Okay. Ah, what can I say. Okay, so, I used to camp with, ah, my friend's family. Like we- I used to camp a lot near Ma-- near here. And we were like a bunch of people, like, ah, a bunch of my mom and her, ah, friends, and stuff. And, there was this one guy who was my age, and he was like a cute guy, you-know, like, everybody was like, "Oh-my-God." But we

with a- with a farm tractor and a- and a flatbed wagon, and brought it to Remi-Lake, and dad had got a piece of land that he was able to, ah lease for- for a while, and then, ah, subsequently, we- we bought the property and own the land then, but tha-- that Spruce-Falls bush-cam is still standing, it was built, ah, in sixty-one. And, I remember, I was four years of age, I remember tha-- that- that construction going on, and us having a- having a cabin, you-know. And, ah, I just sold it, ah, two years ago.

And they were moving from one spot to the next, you-know, and what they usually did was- th-- the- the- the guy who was in charge of the- the cooking in the- in the camp and took care of the dogs, he would uh snowshoe and- or walk ahead with snowshoe to where they were going to go for the next- in three days from now to- to stay for four days or-something.

So you'd pack a trail, come back, that would freeze up and he could- they could move that- the- the- take down the camp, the tents and- And ah- and all their gear, and bring 'em down- bring 'em ah up to the- where they're going to set up next. So ah th-- back in those days, they- they were sleeping in a seven-by-seven tent. Three guys in a seven-by-seven tent.

Don't put me inside. I- I just can't sit down, and- so I'm always out-- outside in the winter, you-know, start cutting trails for snow-shoeing, and we have a camp in the bush, and so, yeah. Um, when we lived in town, like, we would always retreat to the lake, we had a fish-hut, um, during the winter, and that's where we'd spend our weekends, on the lake.

Stuff that people, like, would pay money for now and have as decoration in their house. Really cool stuff. And as we explored more- I think we spent about three days. We ended up grabbing shovels. Starting to dig, and there used to be an old bush camp right around that area. And that was their dump, essentially. Everything had, you-know, composted and disappeared except for all these, like, glass things or metal things that were still around. The glass, I-mean, they might as well have been made yesterday.

And that one ended up walk- wandering into the boat- bush and we shot him, I think, the next week. Because he kept coming into the camp. Sucks to say. We didn't want to, but sometimes you had to. But that's an example of a close call.

There's six of us in our group. Speaker: So we break up three and three and we go to two different ends and- and then we meet. We meet after so we- we gather back at our camp at- we go at five, we probably come back around eleven. You-know, we just diddle-daddle for lunch and then we go back out around three, come back nine. You do that over and over again ah 'til you get your moose.

No, the closest I've come to is ah, we're at the camp, the bear was um- um- we were- we were um- we were fishing. We had a fish-fry. And so ah after we had the fish-fry, you have to dispose the oil, 'cause you leave it around the camp you're asking for trouble, right?

I left it there. We went fishing. When I came back the bear was in the oil. Like I was walking up to the camp and you just look up and the bear's nosing in there and he's eating the oil. And I had my gun inside the camp, because we k-- we keep a gun there in case something- you-know, 'cause once the bear starts coming-

He's there all the time and you're- y-- yo-know, we've had the camp totally destroyed by bears ah before, so. So I start walking up the camp and th-- and- to the camp, and the bear ran behind ah a little building we had.

So I start walking up the camp and th-- and- to the camp, and the bear ran behind ah a little building we had. And ah- so I got into the shed, and when I came back out the bear was ah on his hind legs and he was hissing.

Well with my friend Jackson we used to go to like the z-- Lake-Rufus. Rufus-Lake, he's got like a camp out there. We go there camping or my buddy Cameron up in Hearst, they got a camp maybe a hundred kilometres west of Hearst. Interviewer: Oh wow. Speaker: Go there and one summer we went there and we decided, "Oh, we'll camp out in this island. Great idea." 'Cause we just watched Survivorman before and of-course halfway through the night we're like, "Oh." We got hungry. So we're like, "Let's just make a raft log and go all the way across the lake back to the camp." And one guy goes to sit in his raft and all-of-a-sudden boom, everything falls apart. So we just took a couple p-- pieces of trees and took my belt and tied them together and just swam back and oh, it was awful. No, and once we got back to the camp the generator was off and everything was locked up so we went there for nothing.

Yeah, he was um- he was a scout-master and they- was the Catholic scouts. And ah they had a camp ah- and a- a property ah at Remi-Lake and they used to go there every summer. Yeah, he was- he was in a lot, my dad.

Vodka was his drink. But- I-don-t-know. I-- it was ah- it was like ah- we never noticed the poverty or-anything. We were never in poverty. And ah my sister ah went to work in the bush in the camp as a cookie. Interviewer: Ah. Speaker: So she had nice clothes, so when she went to work I wore her clothes. 'Cause I only had a yellow blouse and a black skirt in- High-school. So I wore her clothes and hung it up back before she came.

It- that'd be a train track, like, it's a little dinghy-line, and they had cars and when they portaged, they'd have a big paved frame and they'd block and tackle it up and they'd load it on the cars and then go through to another portage or to the camp, or- Yeah. Well, like, for guys that went hunting, like, you had to load everything.

I was working up at the camp, and, uh, it snowed, and you-know, uh- like, you-know when there's about a foot of snow, it's fresh snow, and you- all you have is the tire tracks, eh? Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: I'm driving along up to camp, I'm just following the tracks. That's all you see, is- is two- two tire tracks here in the bush, ice-road, eh? And, all of a sudden, woah, uh- big, uh, herd of wolves come out. Timberwolves.

Yeah, I think it was- it c-- probably when we were four-wheeling or-something. 'Cause like he would- like if we were at the camp or-something. We have a camp out in the bush, we always go there. Like he would get like pissed off 'cause he couldn't drive the four-wheeler then. I'd be like, "Oh no, I'm driving. Like you're a bad driver." And he'd just get mad and start fighting you-know.

Well ah I-don-t-know, there's not a lot to do at our camp, honestly. Like in the winter w-- 'kay yeah, there's this cool thing we do in the winter. We'll go out there in the winter and we'll sit in a camp or-something, have a smoke or-whatever. And then we'll go outside. The snow will sit on the trees and we would go around and just like take the baseball bat or-something or like the hammer we have and just like hit the tree really hard and all the snow .

It's a- it's a really- it's more of a private lake. Like this camp, not a lot of people know about it. It's like kind-of in the bush. It's on a small lake. I forgot now what the lake's called but in the winter we'd go around the lake with our Skidoos and do like I-don-t-know.