Interviewer: Wow. So you grew up fishing, pretty much your whole life? Speaker: Ah, pretty well. Yeah, yeah because when we used to go to- we used to go to Latchford, too. A-- with th-- this couple that lived in Cobalt, and we used to go fishing.

Interviewer: Do you know if that's a northern thing? Did every- did every family do that? Speaker: I th-- pretty well, yes.

... that line goes right from Timmins I-guess right through to Val D'or, where all the gold's located. I-guess everything's pretty well in a line, so- not- not understanding that we had a geologist come in ah, I-think it was at Central-School or maybe it was Federal-School and our kids who explained that to us.

Interviewer: And is this like summers or all year? Speaker: This- this is pretty well all the time. Wintertime um I guess we do a little bit of ah- friend of mine always had a- always had a whole bunch of skidoos and that type-of-thing so we'd play on ah- we did a lot of that.

The ah- we were in the grocery-store the other day and one of my native pupils from Matachewan here- by the way Matachewan-School was about- pretty well half native or- or maybe anyway. So it's pretty much the same as the other place.

Winter-time it's pretty well- she's the coach, I'm the fan so I just follow wherever the team is going.

But one of the things I thought was extremely funny. I- one- one- one time there after midnight quite a while and Erin is pretty well into the culture and the kids were all f-- playing around, and the white kids going- get going and- and ah what you say ah (inc) and-the-rest.

That's pretty well your broom-ball team.

Interviewer: So what was it like during the war? ... Speaker: Very- there weren't very many people around, ah you-know, kids all went- pretty well everyone went and then everyone in the high-school, you'd be there, have ah assembly upstairs in the gym in the morning ...

I rarely had to sit in a night and study, 'cause I would go back to school at half-past-twelve and we had an hour and an half of lunch. I would get the morning work pretty well done, and I would stay there 'til five-o'clock, not lolligagging up and down the isles with a big bunch of books, but getting tomorrows, whatever we got for homework in the afternoon. I'd get it done.

So you peer group, you'd go watch them play 'cause for the ah for boys in Kirkland-Lake that was pretty well the thing that they did was play hockey in the winter and soccer in the summer and-that-kind-of-stuff so.

Speaker: Tough on my mom- five teenagers (laughs). Interviewer: Yeah. Wow. ... But that's just- felt they didn't have a choice? ... Speaker: Pretty well.

I'm just thinking of my friends and- that I hang out with the most um ... and they're all- they're all pretty well from Kirkland.

Interviewer: Oh okay. So you brought them there and- ... Ditched them. Speaker: Yeah pretty well (laughs).

She wasn't the oldest girl but she helped her mom a lot on the farm. Um so leaving home was a- a big deal for her and of course, you-know, you couldn't fly back. ... But they wo-- pretty well drove home every summer-

They were willing to to support me on it ah, ah- the first year I spent twenty-five weeks in school. Twenty-five weeks. That's pretty well the- a university year, isn't it (laughs)?

... and we'd take the garbage and she'd- they'd take me for a walk and I had different- pretty well every night, it's a different girl. ... And ah, then in the morning, a-- d-- another b-- girl comes in and ah- and um, she'll give me a sponge bath and put the commode- empty it and put it back in on the toilet you-know?

Did you hear about Cobalt? And he, "No, what about Cobalt?" "It's burning down." They said, "Come and watch the T-V." So, oh, it was just something else. ... And so by the time we got back to see it was pretty well- so much of it was burned.

Books used to go through a lot of hands then because ah you-know, they just- they weren't printing them during war time, for one thing. So you always had second-hand books, pretty well.

My mother said, "Then they just ate breakfast in the house." ... She said, "Other time (inc) came another pay that was free, you see?" She said, "We're pretty well down to apple sauce." (Laughs)