20_Eva_StOnge.mp3

otter.ai

18.01.2023

no

Unknown Speaker 0:05
The date is June 14 1977. We're at the home of either St. Onge at Pioneer Village in Salt Spring Island.

Unknown Speaker 0:17
Now this is a poem I wrote by my was on the craft line, I call it the trappers home. Nestled away at the foot of the hills for the air during this week, with the fragrant smell of spruce and primed African sound. We're rushing Creek. There's a lovely big log cabin and a spring that is crystal clear. And a wonderful big game meadow where the pack horses graze a good part of the year. This is our home, Ken much of the year, let it sunshine, rain or snow. We don't have to worry so much about your six different roles. There's lots of wood in the woodshed and plenty of grabbing the cash is most most meat in the meat house. And there's seller this bugs by the sack we have to take in grub enough to last us all the year. The nearest stories are trading post and that's 50 miles from here. So if you do run out of things you're out looking clean, you have no neighbors to borrow from. they're few and far between. We have a little world all of our own way out there and the deals or the Northern Lights pay overhead and just watching them gives you a thrill. It was pretty lonely at first I'll admit with no one to talk to for days. As I said before, we have no neighbors they're 50 miles away. As you sit alone in your cabinet night for your husband to weigh on the line. All of a sudden you're here over here the woods hell and it stands cold chills up and down your spine. I stepped in the cabinet and watch them play the medicine in bright blue light names and they'll take to the woods in a hurry if you just shout or show a bright light. At times the going is pretty tough on the trail in the bitter cold but you don't seem to mind that hardships or it won't belong to your first or so. That's when you go on a buying spree you're taking the town but there is just a show or two and your visit old friends it's fine at first but your dad funded so we're gonna work with suppliers for another for another year. We ride out to the lake in the in the truck and get get the boat loaded up before dark to be sure of an early start. We have a long trip down river as well as crossing numerous lakes. They're relieved the boat for the winter. And but of course as we start the long hike, it's a long steady climb to the summit. Then load and camp for the night. Start out about daylight next morning and with good luck. You'll be home the same night. You are tired and you're hungry. And the horses are too but they need an origin to go when the big meadow comes into view. They're anxious to be unloaded their day's work is through them the glaciers of northern Alaska to California sweltering huge. The north woods of British Columbia are pretty hard to beat. I've been in lots of places and I've lived a much different life. But give me the wide open spaces and just the one being a crafers Right.

Unknown Speaker 3:38
When was this poem

Unknown Speaker 3:40
that was written in 1940s 1936 37 One of the other one or the other? Not quite now and then

Unknown Speaker 3:50
I You had mentioned before apartment my way you were could you just pin it down?

Unknown Speaker 3:59
Well, we live we went from Prince George down river. That a crooked River. The packed river first then the crooked River, and then we crushed lakes, Davey Lake, Red Rock Lake, and then oh I can't remember the name of the lake. And then we had another big lake that we stopped at a different the Hudson Bay post was there we stayed or we stayed overnight there. But we loaded up and printed at Summit Lake when we left Prince George we loaded up our our vote from there. And then we went down right on down through to coverage stopped at the Hudson's Bay post. And there then we went on down the river to where we left the Persian river which meant about 35 miles downriver. Word. And we left the parsnip River and hauled the boat out with a stick are packed everything out. And then we pulled the boat out and turned it up over the stakes to the big, had big trees had been cut off and pulled the boat out and turned it upside down on there so that the porcupines could chew on it. Because anything where your hands are on the gunnels or your boat, they will chew because it's the salt that they want to see. And there's more or less the perspiration from your hands needs to salts or more salt on it. And they have to the governance or your vote all their bases. So we can the posts that the votes were there was just that they couldn't claim it. And we never had any difficulty with it. And then the next day we would start packing getting the pack boxes ready for our for our print on the back horse was we had six head of horses. And they did we load the boxes up and they all have to be balanced. You don't balance your boxes properly. And that pack was flipped. And the first thing you know the packs under the horse's belly instead of on its back. Then when we got them all all packs like that. If it took us two weeks, take our supplies in but because we took over two tons in for the winter supplies we took over to China provisions in and they had everything. I think I could have started a grocery store with everything that I had in there because there was everything you could possibly think of. Excuse me

