And ah, a friend of mine has a hunting camp that we've hunted together for some forty-five ah maybe pretty close fifty years now I guess.

The- the main hydro line runs in front of the farm there. And all that steel was hung on the hydro line. Obviously they put the hydro out completely until they- until they got that off the line. I don't know how long the hydro was off. But certainly put the hydro out of commission. It was just like clothes hanging on the line to dry or-so and you-know these- one these big cables.

Um, after that they moved to a small double garage that was on a property on an old Colyer farm which is just in- it's now a subdivision ah just east of James-Street on Main-Street. But the eight to tenth house up, the other side of the hydro station would be where the open land and farm was that had the garage on it that they lived in. Then they moved over to Centre-Street, rented there for a while, Weatherall-House it was called.

Interviewer: Ah, and there- you mentioned there was a storm a few weeks ago? ... Anything happened nearby? ... Speaker: B-- ah, yeah, trees down on hydro wires and-stuff-like-that.

... the whole family'd go out and shovel together and um, you-know it- it- there was just massive snow. I would- (laughs) I would crawl through the pathway because there was too much snow that I would sink (laughs) and um, granted I was little. But I mean, you-know hydro poles aren't- weren't as tall as they are now. They were much shorter but to have the snow pushed up to it and shovelled up half way was not a big ordeal and um- ... I-mean, you don't get that kind of snow now.

I don't know what grade that was in, but we were coming down- I don't know what- did the tire blow or-something? I don't think it was winter. I don why we went into the ditch but all I could see was a telephone pole coming or hydro pole whatever it was, we just missed it. Went down over a bank and then- but we didn't roll, but ah, this was on there and I don't remember what happened, why we- whether it was a tire that blew-

But, no we didn't have any bathrooms and I remember reading by the lamp light. We didn't have hydro or- at first or-anything. I can remember being so scared when they put the hydro line in because I- (laughs) you-know, didn't know what this was all about (laughs).

Um, I spent ah ten years on municipal counsel here. And um, about ah eighteen years on the local hydro commission. Local health centre (inc) was on that for about fifteen, eighteen years.

..., but we've had some- lot of you-know obviously with these trees, they get older and they get butchered by trimming around the hydro lines which (laughs)- and then sometimes you just go and build a- put another one in right underneath it. Yeah (laughs). "Hey, want to do this again in twenty years, do you?" Yeah.

We had no hydro. We had no indoor toilet. ... We had to go out and get the water from the well and bring it in.

Speaker 2: Burned all that wood. It was ah something else that- more or less pioneer type I guess. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Oh, you didn't have hydro here, until you finished it.

Speaker 2: Well- well that never came- that never came in 'til nine- 'til nineteen-forties just to the Second-World-War. Speaker: To save hydro, wasn't it? Speaker 2: No, it was to give it- everybody back then was planting Victory-Garden and it was to give people longer hours of daylight mainly to come home and- and work in their gardens, the people that were planting the Vic- they called them Victory-Gardens.

The- the main hydro line runs in front of the farm there. And all that steel was hung on the hydro line. Obviously they put the hydro out completely until they- until they got that off the line. I don't know how long the hydro was off. But certainly put the hydro out of commission. It was just like clothes hanging on the line to dry or-so and you-know these- one these big cables.

No hydro, so we have a lot of generators so I take the generator out and vacuum the floor. (inc) scrub this way.

... my memory of the first battery radio- ... We used to- used to listen to the hockey games on Saturday night, on the old radio. And we didn't get ah- we didn't have hydro on our farm until nineteen-forty. Ah up until then it was all coil-lamps and lanterns but we got- we got hydro in nineteen-forty and then, of course all these other things came along then but ah in the thirties it was pretty primitive living, you-know, it was- but you-know, I think we were probably a lot- a lot of times we were probably happier than- than we are now ...

... everything's got to be faster, everything's got to be electronic, everything's got to be computers and I-pods. Which is great until it doesn't work. Or it screws up. Or somebody shuts the hydro off. And then nobody knows how to think, 'cause the brains are in their hand, not in their head anymore. And their knowledge is in their hand, that's the other thing.

Not often, usually by the time you'd work from sun up to sun down at the farm, you didn't want to do, except go to bed. Yeah. When I was smaller, my ah, my aunt and uncle didn't have a hydro in the house, it was all coal oil lamps and you carried the water and-so-on and-so-forth so there was always chores to do besides the farm chores, it was house chores, as well so- you did that too, it was an old farmhouse, you did upkeep.

... my mother got sick and I went to the farm for the winter. So I went to a country school there. But not ah- I didn't have to (laughs) chop wood or carry water or anything-like-that. Ah I'm pretty sure they had hydro and (laughs).

B-- and she used to write and I often wondered why this candle was burning, because my grandparents had hydro. But she used sealing wax on her envelopes and she had a stamp which I don't know what became of it.

I have seen a lot of changes, yes. Yes. Yes. And I'm pretty-sure it was nineteen-forty-four when my parents got the electrical power- we call it hydro, but it is electrical power on the farm and, once-in-a-while we'll have a blackout but it's we're- we're- we're lucky, and the blackout is usually caused by a severe storm ...