... well both George and Sandy and my mom and dad were good friends and, um, I used to spend, ah- so we started out like a lot of young kids ah- you-- I'd go up to hunting camp every year and- and ah- you-know- started out feeding the dogs and then maybe the next year if you didn't act the bear you'd- they'd let you maybe walk with the- with the guy that was running the dogs ...

So we had bears but I don't remember deer. They're- they used to go by horse and sleigh to the hunting camp, wherever the hunting camp was. And I was too young to be interested.

And then the people that came to the deer camps bought cottage lots and built cottages. It was one of the real- go back to my- go back to my- I'm thinking. Something we did ourselves to attract people. And ah- like the lake. Haliburton-Lake used to have five hunting camps on it. Now it can't support one.

So our guys hunt on their property and they have- actually have a- a hunting camp down on a piece of Garrett's land that th-- well I don't know how you work that out now i--

Yeah, on the lake a lot um, when I got- when I got older, my cousins always had dune-buggies and stuff and so they'd always rip up to the- the hydro line. ... 'Cause really close so it was only like, I-don't-know, like a- like a five minute drive you're on the hydro line and then- then you'd- then they'd rip up and down on the- there's basically roads on the hydro line- all the access points.

They had me do quite a big hydro trench about two-hundred-feet long that's just all flat rock. You can't get a hydro trench across that but I zig-zagging through the rock and boulders and I got a hydro trench. And gee the hydro inspector was happy with it.

Interviewer: And what's a hydro trench? Speaker: Well it's for buried hydro cable. The- right now the cabins all have over head hydro cable and the trees are- every now and again falling on them and busting and- putting the hydro out.

Speaker: The- right now the cabins all have over head hydro cable and the trees are- every now and again falling on them and busting and- putting the hydro out. Interviewer: So they want to put them underneath. Speaker: And them little kids there, they pay well there for a summer, some of them come for all summer eh? ... You can't have the hydro out- ... So there are changes.

... anyway the moose are moving in and now the wild turkeys are coming in which is nice. Ah, and turkeys I think were here years ago Garrett but when the um- the big towers, the big hydro line went through, the electric power lines, they used the heavy duty insecticide and pesticide and the- ... And the D-D-T and-stuff. And that killed off through the food chain, that killed off a lot of ah um animals and birds ...

They didn't have hydro 'til what? Nineteen-sixties or-something?

Speaker 2: They didn't have hydro 'til what? Nineteen-sixties or-something? Speaker: Sixties before the hydro ever went by up through here. See that old lamp up there?

Speaker 2: Like people- that was before people had refrigerators and-stuff, that's all they had. Speaker: Well there was no hydro here so-

We had no hydro 'til ah, I don't know what come in forty-nine or forty-eight. Some was (inc) blue is forty-nine before we had hydro. Always the milk went down and used to have a big well out here. It was plastered into rock, twenty-seven feet deep and you had a pail and you just let the milk go down in the well. ... To keep it cold.

Interviewer: And what's a hydro trench? Speaker: Well it's for buried hydro cable. The- right now the cabins all have over head hydro cable and the trees are- every now and again falling on them and busting and- putting the hydro out.

Speaker: The- right now the cabins all have overhead hydro cable and the trees are- every now and again falling on them and busting and- putting the hydro out. Interviewer: So they want to put them underneath. Speaker: And them little kids there, they pay well there for a summer, some of them come for all summer eh? ... You can't have the hydro out- ... So there are changes.

And we used to have ah a water ah line that came down through the lake through the flume underground that supplied most of the town. This is before we had hydro. And it- and they had ah a company they called the Gooderham-Waterworks. ... And ah it supplied the town by gravity feed.

They all spoke Ojibwe. And we were Engli-- only English speaking and we were supposed to teach them all the subjects in English. So we tried. It was very interesting. No hydro, no doctors, no nurses, no- no roads no- (laughs).

... they sent the two of us up because they'd only sent one teacher all along. And the teacher never stayed, they just got on the first plane they could and left 'cause it was such a culture shock. Like in those days, no one was used to not having hydro you-know? So even just to not have hydro was- was hard.

Well I- I grew up with hydro. We never got hydro up there where- like where we lived 'til nineteen-eighty- let's say nineteen-eighty-three. ... So I was pretty good without hydro (laughs).

Speaker: Minden is a little bit more giving, but they're not as territorial like you get more fitting in because of the fact you got the hydro, police station and all this. Interviewer: Yeah, that's what Martin was saying, they're more cosmopolitan? Is that what you said?