Unknown Speaker 6:43
just knew that when you were you came down there. And then you took the book. Now when you left wherever the house was in

Unknown Speaker 6:49
between, they were on a place called Scoble slash and that's on the parsnip on the parchment river. And that's where they that's where they stayed. While we were out for the summer months the length of time that we were out there stayed there. And then we found we went on up then we kept on the top of the bracket today about three and a half miles from the Summit is required we can't because that was for the trees and it that you could put your tie your horse has to and after that the the trees got so small that they were just like little bits of shrubs you had nothing to tie to. And then we went over the top then then from then on we went up over the top and down on the other side. It took us two days to make the trip from from the parsnip yeah

Unknown Speaker 7:57
when you were saying your horses you to have them even

Unknown Speaker 8:02
surprised. Just

Unknown Speaker 8:04
what did you take? Well, we took in rhetoric and 400 pounds of flour 300 400 pounds of white flour and 200 pounds of the big call fridge and chicken 400 pounds of sugar. Besides Oh pounds, maybe 1212 pounds profit 10 pounds of rice, beans and all the dry food drives and drive thru we have every kind apricot, pears, peaches, apples Vogon berries, strawberries, prunes, tooth raisins, both the dark and the light raisins. And we've taken 10 pounds, not just the whole nuts. We've taken 10 pounds of Walnuts, peanuts and almonds. And we had everything and and the mixed fruits for us to take the mixed roots and I could make a fruitcake active and everything.

Unknown Speaker 9:16
Did you use

Unknown Speaker 9:19
yeast or sourdough?

Unknown Speaker 9:21
We use the sourdough. I made sourdough and I always left the starter when I left the camp I always would have to start her and I could start my bread right away. Right and and our as far as vegetables. We took in potatoes in the big cans and they're just like the potatoes that you buy in these packages now that you're going by and we had the potatoes dehydrated potatoes, beets, carrots, parsnips, turnips, cabbage, and onions. And they were all taken in in cans. And then first A nice mix. So we'd get the big cans like the same size as the big fruit TINs that you're getting no fruit juice tins. And they had a mixed vegetable in there was everything you could think of in those counts. And when you wanted to make soup, all you had to do was take a half a cup full of that mixed vegetables and put in your soup and you had vegetable soup without any. But we couldn't take in their fresh vegetables, because they wouldn't keep we had a cellar. And we take in four cases of eggs and there was 30 dust into the case, we took four cases of eggs. And we took in 200 pounds of butter for the winter, for the year. But the eggs as soon as I would get in that was the first thing. slabs of bacon, the eggs, the butter, and the sugar. were taken in first in case of rain. So if the did Britain wouldn't get wet. And then the rest of the anything else but we didn't take any camp and no canceled and at all.

Unknown Speaker 11:15
I should have been asked to figure it out in a second. When you got this did you use an item?

Unknown Speaker 11:21
No, I didn't know I didn't like that stuff. It was the first horrible I didn't like it. No the way I processed my eggs but I had a big big soup kettle. Good big one. And I took a piece of netting at fine chicken netting and I made just like a basket. I put the kettle on it put this pot on and got the water just a rolling hard boiled eggs. And you put eight or 10 or a dozen eggs depend on the size in this case, and drop them down in the boiling water and count 1234 lift them out and lay them out on bath towels on the table. And they'll keep for a year on your brand new news and the last one to use or just taste just as fresh as the first one. Then they were packed and put back in the cases and put into the seller. And the seller was cut right out of the firm of rush a boarded up with the split logs it was all sealed up. And you could put your butter and your eggs in there and they were just as fresh and nice as anything could be even when they come out.

