beautiful book which tells a little about what it was like to be one of the first white women ever to live in the Arctic circle. It tells a great deal WORTH LOOKING INTO SINGLE VISION $31.00 BIFOCAL $46.00 more about the folkways and arts of the Eskimo, which have disappeared ins sthe»..sonrush== of Get Green Cross light weight Weed'n Feed with Killex. Its double-action formula eliminates weeds and provides balanced feeding to make your lawn grow. e Forkilling weeds --Weed'n Feed contains Killex, the effective herbicide that controls over 15 varieties of lawn weeds --includina stubborn chickweed, clover, plantain and dandelions. e For fertilizing lawns -- Weed'n Feed contains two types of nitrogen for growth and greening--plus potash for sturdy root structures, Have we got a selection of smart prescription eyeglasses for you! And, at spectacular money- saving prices too. * your choice of frame from a combination of 65 styles, shapes and colours; including mods. * your prescription in white, rose or sunglass green lenses. * one year replacement warranty against breakage. * your choice from a wide selection of cases. dedicated to the task of ¢ 4-02. bottle of cleaning solution. producing a second book Extreme mod and metal styles for only $13.00 from her husband's notes. more. and phosphorous for The Imperial Order of Low prices on fashion tints and special types of structural strength to both the Daughters of the lenses. roots and leaves. Empire bought 37 of e One easy-to-carry 22-|b. Marsh's drawings and = see 5000 square feet paintings which will be ; presented tv Canada's new Museum of the North in Yellowknife. The IODE connection was alive at Wednesday night's book night. After Mrs. Marsh showed her pictures, and spoke about her life among the Padlimiut, local mem- bers of the IODE served coffee and refreshments. civilization. Reverend Donald Marsh became _ the Anglican Bishop of the Arctic. He died in 1976, and Mrs. Marsh is Home Today. OS, is MNep, Baseball comes to Toronto! That's why you shouldn't be without this exclusive Shoppers Drug Mart Official Blue Jays Team Calendar. This full-colour, poster-size Calendar features the official team photo of the 1977 Toronto Blue Jays. Plus a schedule of all the Blue Jays games for this season, and space for you to record game statistics. Quantities are limited. Get yours while they last with a minimum purchase of one "ae dollar of merchandise, excluding prescrip- tions, at your Shoppers Drug Mart. -- Think about it. You get good looks for less money at King Optical. Come in and see us today. GREEN CROSS The lawn and garden problem solvers. 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