Journey of a Lifetime

Abstract

When I first began collecting stories during my fieldwork I often tried to elicit information from people about ‘when’ specific episodes from their stories had happened. However, I often found that asking questions such as ‘what year’ or ‘what time’ an event had occurred were met with confusion and misunderstanding. For example, in one interview with Opal I tried to find out what year she had left her family to come north with her grandmother. This interview is provided in Chapter 1 called Stupid question, wherein I ask:

Anne: When was this? When did you come up here ... what year was it?

Opal: Wintertime.

It is not down in any map; true places never are.

Herman Melville¹