Unknown Speaker 12:40
And then and then and then it goes to you meet you that was me.

Unknown Speaker 12:44
Oh yeah. So we had moved. And we have three years to get I used to get lots of gross does the gross rustic in there. And I'd stand in the cabin door and knock the head off of a gross with a 22 and have make make the makers have a good dinner out of a couple of rows and made a real good dinner and

Unknown Speaker 13:04
that was well known also in reminiscence you were counting you mentioned once you had shot a grizzly now at that black bear you got a black I think back then now could you man do you mind differently prepping? Well,

Unknown Speaker 13:21
it was in the spring of the year when the ice went out. Well that's the ice went out and flooded everything you see that coming down the river and our the lake it just flooded the part of the metal and the traps. Some of the beaver cracks are still in, in the water in the lakes. And it came on so it comes down so suddenly that you sometimes get conscious over your traps in where we've cut long pause. We'll pause and spring the traps and leave the pole sticking up so that we wouldn't catch any beaver I would have said they would spoil the couch would spoil them when the water went down we'd go up and take the pull the pole out they were all had hip boots, and we got to take our hip Bucha well we could wade out through that and get the pole and pull the crap right out of the water when you do be sure then that you didn't have any any animal in the trap. And as I was going up a husband went one way and I said well I'll go up and better one up the meadow and pick up those tracks at the beaver pond. As I was going along right in the middle of our big meadow where we cut the hay there was a big bunch of of will we left that so as the horses could go in there and keep the flies off with them in the summer and the mosquitoes and when I was going along I seen this night as I thought it was a real emotion when I first seen it. But then when I stepped around it was a big black bear At least stood up on his hind legs and I thought, oh, boy, there's, there's trouble. But I had my 22 with me with a long, long shell in it. And he dropped down on his bunk quarters and started towards me. And I said, Well, old boy, it's either you or me. And it's not going to be me and I let him have it. I knock I've sent him a hidden between the eyes, it's dungeon. But he went down on down on his side. And I wasn't satisfied. So then I went up and get put one in his ear. And that's initiative. Two into because, yeah, this is enough just to, there's a stock Spark, just above the above the nose and the eyes, there's a soft spot, and I happen to hit it right. And that's done done. But then I gave him another shot. And that was that finished. Use use the

Unknown Speaker 15:57
fact cooking

Unknown Speaker 15:59
know, when it came up, I don't think there was five pounds of fat on it, because he had just come out of hibernation. But his height when we stretched it. On the side of the cabin, we stretched it and then it was just two or three days before we were coming out. And of course it was still green. So we left it in our rubbish basalt an alum so that the porcupines wouldn't bother us. And when we came in, we didn't bother taking the head, we just cut it off right at the neck. And when we put it on the floor, it stretched from one end of the bunk to the other. And the bunk was six feet long. And it stretched on one. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 16:46
no, I'm sorry. I was interrupting. A little bit talking about that. All right now, where were you born?

Unknown Speaker 16:54
I was born in, in Ville, Ontario, at where you used to have to

Unknown Speaker 17:03
not be at Northern life. But

Unknown Speaker 17:05
no, never ever thought I was out in the woods to live out in the woods before? No, it was as I said in the poem that it was a very different life from what I was accustomed to. And thoroughly enjoyed it. I was very sorry when we had to give up the track line. In other words, oh, it was a lot of work. But I enjoyed it. And I took years to take all this I used to scan and stretch all the all the pellets outside of the heavy the big ones that couldn't be carried in that any different small like mink, Martin Fisher, urban, which squirrels and all of that I would get home around house or what he my husband would bring them in his paksha I used to stretch them all. And that gave me something to do and I never got lonely too to the wild you do to don't get no you don't get lonely. No. It was wonderful. I really enjoyed it.

