Interviewer: What is this called? Speaker: Those are called skid-tongs. Interviewer: Skid-tongs. Speaker: Or log-tongs they could be called. Interviewer: Log-tongs. Interviewer: And- and when you're skidding, there's two horses- there's a whipple-tree here- here a double tree, a swivel hook and the swivel hook- hooks into that. And when you're the teamster, you got to pick that leg of the tong up and swing it.

... that's a long hard process for a team of horses because they have to be rested. You could only do so much. Maybe you do an acre a day or-something a day or-whatever. But with a tractor, you can just- you can just do the whole thing so- but there's other things like skidding out a bit of firewood and- and working in a sugar bush where horses make sense ...

Interviewer: So what would be the biggest tree you could cut down? ... What kind of things did you learn? Speaker: Well, to start with they ah- they got through the bush and they pick out the skid ways where they're going to put- skid the logs onto and then the road ways so when you following trees, you don't follow the tree so they have to move all that brush you-see?

Interviewer: What is this called? Speaker: Those are called skid-tongs. Interviewer: Skid-tongs. Speaker: Or log-tongs they could be called. Interviewer: Log-tongs. Interviewer: And- and when you're skidding, there's two horses- there's a whipple-tree here- here a double tree, a swivel hook and the swivel hook- hooks into that. And when you're the teamster, you got to pick that leg of the tong up and swing it. ... I know one- one set of my log tongs went to Japan and apparently they're building- doing log building over there and that's where they went.

... my dad put together a machine that they call the jammer for lifting the logs rather then rolling them off the sleigh and having the horses pull them up on a skidway. This machine picked them up off the- the sleigh and put them on the log pile.

Interviewer: So what would be the biggest tree you could cut down? ... What kind of things did you learn? Speaker: Well, to start with they ah- they got through the bush and they pick out the skid ways where they're going to put- skid the logs onto and then the road ways so when you following trees, you don't follow the tree so they have to move all that brush you-see?

Speaker 1: No but I wouldn't let anybody into my bush with a skidder. Speaker 2: They just destroy every tree. You-know they get one where the horses would work around them. Speaker 1: No, you would never get into my bush with a skidder. Interviewer: So a skidder is what? Speaker 1: It's what they skid the logs with. Speaker 2: It's a big heavy- Interviewer: Big heavy thing.

They- they, ah- yeah, my father he had a- he used to write letters and (inc) to the war. Ah, we had, ah, war-drives. Ah, mother would, ah- they- they- they would drive into town and take blood and ah, my mother was skittish person around blood, but anyway, it came down to the job. The Women's-Institute ran it- came down to the job that they bottle the blood in quart sealers and sealed it.

but by the time they got up here, the timber business slacked right off. So there wasn't much work of any kind.

Speaker: Yeah now what you had you- you- you laid slings down, you put a layer of hay on that. Interviewer: What's a sling? Speaker: A sling is just a- like a rope net. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: And then you hook onto it and the horses out the far- the teams out the far end of the barn, they pull it up with a sling

Speaker: A sling is just a- like a rope net. Interviewer: Okay. Speaker: And then you hook onto it and the horses out the far- the teams out the far end of the barn, they pull it up with a sling.

of the summer just for ah farm experience, I guess. Interviewer: Square bails or- Speaker: No just loose hay. Interviewer: Stoots. Speaker: Loose. Interviewer: Oh yeah? Speaker: You- you just used um a hay fork and load it onto the wagon and hauled it in and- and ah piled it up into the- they had a sling that would bring it up and then go over it and then drop it. Interviewer: Into the- into the mow. Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Did you used to salt the hay after you put it in? Speaker: I don't remember that. No. Interviewer: Some- some places I used to work, they used to put salt in

Well they gathered with horses and a sloop with a tank on it.

Speaker 2: Caught the saw and had the pitch on it. ... But he went right back to sawing when he got healed up. ... He run that for the rest of his life. There's pictures in there in the mill. Speaker: Yeah, some place.

Interviewer: Now what we- how did you go skiing on the lake there? Speaker: Oh we just take off here. We used to just take off Sunday mornings and go out, a bunch of us ah (inc) going some place, decide where we'd go.

But during the line that we lived in the orphanage there were two families moved up from down around the (inc) area some place and that made enough children in the- in the community that had to open the school again.

Ah after we moved here ah I st-- I started taking in sewing because I- I could sow quite well and ah I ho-- some days I didn't have time to sit down and eat with my family. I'd be working on something for somebody to go some place in and I got to know a few people and um when the library was opening I applied for that position although it was already gone ...

Speaker: ... and as I kid I didn't know what my dad said, "Well it's time to go to couche." Well you-know- ... Of course, well- with a little bit of French. Interviewer: Oh where did that come from? Speaker: Well it must have been around. There must have been some place, somebody- ... It was w-- it was amazing the- the songs that they could sing and the- and the- another- another expression that I discovered was French.

The girl got- they found a place for her to stay. I don't know if it was from Toronto or where it was or Hamilton or some place, I don't know which- which- where it was but they had to stay over night.

... his grandparents had to build a floating bridge to get across to the property. That was in the eighteen-eighties, I-believe. ... Yeah, and he was born in there as well. And his mother's parents were born, but- out this way some place, what they call Scotch-line.