Exploring folklore and dark tourism

English and Modern Languages (EML) faculty member Lynda Daneliuk is presenting a talk on Folklore, Vampires and Narrative Authenticity in New Orleans this week as part of the EML lecture series.

Dark tourism has been defined as tourism involving travel to places historically associated with death and tragedy. “You would be hard pressed to find any area or destination that doesn’t have at least one dark tourism event at least once per year,” said Daneliuk.

This kind of tourism is a major draw in New Orleans, Louisiana, with tours highlighting ghosts, cemeteries and burial practices, voodoo queens and pirate activity. Her discussion will examine issues of authenticity and validity focusing on vampires, and question the appropriateness of presenting these tales to tourists alongside other beliefs and legends.

And while this interactive hour-long discussion will mostly cover the southern state, there are similar events to be had in our own backyard, especially this week. Kamloops has dozens of dark tourism activities happening around Halloween. These range from pure fun to enlightening.

“Dark tourism provides an outlet for people to talk about darker events that happened in our history,” explained Daneliuk. Whether you are visiting a cemetery, a place where disaster happened, a memorial or a macabre abandoned building, there will be elements of education, entertainment and discussion.

“People participate for a variety of reasons. Visitors to the tunnel tours at Tranquille Farms may be there for the performance, to learn something new, to pay homage or because they have alternative beliefs.”

Daneliuk is currently working on her doctoral thesis in the field of folklore studies. “Folklore is connected to language, it comes out of both literature and anthropology. But is a discipline all on its own. It is a non-institutional, informal culture, the culture of everyone and all of the cultural products that we create, such as legends, beliefs, personal experience narratives, material culture objects, jokes, recipes, etc.”

She also weighed in on the recent warnings in the media regarding drugs being formed into toy-like objects.

“Legend materials can wander from ‘folk’ to official sources and back again. These stories of tainted Halloween candy have been around so long now that they are part of the ‘truth’ of our understanding of the holiday. Even back in the 1960s and ’70s there were materials in the news regarding LSD that looked like candies being passed to kids on Halloween.”

Daneliuk will be completing her research within the next ten months and plans to turn it into journal articles, presentations and eventually a book. “After all is said and done I will continue to work with belief and narrative in all aspects, and I would love to write about Tranquille Sanatorium and the belief issues that exist with abandoned institutional spaces.”

Join us for Daneliuk’s presentation in the Arts and Education Building, room 266 on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 4:30 pm.

Learn more about Toursim Kamloops’ top choices for Spookloops