I- I- I honestly still- I- at the time I-guess ah um I would've liked to have seen B-C-I just remain open. Um looking back now, how much of that was just emotion and how much do I skew the figures in my own head just to make my argument work versus listening to somebody else's, um should they have closed down the big white elephant out in Quinte-West? I'd probably still say, "Yes," and I'll say that 'til the day I die but ah ah you-know demographically now they're wanting to close a lot of schools so um it's not just B-C-I that needed to go, it's a whole lot of schools and ah Derek-Fauteiul and all the other demographers out there are ah they're right it's- it's a- a whole lot less of us out there, and there's a whole lot less of ah my gener-- or my- my kids' generation now that ah are coming up through the system.

Interviewer: And you- are most people involved with the legion hall here? Speaker 2: Not anymore. Speaker: What you call- what you call a white elephant. Interviewer: A white elephant? Speaker: Yeah. You know what that is, don't you? Interviewer: What's that? Speaker: A done-digger. Interviewer: A what? Speaker: A done-digging. Speaker 2: See this is- Interviewer: What's a done-digging, I haven't heard of that. What's- Speaker: Too many people filling their pockets out of it. Interviewer: Done-digging, uh-huh.

Interviewer: ...so if you have any of those guys or gals that talked to- Speaker: Not very many left. Interviewer: That would like to have a conversation with me- Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Or my team, let me know. Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: I um- I'd really appreciate it. Speaker: Well I- you-know, I ah- a lot of them- like I say, they're fading off into the wild blue yonder.

Well pulp and paper wasn't too- well a lot of them have- have- have past on in the wild blue yonder and ah with mining- well mining is ah- you can get quite a- you-know quite a few I'm sure.

Interviewer: Some places they have round ones. Speaker: Some- yes, yeah. Yeah, some places they made them. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Just all round. Interviewer: Quite different. Um- Speaker: Brought them to a peak. Generally went and got a- a load of wild hay from the beaver meadow or somewhere. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: To put on the top because beaver hay turned the water much better than the other.

Speaker: Just mow and- too wet for to put mowing machines or anything in. Interviewer: Mm. Speaker: Yeah. But it- it was good feed. When they got it out. Interviewer: But that was particularly good for- for the top of the stack? Speaker: Yes. Oh, yes. Ah, a stack of wild hay never was spoiled, no. Interviewer: No? Speaker: You could throw it up and it wouldn't be spoiled.

Speaker: -- We put it- we had a- a stable and a loft- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: The loft was above and you put up a hand, you-know? Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: You'd fork it up to the loft and somebody would stack it back and spread it back in the mow. Interviewer: Yes. This was wild hay. Speaker: Wild hay, yeah. Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Beaver w-- what they call beaver hay.

And one other time, we were bringing- dad and uncle-Tom and I- we were bringing hay. We used to- cut the hay back on the back lot even though I- I don't think it was- I think it was just wild hay and we had a load of hay on and I was driving the team and dad and Tom were walking along behind and so we were coming down the hill at the sugar camp and one of the reigns came unfastened or broke off the horse's thing ...

Interviewer 1: you have them in rows? Speaker: Yeah, yeah we had to have it in rows ah ah-- with a horse rig. Interviewer 1: Mm-hm. Speaker: We have of an old one down there yet, lying then in the building. Interviewer 1: What did you used to call that row? Speaker: Ah ah- Interviewer 2: Wind. Speaker: Windrow. Interviewer 1: Mm-hm. And then after you ah- you coiled it, where- where did- what happened to it then? Speaker: After it sat for so many days, we pitched it on the wagon and brought it in, pitched it into the loft (laughs). All by hand.

And of-course I used them in haying too and eventually on the hayloader, with the lines hanging on the pin. And I'd build the loads and they would go themselves and come up to the end of a windrow and turn and get on the next windrow by themselves just talking to them.

