Crowdsourcing Rusyn places in the US

Rusyns may not be a well-known ethnic group, but we have quite a presence if you know where to look. This is especially evident in the Northeastern US, where many onion-domed churches were founded by Rusyn immigrants in the late 1800s or early 1900s.

I always look for Rusyn sites when I'm traveling, and have seen quite a few Facebook posts asking for Rusyn points of interest in Northeastern Pennsylvania (NEPA), for example. After a quick poll to gauge interest and participation, I started a collaborative Google Map that we could use to map Rusyn places in the US. In under a week, we already had an impressive collection of points on the map!


Data in this map is organized into several layers:

• Rusyn Places in the US - This is the layer most people will view and/or edit. 
• Blue points indicate a Rusyn place of interest
• Brown points indicate a Rusyn-style wooden church (more on that later)
• Former Rusyn Places in the US - This layer contains places that have a Rusyn history and have been repurposed, closed, or demolished.  
• Gray points indicate a place that is no longer used by Rusyns, but still has significance (architectural, cornerstone, etc.)
• Black points indicate a place that no longer has any Rusyn significance or has been demolished. These points still provide context for the extent of a former Rusyn community 
• Needs More Info - This layer includes places that are too vague to be useful or may be Rusyn but aren't confirmed (by sources or colloquial knowledge). 
• Red points were identified either during my review of newly added points or in my own research, and require additional digging. 
• Rusyn Places in Canada - This layer includes two Rusyn-style wooden churches in Canada because they were too interesting to leave off the map, and are very close to the Northeastern US.
• Russian Brotherhood Organization Lodges (-1959) - This layer includes towns that had a RBO lodge before 1959, as listed on the Rusyns of PA blog. This layer provides places for me to investigate for additional Rusyn communities and places that I may not have found otherwise.
• Green points are placed on the town, as these lodges often didn't have addresses of their own and met in churches or other businesses.
  

Findings

Not surprisingly, churches and cemeteries are most of the mark we've left on the US over the past 136 years*. I did find some fun things though:

• Monuments (a giant Campbell's Soup can signed by Andy Warhol, a statue of baseball player Stan Musial)
• Roads named for individuals or an entire group of people (Lemko Way, Olyphant, PA)
• A park (named for former Manville, NJ mayor George Papawick)

Of course, Rusyns need their pirogi, so I included a number of Eastern European restaurants in Rusyn areas, along with the famously Rusyn Baba's Pirogies in Brooklyn, and a future Rusyn restaurant in Johnstown, PA.

Take one look at the map and you'll notice that most of the Rusyn places in PA are in NEPA or near Pittsburgh. There are a significant amount of Rusyn places in NJ and OH as well. I also learned more about a number of Rusyn outposts in less likely places, like Hartshorne, OK and Brookside, AL. Rusyns migrated from the Northeastern US to Hartshorne and Brookside for job opportunities in the mines.

The most exciting find though, is a number of Rusyn-style wooden churches in the US and Ontario, Canada! Who knew?!? Here's the list, so far:

If you know of any that I missed, please comment below!

Idea for a Road Trip

I'm still stuck at home, trying to stay safe during a global pandemic. I'm not sure when I'll get to do this road trip, but I can dream... I used MapQuest's route planner again and came up with this route. I can visit all of the Rusyn-style wooden churches in the Northeast in 26 hours of driving!


I excluded the two in Ontario, Canada, since Canada is not letting Americans (or any other foreign nationals) in during the pandemic**. I also excluded the church in Georgia, because it is so far from the rest of the churches. I'll have to save that for another trip.

Sources

I cited my sources in each point on the map. If there's no comment in the map point, it was a suggestion by someone in the Facebook group, or was added by a user. For further reading, check out these links:

• Rusyns of Pennsylvania blog
• Kubek Project blog
• Carpatho-Rusyns Everywhere Facebook Group  
• Lemko Rusyns and Friends (Лемкы-Русины з приятелями) Facebook Group

* St Michael's in Shenandoah was the first Rusyn church in the US. It was built in 1884 and demolished in 2015. The congregation still exists, and has a newer church building that they've used for many years.
** I don't blame them. The US has some work to do, as infection numbers are skyrocketing again.

Photo Phriday - 2014 10 17

Back in 2009, the boyfriend and I drove to Acadia National Park and Bar Harbor.  While planning the trip, he found a deal on The Cat.  We left the car in Maine, took the bikes with us to Nova Scotia, spent an evening drinking local beer and eating lobster, spent a day exploring Cape Forchu by bike, visiting a wonderful museum, and doing a self-guided walking tour of Yarmouth.  Then it was back to Maine.

We biked to Cape Forchu from downtown Yarmouth and had lunch (lobster roll and tea!) at the lighthouse.  A great way to spend a day!

The Cat doesn't run between Bar Harbor and Yarmouth anymore, making it more difficult to get to Yarmouth.  If you ever find yourself there, please visit the museum!

Photo Phriday! - 2014 08 22

As you may have noticed, I share a lot of photos on Flickr.  So many photos, in fact, that I feel some of the best ones get lost in the masses.  You may have also noticed that I rarely post actual blog articles anymore.  In an effort to do something with this space, I decided to feature some of my favorite photos in a new series: Photo Phriday*.  I'll try it for a while, and see how it goes.  I hope you enjoy it!

