... what was I going to say about his passing. Uh, oh yeah, just before he had- he was on a trip. ... He was actually- they were goin-- him and my grandmother were going out west. And that's- he was putting gas into the truck, and that's where he had the massive heart attack. But he knew that his health wasn't the best but he died doing what he loved. They always travelled.

Seen other kind of activities in the bush, I've seen bears for sure. ... Ah I was out working out west, and I was a brush-cutter, just kind of clearing around trees and what not and bears would come out and just out of curiosity come and check us out, and not put us in any danger or anything, but just kind of- curious, you-know?

Ah, I've lived in different- I lived in Peterborough, I lived in Mississauga, I lived in- well I was out west for an entire summer. Lindsay- I lived in a lot of places. ... I always kept coming back.

I had a car for only a month (laughs) yeah, so I was like "Fuck" and then- it was wrote off, so I'm like "Ah I just bought this car and now I owe all this money on this car, what do I do?" So that's when I went out west and was a brush cutter out there.

Interviewer: Have you ever seen a forest fire? Speaker: Ah no, no. But when I worked out west, we seen the smoke of a forest fire, but you-know, once there's a forest fire, you're not allowed to go into that area.

And one time we used to go all the way to Highway (inc), through the park. And then the bridges- and the- after, in the forties, see this was- used to be the main line one time, from out West. ... And ah- in the forties it- they closed down, af-- during the war, and I- one of them only went to Whitney.

And I already had the camping bug because ah i-- in just my own immediate family we would go camping every summer with the children when they were small. We- we'd just travel out east, travel out west, travel down into the States and we always took a tent. And ah we were always on the move so it meant setting up a tent every night.

So that was a very good trip. ... Then another one was out west, we'd never been there before so we drove all the way across and all the way back. ... And I fe-- Ontario's very long. ... I didn't realize how far across it was. ... But I- I- I liked all of it.

until the paper-mail closed down

Take her outside, she wouldn't piddle, and she came in here and she'd piddle.

Interviewer: So, did you talk to everyone, or just the only- just the people in your grade? Speaker: Oh no, you could talk with anyone. Interviewer: Yeah. Did everyone know each other? Speaker: Pretty well. It was a small community.

Interviewer: Yeah, and so what did you do at weddings? Speaker: They- pretty well the same thing they do now, eh?

Interviewer: Wow. Did you have any brothers or sisters? ... Did you get along with all of them? Speaker: Ah pretty well, yeah.

Interviewer: Yeah, what was- how did you do that? Speaker: Laid a sheep on the table, and just take the shears and take the wool off, eh? Interviewer: Really? They would just lay down? You didn't have to catch them or anything? Speaker: No they pretty well come to you like, you-know. Interviewer: Wow, those were some pretty accommodating sheep.

Then if they're going farther out in the field, they'd go make themselves sandwiches, and take them out, and then they'd- say about four-o'clock they had a little bit to eat, and then they never had nothing, 'til it was pretty well getting dark already, that they couldn't work out in the field, then they'd come and make a big supper.

... we had a theatre in town, and we would go to the theatre. ... No I don't remember the first time I- I went. Not- not the first time, but I- I remember going, and we would go pretty-well every Saturday. And they had cute little love-seats at the time. You could sit two in a- two in a seat.

Well you have to wa-- oh yeah, you have to wait 'til it really get good cold weather and-stuff-like-that, you can't just when it first comes on, you got to wait but usually on shore when it freezes up, you-know, it's pretty well safe, you stay close to shore.

And ah yeah so each p-- each person or- or group of people takes on a specific job and then it- it usually goes pretty well and if there is a snag, like if a waitress forgets to come or something happens or-whatever you-know you get a group of people and you don't have a table for them, what do you do? You-know? You kind-of work around that ...

... in Ottawa, I was taking courses and my husband was working on construction in Ottawa and yeah, one of the ah students died, drowned. So we had to come to that week and- and actually it was a relative of my husband's. So yeah. But otherwise that class has done pretty well, most of them. Yeah. There's one kid I think that's kind of screwy but most of them, yeah.

Interviewer: So what classes then- you shared together? ... Like girls and boys. ... Speaker: Well like everything, pretty well everything else. Like we did arts and science so it was like ah- geography, history, all-that-stuff, English, that was- French. That was all boys and girls. There was never anywhere really in any of our schools here that they were segregated apart.