Unknown Speaker 18:18
We were going to talk about fishing in the ice is one thing. You were saying that you use pitch

Unknown Speaker 18:23
Yes. Well, my husband would go over to the lake. And he takes there we had a big chisel on a pole, a big broad chisel usage for chopping ice. And it cut this big hole in the ice. And I take a piece of news moose meat and put it on the hook and a very short pole. And the just remember maybe about a six, six or eight foot line and catch the trout out of the lake. And as soon as they'd hit the ice, you didn't didn't even have a BB on the on the hook. As soon as it did go down while they were hungry to see and they'd come after and then get the hook. Get it and you just give it a shake and they'd fall off of that hit the ice and then give a couple of flips and they were in the refroze froze solid. And I get enough that I stopped for do for over several good meals. And when I'd come home, I'd taken the big washtub and put it on the put a canvas down in the in the cabin and get go to the spring and get three or four buckets of water and put it in, dump the fish into them and throw a canvas over the top. And in a few minutes. You'd hear them flopping and splashing around and they'd come to the refroze but they'd come to and you catch them get them out and then between them run a wire through the through the gills or through the eyes and hang them up in a line and They froze was like all you're wondering when you're wanting to fresh fish and just go out and knock that take them off and you have no big living, or some of them but they from from 14 to 18 inches ever gets good big. And they were all they were trout jet and beautiful big big trout. So we've had quite a variety of ducks. At times when they've come through, we'd have ducks. Sometimes we happen to get a goose and they're gross. So we had we didn't have to eat just straight new moose meat we had quite a variety. And also Yeah, the weather will you know, we didn't need a deep pages we use the old we used the old cabin for a nice house. And we had the custom make it all up and put a recut file it was still fresh. We've cut it up into steaks, roasts of boiling pieces or whatever we wanted. And put it in the in the old cabin. They had a shelf a swimming shelf, because with wire and this swinging shelf, and no mice or anything could get at it. And that's where we found our niche as we put it in there.

Unknown Speaker 21:18
Like you know surely would be apt to be one of your means of transportation. I think you make more than make.

Unknown Speaker 21:27
Yes. Mike well, you'll get the way we get the birch snowshoes were made of birch wood, and you get the birch wood but with there was not there wasn't any around where we were. And when we were out in Fort Macleod. That's where the Hudson Bay post was. We could have birch down and cut it up into strips, split it into strips. See, because Birch is a very smooth, wonderful grain there's really no grain to birch and we take that in and playing them down to the shape that we wanted. And then we'd steam them and then this and turn the pillar and then lift the shoes. That way it shaped that we wanted and then we'd get there but the car Babish the Indian that's the uncanny moosehide Or sometimes if we could we get the steer, hide and split that that was all been cut in different sized strips. And that's what we may stir shoes with. But the moose the moose was really stretched too much and so we'd get the if we could we'd get a steerhide While we were always going to have it all cut in strips and that's what we made our snowshoes out how

Unknown Speaker 22:54
long did it take you to learn to you

Unknown Speaker 22:57
know, I just didn't take me I the first couple of first time I used them it was a little difficult. But it was a very short time and I learned to use them I had to pair I had put because the breakers that's where you broke your trail and then there was a little trail shoes. They were small. After you got your critical and broke then you could use a smaller show snowshoe but the snow up there was very, very slocked it never picked stressed it. It was just dry powder. And you've just stepped off your snowshoes, stepped off the trail you are in snow and you have a Dickens of a time getting out you

Unknown Speaker 23:42
know what time the spring, the spring base will put the winter what time was the spring break?

Unknown Speaker 23:48
Well, it was usually around the middle of May that the that the ice went out. You see we were so high up. And there's no there was still snow on the ground. But the ice just going out. And that ice went out. You could hear it all over the valley it was because it did crack and snap and another pile up along the side of the river and everything and it was old. Huge big chunks of ice going out. When the sea when the water started up in the mountains from the stream started coming down. Then the beaver ponds would break up and they would go over the dam. Sometimes they would break the beaver dam and then they'd have to build their dams all up again. But when the ice was going down the river it was a huge big case of ice that was going down the river and you could hear it's just like all you could hear a crack indistinct somebody was shooting off a gun or rifle the cracks when it's going out.

