Interviewer: Now why would they be living out there? Speaker: Well we kind-of had it figured out that maybe they were- what's the word? Draft dodgers from the States, maybe broke out loose and here they are up here. I'll bet you nobody knows they're even there.

The shotgun guy, he died. ... Yeah, he's out of the picture (coughs). He's out of the picture altogether. He's gone- and then the ah- so nine-eleven come in the States. They decided that day that we're getting out of here. So they just packed up and drove away.

You're in the middle of the states at a bus station and the bus stations are not in downtown cores. They're like on- just off the main highway at the edge of a city. So it's like the seedy parts of cities and like there's no s-- real stores around.

Well ah dad come from Sweden and mother was part German and they come across some ah- across the ocean to Quebec and then they went down to the States and then Minnesota. Yeah and they started a family there and then they moved to British-Columbia and then co-- come east.

Well um, mother was quite experienced ah, can y-- you likely know that black plague they had down in the States. ... She helped a lot of people and some of them died like, even though she didn't die from working but there was a lot of people died from that black plague.

Yeah, my granddaughter's into that kind-of- and ah she gave me cards to give out because if anybody wants to- to write down their life history and they can send it to the States and get whatever decorations they want on it.

And, ah, there is a- an- a number of letters in- behind that door there. It's just a cupboard. People that he corresponded with in United-States. Like, he set a herd of cattle up, I think, at Cornell-University in, ah- in the States. And he also set a herd of cattle up for a prison farm that was in Northern-Ontario and I can never think of the name.

Speaker: But- so you're talking eighteen-twenty. Somewhat after the first war in the States. Interviewer: Mm-hm.

Speaker: Like, ah, I have- one my friends, ah- yearly they'll have- like, 'cause every year a different call-of-Duty will come out, so they hold, like, championships in, like, the States and-stuff. And, ah, one of my friends goes there, like, all the time and always places maybe top five all the time, so it's pretty cool having him around to, ah, practice with and-stuff.

Speaker: But he didn't bring his wife which I thought was interesting because when I saw him and Dill last summer when Dill came back from the States. Um, I told him to bring her. And then when- when he showed up without her, I was like, "Oh, where's Lin?"

Interviewer: Pilgrim fathers? Speaker: They were just down in the States apiece. ... And they were there for a few years, I-don't-know maybe five or ten or some- twelve or-something-like-that. And ah that's where some of the- the kids who were born but they moved to Canada that- right at that time.

Interviewer: Well there was the United-Empire-Loy-- and then there were the late Loyalists who came out through the land grants, yeah. Speaker: Apparently, there was a movement like that out in the Sta-- States and Saskatchewan and Alberta, Manitoba, three sta-- three provinces there. They moved up from the States around nineteen-hundred or one way or the other.

... that's a wonderful thing and I- and I think he- he's a- he inherited- he's like poor Kathleen-Wynne she in-- inherited a- a hornet's nest. A terrible thing. She's- she's a good woman- ... Ah and um, the way George-Bush left the States, ah, poor Obama, he ah-- inherited a h-- a bore's nest too. It's- but I think he- ah- I think that's a wonderful thing for America that they have a black- black president.

The Mellon's were a banking company and they date back, way back in the States. In fact he told his sons only idiots join the army during the civil war so he kept his kids out of a- ... War. And they're still huge- huge.

We've covered Canada from coast to coast. And um, then down to California and over to, uh, Florida, so we've covered a fair amount of the States, too. And then ah from there on we travelled n-- when we're- went to Australia, we took uh six weeks travel time to go there.

Speaker: I've been all over. Believe-it-or-not but I done one down in the States. Interviewer: Did you? Where did you go Kurt? Interviewer 2: Tell us about that. Speaker: Mexico, New York.

I think ah Kent-Burns- I knew Kent-Blair and Kent knew his dentist. So when I was down fencing for him, he had met this woman from the States through some horse club down at- down at the club fair. And she come up and she seen all his fences and all the other old rail fences and she just had to have them. So I ended up going down there.

In his case, he was very notably educated in the Mayo-Clinic in the States. He was a skin specialist.

Speaker: That- no there's not- not nearly the amount of snow we used to have. ... I think Toronto getting more snow sometimes- Interviewer: Really? Speaker: Than- than we did. And l-- and the States last year, they had a lot more snow than we did. Interviewer: That's odd.

Speaker: They were born, yes, in Canada. Actually no, my mother was born in the States. ... And my dad was born in Canada. Interviewer: Whereabouts in the States was your mom born? Speaker: Youngstown, around Youngstown, New-York.