Built Heritage Resource Guide

Researchers can sometimes obtain useful information via conversation with former owners of a house or longtime residents of a community or neighbourhood.

Clara Dennis toured Nova Scotia in the 1930s and penned many conversations from her travels. A number are relevant to illustrate the use of oral history in built heritage research. Dennis visited Creignish and spoke with Don MacMaster. She penned her conversation in Cape Breton Over, 1942, p.263:

“A stone house stands forth among the others. It was, I learn, built by the pioneer John MacMaster, Red John, who with his cousin, Donald MacMaster, weaver, came to Creignish in 1801. They settled side by side.

‘Their first house was a log cabin. Then Grandfather built this stone house,’ said his grandson, who is now living in the stone house. ‘Grandfather hauled the stone by ox-team and dressed it himself. The wide board ceiling of this room, you see, is of pine, all sawn by hand. The walls are of hemlock and the floor, red spruce. The house is a good deal over one hundred years old. I was born in it, and I’m crawlin’ up to eighty.’”

Date: 1930s

Photographer: Clara Dennis

Reference: Clara Dennis Nova Scotia Archives accession no. 1981-541 no. 4