Unknown Speaker 24:51
Well, then you you you

Unknown Speaker 24:57
know we went on we left with what else Use the ladder for the last week, the last week or 10 days of July. And we came out anywhere. We came out anywhere from the 10th to the 20th of June. And that was a yes, that was after the spring break because we couldn't get out. Before that one year we came out the 25th of June. And the snow on the summit was up to the horse's bellies. And we had to break trail ahead of the horses so that they could get through with the packs because they couldn't get through so they broke trail during this through the past so the horses can get through.

Unknown Speaker 25:43
Well, now you just by you mentioned as you mentioned in your plan. No near neighbours. Did you have any knowledge of birthday whatsoever? Either one? Oh,

Unknown Speaker 25:54
yes. But all the time we were in there they none of us ever got a cold. We never got a cold.

Unknown Speaker 26:05
Did you have any bad times?

Unknown Speaker 26:07
Yes, I broke my arm in there. My husband is away on on the on the line. And he wasn't he wouldn't have been home to the following day. I was reading the horse and I slipped down the ice and came down on and broke by just about an inch above their wrist joints. Well, I was stuck. I didn't know what to do. So I came in and that falls or that Suburban we went in. I took in three or four yards of unbleached muslin for why I took it I don't know. But I went to the dresser drawer and I got a knife picked with the scissors with the left hand which was my right hand and wrist that I broke. I clipped it and I got over my teeth and my mother pulled and pulled and I ripped off a full the pull the whole. Next I put the bandage around the palm of my hands a couple of times and then put it up around my wrist. I pulled the table out from the wall, stuck my hand in back at the table and shoved it up tight against the lugs and pulled and it pumped into place and then I wrapped it i When my husband came home I had my hand all wrapped up in these with this bandage. And I had a slung up on my helmet up against me with 100 pound flower sack and and then I had him when he came home then I had to make a parent make some Sprint's out of one of the pack boxes. And I came out when we came out in in the latter part of June. I rent to them up to that went to the doctor to see if it was all right. And he said it reset perfectly

Unknown Speaker 28:08
Yeah, well magining Your first aid kit.

Unknown Speaker 28:12
Thank you. Oh, we had I had a Hypo and everything and I never thought about it. But that night I walked the floor the pain was pretty painting pretty badly. And I couldn't done dress. So I had to go to bed with my clothes on because I couldn't get my clothes off.

Unknown Speaker 28:32
And then how did you manage to keep your fire going? I

Unknown Speaker 28:36
mean, we had a big great big heater and all I had to do was slide the lid off and put the drop the lights down into it so I had plenty of fuel. All Yes, you had plenty of fuel. Because in the case of origin cards of what the first cut in the spring before we went out was cutting all dried and everything by the time we got back in was it handy for you? Oh yes. My husband never left the house left for his to run that he didn't pile put a great big pile of wood in the cabin that I didn't have to go out and get any at all. So I was I was alright. That was like a tragic otherwise Oh yes. If I hadn't had presence of mind to have done that by the next day, it might have been pretty hard to set because of where this was welled up. So you see the bad news? Well, I know that you couldn't have an idea know he wouldn't have wanted to afford it because he had been afraid it hurts me. Are you

Unknown Speaker 29:35
very very fortunate what to do. Oh, I'm not just that. We read. And we know so many times and

Unknown Speaker 29:46
needed actors.

Unknown Speaker 29:49
And that's what made me wonder how you had made out.