Here's this week's photo:

I took this photo during a fjord cruise of Indian Arm last month.  The Canadian flag on the boat with a taxiing float plane behind it seemed to sum up the area around the harbour. :)


*I am not above spelling changes for cheesy alliteration!

Tea Time - Northern Delights Inuit Tea!

When traveling I like to try a local tea or something that is generally related to the area.  For example, in Utah I found Prickly Pear Cactus Ceylon Tea.  In Key West I found both Key Lime Black Tea and a fruit blend key lime tea.  And in Alaska... well, I got tea imported from AK's former owner, Russia. :) Anyway, tea is awesome, and when I was in Ottawa recently I came across some tea that I found intriguing...

Inuit Tea!
Keeping with my fascination of far-off lands, the Canadian Arctic completely fascinates me.  Until I can afford one of those awesome looking arctic exploration cruises, I'll have to settle for quasi-traveling via Wikipedia and Flickr.  And drinking tea!

I came across a variety of Inuit tea while looking around an awesome tea shop in Ottawa, ON.  Yay!  I opted for the variety box, which contains each of the five flavors.  What are the flavors, you ask?  They are:

• Arctic Blend (Ukiurtatuq)
• Cloudberry (Arpiqutik)
• Ground juniper (Qisiqtutauyak)
• Crowberry (Paurngaqutik)
• Labrador (Mamaittuqutik)

The website goes into great detail about the teas, noting the ingredients as well as a bit about each tea.  Other pages on the site provide information about each plant and details about the harvest.  Their dedication to keeping the tea traditional, from the use of traditional plants to hand-picked ingredients ("No mechanical equipment is employed at any phase of production.") is quite impressive!

As for how the teas actually taste, they're great!  Very earthy, and an interesting blends of flavors.

Ground Juniper Tea

Now for the sad part: the website only offers help for finding this tea in Canada. :(  You can always email them suggestions!

Other Awesome Teas
For the heck of it, here are photos of some of the other location-related teas I've found.

Prickly Pear Cactus Tea

Virgin, UT

Fruitblend Key Lime Tea

Key West, FL

Maps
You didn't expect me to blog about something like this without creating a related Google Map, did you?!

View Location-Related Tea in a larger map

A Cool Canadian Capital City - Iqaluit

I'm very fascinated by remote and 'extreme' locations.  It intrigues me to consider what daily life is like in a place so vastly different than any place I've lived.  I'm from Pennsylvania.  To me, PA is pretty "normal".  There aren't many extremes (no extreme hot or cold, no extreme light or darkness).  It's a pretty reasonable place to live, with four separate seasons and a variety of weather. It's also got a good mix of densely populated areas and sparsely populated areas.  Pretty normal, not too extreme.  So let's talk about a more extreme locale...

Nunavut!
In 1999, Nunavut packed it's bags (not literally) and quit being part of Canada's Northwest Territories to become a territory of its own.  Nunavut spans nearly 1,932,255 sq kilometers of land, and around 20% of its nearly 30,000 people live in its capital, Iqaluit. To put that into perspective, if each member of Nunavut's population had 1sq km of land all to themselves, they'd fit entirely on Prince of Wales Island.  With land left over.  Also, Prince of Wales Island is just slightly smaller than Taiwan, and Taiwan is home to over 2.6 million people.  Hmm. 

Here's a map of Prince of Wales Island, so you can compare it to the rest of Nunavut.

View Nunavut and Prince of Wales Island in a larger map

So if everyone in Nunavut went to a party on Prince of Wales Island and ended up wanting to stay there (nevermind that it's uninhabited), Nunavut would still have more land than ALASKA available for the polar bears and muskoxen and birds and other cool stuff.  Just THINK about that!

Anyway, I think the population density alone is a huge factor for life being vastly different up there.  You know, that and snow.  And polar bears.  And muskoxen. 

MUSKOXEN!?!

Did you know they're related to sheep?  Baaaaa.

Speaking of Nunavut's cool critters... Their license plates rock!  They kept the same license plates when they separated from the Northwest Territories.  Which means that their license plates are shaped like POLAR BEARS!!  Here is a way cool sample, courtesy of Wikipedia and Flickr:

Roar!

Ok, enough about Nunavut.  It's time for Iqaluit! 

Iqaluit!

Iqaluit is Nunavut's capital city, and it is home to somewhere around 6,000 people.  Your college may have had more people than that.  Mine didn't.

While English and French are the official languages in Iqaluit (and Canada in general), about half of the population in Iqaluit predominantly speaks a non-official language, such as Inuinnaqtun and Inuktitut, which are among the Inuit languages.  According to the wiki article, Iqaluit means "place of many fish" in Inukitut.  Here is a stop sign in Iqaluit!

Don't you wish your alphabet was that cool?

The 4-way stop diagram rules too!

Iqaluit was also featured in a White Stripes video!

Let's Visit!

Now that you know some of the reasons I'm fascinated by Iqaluit and its bright yellow airport, let's visit!  You can fly there from Montreal and Ottawa!  The Nunavut Tourism website has lots of suggestions on awesome things to do there.  For example, we can go on a number of Arctic Odysseys!


Stats & Data from Statistics Canada.  :)