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

Ah, there has been an awful lot of changes. A-- and ah, li-- like that- even as far as- as a home. Like for years, as I say, we had no hydro. And- and you- ... Y-- you heat-- ah, we had a big long bathtub and you heated the water on the stove. And maybe two or three of us had of a bath in the same water.

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-

So we- I think they got hydro here in this place in eighteen-thirty-eight and dad and mother put it in. You had the sign for hydro to get enough of people in the lane to get the hydro through so they were the house in nineteen-forty-two and then I-guess there was the barn in fifteen-seven. Then you bought a milking machine and a lot of things because you had power to run them so-

Speaker: But there was no- the first hydro came to Ramsey-Township in about nineteen-thirty, I-think. Interviewer: Do you remember that? That must have been- ... Quite the big deal. Speaker: ... I remember the story. It had to be passed by council for hydro to come in. And I spent twenty-nine years in council so I've heard a lot of stories. ... I did hear that there was one gentlemen was opposed to it and somebody else had a tendency to vote the same way as he did ... And when (laughs) the reeve brought up the question and somebody said vote- "Stick up your hand George." So he stuck up his hand and the other guy stuck up his hand and then later on in the meeting they said, "When is, ah, this hydro issue coming up?" "Oh you voted for that a while ago so you-" That was a sleight-a-hand thing, so-

And ah Patterson's-Drug-Store come next. And that's where my mother and dad dealt all the time with Patterson's-drugstore. And then we had the garage and the hydro is next. There was a garage like where- I forget who owns it- owned it then. I didn't get the name of the man that owned- ah Deram-Childs owns it now. ... And they there was the hydro which next to that. And then it was Earl-Scott's um furniture.

Speaker: And Harvey-Reggie lost two cows, killed with lightning. Interviewer: So you think it hit the barn or? Speaker: Yes I th-- I th-- no I'll- I think it come in on hydro maybe. W-- there was lightning rods on the r-- on the roof alright. I-don't-know. But i-- it was a terrible smash.

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.

Yeah, my husband and I, we milked sixteen cows by hand, we had no hydro.

... he- it was late coming home and it was dark and I did my own sewing then. And I had this dressmaker dummy. And (laughs) the girls, they put a sheet over it and they put it at the top of the stairs. ... And see, we didn't have hydro, it was dark. So Dirk came in, they heard the motorbike and of course they were scooting around the bedroom door to see what would happen and Dirk went to come up the stairs and you saw this white apparition at the top of the stairs (laughs).

Ah ah if when he had the store, you-see, he had what they called the lockers and he'd rent them and everybody would have a great big icebox like and- they'd bring their meat in and put it in there because when we didn't have hydro, we couldn't have ah ah our own ah ice ah fridge like ah- well I just had the little fridge and the gas stove but you couldn't have your big freezer you-know to put the meat in.

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.

I says to the guy, "Looks like we've got a problem here." ... He goes, "What do you mean?" Well I said, "Our equipment runs on hydro and there isn't a hydro pole to be seen." (Laughs) Eh? So, he says, "No problem," he says, "People think that's the outhouse over there." And in that outhouse was the generator.

Speaker: We went out that door and he used propane. Two big propane tanks sitting outside the door, yeah. Back in the boonies where's there no- Interviewer: Hydro. Speaker: Hydro.

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).