Unknown Speaker 29:52
Well, I just I guess it's just common sense. There's a doll that I can think because I had never done anything like that before. Work was just common sense that I just put my hand back there and shove the table against it and pull. I'll tell you it hurts when I did it. I had to put my head down on the table for a few minutes because everything turned black and I stayed there for a few minutes. But then I got it, I got the bandage on, and it was fine and reset perfectly.

Unknown Speaker 30:24
Thank you. When you go to your stuff, how do you destroy it? When you

Unknown Speaker 30:35
when we before we took it into the end of the crap line,

Unknown Speaker 30:38
when you get into the trap line? Well,

Unknown Speaker 30:41
first, when we left the river, we had a cabin that was out so was flat that had no windows in it. It was just a good sized log cabin. And that had a big BIM at the end is that anything like flour, or nursing that the the rats or anything could get in. And of course it wasn't when it proved. And everything that the rats or mice could get in the result put in this big bin. And it was all Kim inside. So if they did chew through the woods, they couldn't get into it. And that has a good cover on it. And it was padlocked. And then we had closed the door and we had a secret lock on the you wouldn't know that there was a lock on the door. And it was just a secret way of opening the door opening and locking the door that nobody knew anything about. And the Indians couldn't get into it, they tried to figure out how to get in, but they couldn't get into it. And so that was where we kept ourselves while we were packing in, but the first loads we would pack, we put a certain amount of we'd have the the boxes setting by each for each horse would be and they'd be Tuesday things that they want in each box exactly the same size and weight. And then the strip of bacon would go right from the tip that are all packed that the slab of bacon go on the top of each box. And then the the but after it's all been done on the first load you read well, because if it's flat, you see if it's flat. And you could put your anything that was rounding, you could put right over the top of this. But we took him out also with our with our in our packs, we couldn't took in cam bacon and Ken Ham, the whole hams, we would take him in again. And they would go there'd be one in each box. So to level up to even the box is up and you had to be careful because certain horses could take a heavier load than the others. And we put the heavier loads on the bigger horses. And then the smaller horses didn't have to mount the heavier horses had. And then right on the top would be either a sack of sugar, or a sack of flour right up on the top of the load. So as to round your load up and your pack your chat TARP was put on the top of that. And then we put what we call the Diamond Hitch was a heavy rope. And it was made a certain way of putting the Royal Palm that formed just like a diamond on the top of the pack. And all you had to do when you went to take it off with pull once one rope and the whole thing would would fall off. But it hadn't you had to know how to twist it to give it this certain twist on the top to make the hitch on the top. And that was the way we protect our for our heart apart. Yeah, but when you How did you? Well when we arrived we would take now the eggs and the butter were taken into the house. And then the other was all put up in the cache, which was built up on big high poles they had and they were fortunate enough that there was four trees that were a certain distance apart, cut in the other trees out and left the four trees for the end poles. And then there was a frame put on top of that. That was made solid a pole opposed. And then the flour and the sugar and all the the dried fruits and everything like that that we didn't want in the house. It was all put up in that cache. And it was well built such that no mice no spying squirrels for three had lots of them there. No flying squirrels or anything could get into them. And a ladder, that they could lean up against the and going through the end of the cache and when we needed anything out of the cache

Unknown Speaker 35:25
and couldn't do what you described it couldn't a

Unknown Speaker 35:33
no, they couldn't afford it, because they will just see the bear start as soon as it gets about a whole coupler, three feet of snow on the ground, the bear go when they hibernate. And nothing else could get into it. Because the the Poles were all covered with cans. And anything that any tin that we had, we never threw out. They were all split open and nailed onto the polls so that nothing could climb the pole. So that way nothing could get into it.

Unknown Speaker 36:07
Did you have any problems? Going from winter to summer?

Unknown Speaker 36:12
By fires? No, we never had any forest fires whatsoever up in there because we were always very careful. And we watched very careful on the counter fires because if we, if we didn't have a fire, we lose everything. If you've ever had any fires at all,

Unknown Speaker 36:33
then

Unknown Speaker 36:34
I'm going back a little bit now. Again to it was mentioned early on about wool.

