On March 31, 2022, I posted about a collection of songs and stories gathered by the late Robert Klymasz that my cousin at the University of Alberta had found and shared. These audio files were recordings made of our great-grandmother, Anastasia Masiowski when Robert Klymasz visited Fork River in July of 1964.

After looking into the collection, myself and another cousin visited the Ukrainian cultural museum, Oseredok, where we met and spoke with Robert Klymasz. This was after Doors Open Winnipeg as I’d visited the museum that May and had asked the volunteers how I could get in contact with him. He was well into his nineties at the time and still volunteering to the cultural museum. He shared what he could remember about his research and advised me that there would be transcripts of his audio files at the Museum of History.

I find myself in Ottawa every year due to work, however, for the past several years a visit to the museum archives hadn’t been possible because it’s been closed when I’ve been in town. Last year, I was able to book a visit to the museum’s archive on October 1, 2025 and came away happy!

Thanks to the archivists, I was able to have all of the original paper transcripts of Anastasia’s songs and stories pulled for my review. I learned from this visit that there were actually 40 songs and stories that spanned the 32 audio files. During my visit I took photos of each document and then transcribed them in the Cyrillic alphabet which took me a long time as I’d been doing it the hard way.

After transcription, I reviewed the audio files, identified the missing songs, and gave them names based on the naming convention of first line of the song. Additionally, I discovered that there were parts of the audio recordings which hadn’t been transcribed in the files held at the museum.

I’ve been vary wary to utilize AI tools due to their inaccuracy, lack of regulation, etc. however I can’t deny how useful they have been in this project to give me an idea of what these songs and stories are about and give me further context given that I don’t speak or understand Ukrainian. Hiring a Ukrainian speaking transcriber who could review my files is not realistically within my budget.

So I tried out ChatGPT with the knowledge of its pitfalls and weaknesses. I also used transcribing software called ScribeRocket to analyze the audio files and provide a second transcription which has given me an idea of what conversation was not originally included in the typed transcripts held at the museum.

Some of the limitations of the software were that it was unable to transcribe files that were less than 30 seconds in length and some other files failed as well. I addressed this by stitching together the smaller files and sending them through the software again with middling success. The translation feature of the software was interesting as well. I expect the quality of the audio file has also played a part in the analysis but I expect this is something I will be unable to address.

Below is a revised table of the 40 songs and stories which I have relabelled based on the transcripts I reviewed at the museum archive. Over the course of several weeks, I’ll be making posts for each song or story with it’s Cyrillic and Romanized text plus notes from my Google, ChatGPT, and ScribeRocket translations.

I will also be noting the additional conversation that was not recorded in the museum’s original transcripts where available and any other interesting notes. There are two words that I’d like to provide some additional context of given their prominence in the list of songs and stories.

A кoлoмийкa | kołomyjka | kolomyjka is a fast-paced folk dance connected to the Hutsul people and is named after the town of Коломия | Kołomyja | Kolomyia in Ukraine.

A вінкоплетини | vinkopletyny is a ritual action taken during a wedding song known as “flower wreath twining”. Dr. Hanna Sokil referenced vinkopletyny in her article, Wedding Songs Ladkankas from Verkhnia Rozhanka, published in The Ethnology Notebooks. 2019, № 5 (149), 1331—1341. This action is performed by svashkas who Dr. Sokil states are special young girls who have been selected to do and explain certain events taking place during the wedding celebrations.

In a 1984 interview with Maria Chilieck (Khlibéts’ka née Shpys’ka), published in the March 1992 issue of Sviéto: Celebrating Ukrainian-Canadian Ritual in East Central Alberta Through the Generations, she explained that wedding wreaths were made from periwinkle (barvínok). The groom would wear his wreath on his hat and that the wreaths were gilded (zlotýly to vink) with gold leaf (pozlítka) or something shiny. In the Old Country, a svashka would place the wreath on the head of the bride.

The table below is an index for Robert Klymasz’s work connected to transcribed files at the Museum of History labelled KLY-B-50.8 (b), items 8-25, and KLY-B-51, items 1-22.

¹ These 4 songs are found on the same audio track labelled “1998-037-m004-6_141 Zhenyla mnia moia maty”.

² These 2 songs are found on the same audio track labelled “1998-037-m004-16_141 Ne teper (2) na hryby khodyty”.

³ These 3 songs are found on the same audio track labelled “1998-037-m005-4_141 A ia v svoiei matusen’ky iedna iedno bula”.

⁴ These 3 songs are found on the same audio track labelled “1998-037-m005-8_141 Pereskochu voboloniu”.

⁵ These 2 songs are found on the same audio track labelled “1998-037-m005-10_141 Oi dube dube kucheriavyi”.

^* I’m searching for where this story belongs in the museum’s transcript files and will move it once properly located.