So you- when you sheaves in (inc) when your stooking you wouldn't be running all over the place. You'd have a windrow of sheaves and a windrow of sheaves and then you go out and you stook it all by hand and then go out and load it up and- but see th-- n-- no- nobody- nobody does that anymore. Interviewer: No, that's right. And so what's a windrow.

th-- n-- no- nobody- nobody does that anymore. Interviewer: No, that's right. And so what's a windrow. Is it just the- the row of sheaves in the field? Speaker: Yeah, well see depending on how heavy the crop was, if it was a light crop, where you'd have maybe a windrow of sheaves like you didn't want to have a whole bunch. You had maybe- by the time you put about four or five sheaves on this thing- then you- you just let your foot off it and it tripped and it dropped it in a pile.

At least- no hydro I meant to say. And ah- oh it was another wingding party. And ah, so then during the war years I- I was at the bank and- and ah- and ah we ah ah had- no this was- I'm going ba-- I'm getting mixed up here.

Speaker: But, then, and I got older, then I n-- I went working for the hydro, ah, I went for the M-T-O, I was a wingman for a couple winters, you-know, part-time. Interviewer: What is, ah, sorry- Speaker: A wingman was, ah, at that time you had to have two in the truck when you were ploughing snow, the driver and then the guy operating the- the ploughs. I was in that ...

Speaker: ... load them onto sleighs, another team of horses will pull the one sleigh s-- on a little winter road to the mill. So it was a continuos operation ah and ah that's what he did. Interviewer: Now, you mentioned another ah term "winter road"? What's a winter road? I (inc). Speaker: Well, it's it's just just a road that is ah they cut it in the bush into where they're cutting logs so that they can haul them out ash-- and the only reason it's a winter road is because they don't have to worry about stumps or potholes or little anything 'cause it fills with snow and they pack it. Sometimes, they even used to draw water from the lake and put ice on it because they'd be drawing a big load of logs and they didn't want them f-- s-- breaking through the snow, so they would have a winter road, and it would- they could haul- you see some of these pictures, ah ah a great big sleigh with twenty logs on it, huge big things, and ah we got lots of pictures here for even our operation and so that's what a winter road would be.

... he come up to Dane ... No roads. And walked from there, east to the road, that kind of winter road and well passed of all the summer if the weather's good. ... And ah into north of Larder-Lake where this mine was.

Speaker: Went across over in there. ... And they would- used to use it- they called it a winter road. Interviewer: What did that mean? Speaker: They used the- the sleighs on it and the horses and-stuff-like-that. Interviewer: Ah only in winter? Speaker: I-don't-know. Why'd they call it a winter road (laughs)? Interviewer: Just call it the winter road. I just have never heard that term used before. Speaker: I suppose when it froze up, they could, you-know, take the sleds over it and-so-on. I don't know. Do you know why they called it the winter road? Interviewer: Winter road? Speaker 2: Well, I suppose they use it in the summer too- ... It was a, I guess more of a biking road than a- than a- for cars. ... Wagons and sleighs.

Speaker: And when ah- of course in the winter there road went anywhere across the fields you see because it was no- no road. It was a r-- a winter road for teams ... Interviewer: Now you did talk about winter roads and summer roads. So what- the winter roads, how did they make them? Speaker: Oh you just drove the horses through. That froze then.

And in the winter time I was driving and I seen this- Mister-Monet coming with his big Lincoln. I- I seen he was going pretty fast, you-know, for winter roads so I pulled r-- I went right into the snowbank to- to give him room and get by. He put on his brakes and go right in the snowbank and hit me. Put my car out of commission for quite awhile ...

But the way the picture was taken, it cut the horses off, they were on the (inc) sleigh, they must have been. Interviewer: So did you- did you go on a winter road down to here? Or the regular road? Speaker: There was some- some road off- off the main road. You just went up to the school and you left through it and you went in by where Kurt-Verhoeven lived. ... It come through the s-- the road- winter road comes through the swamp and out onto that road right- right near the corner. Of course there wasn't a corner there. The corner was out near Maberly then.