Unknown Speaker 36:42
Did you ever have any

Unknown Speaker 36:46
personal experience? No, never did that to Roseburg. If you'd come out if there happened to be a wolf out and our kids happen to see one and he seen you. He would disappear. You couldn't. And you'd wonder how they could move so fast. They never and we never had any trouble with them. There's only one time that I knew open all the years that were in there that I knew of anybody that was ever bothered with wolves. But that was a young fella going out for Christmas. And he had his toboggan. And he had his dogs. And it wasn't him. They were after it was it was his dog. But he shot the lead Wolf. And when he shot the lead rope that stopped them because when you draw blood on a wolf, or if you shoot a wolf, and they're in a pack, they'll tear the other wolf to pieces, they'll eat it. So by the time they got that wolf all tore to pieces, he was away off down and they never bothered him because that was the that's the only time I ever heard of anybody having the wolf pack ever falling. But that was the dogs that were after not the man

Unknown Speaker 38:09
why we ran there? I heard a peculiar little noise one night and I couldn't figure out what it was. I heard that several times. So when my husband came home, I said, there's this funny little noise and I just I can't figure out what it is. I said sounds like something humming or singing. I says I can't figure out what it is. And, and he said, Well, I wouldn't know what it was. And then while we were we had gone to bed. And I heard it and I said there it is again. When he says we'll see for the tears. So we took we had a big flashlight. So we went out very quietly to see what it was. And it was a porcupine, an old female porcupine sitting in the in the little shed back of the the cabin where we have our karmic house and she was sitting there and nursing her babies. She had two little babies and she was nursing them. And she was singing that sitting there with their arms around them and singing to them. And just so little as an it just sounded like a mother's singing to her baby. And I have never heard of anybody seeing your porcupine in the wild that breastfeeding her babies before Narsimha

Unknown Speaker 39:38
it was very very interesting. And another thing that was very interesting when they when they have fever have their young there was a lake that was just Oh just a short distance from the from the cabin. The fact is just a double lake with the house. Yeah and their couch was in between the two lakes. And we would go down and we'd go up back of this little knoll, and we'd sit on the top of the knoll and look right down into the beaver pond. And the old girl, she was come out with a little beaver. Oh, they see a maybe about eight inches long bits of fellas. And they should come out with one on her hanging on her back and swim out and get up close to the beaver house, and it would jump off and shake itself and get on the beaver house. Then she'd go down, and she'd bring the others. They usually have from two to four. Not any more than that. But sometimes she'd have two sometimes three. Very seldom you'd ever see four. And she'd bring them all out. And then she teach them to swim. And she takes with the first one. And she'd take it out. And when it starts to go on, she'd put her nose underneath it and lift it up and let it pedal away there. And then she take it back to the to the dirt and take each each one of them. But you had to sit perfectly still, if you moved she would hit her tail and you could sound just like a top of a gun. And everything would be perfectly quiet and they just lay flat on on their on their house. And you couldn't tell them from a hunger from a piece of Earth on the on the on the beaver house. But that's the way she used to bring them out. And it was very interesting to watch them. But just to have anything, make it move. And she would she would always go right down underneath and all you could see was just her eyes. And it just looked like a frog about the size of a frog on the pond. You couldn't see anything else but her she'd be right down under the water. And then till everything quieten down then she'd come up and swim back to the to the to the to her babies again. But it was very interesting to watch them

Unknown Speaker 42:16
saying that you had to be still didn't notice them. The Northern Lights you give me

Unknown Speaker 42:28
you? Oh yes, yes, we heard this. We heard this, I heard this darn light. And I've heard seen the most gorgeous display of garden lights that I think they're just anybody has ever seen as it was you could look up and it just looked like a big flower. Opening up of all the different colors, the tails, pastel shades of flowers, like it was just a flower opening up. And then the big streamers coming from the goodness knows where they come from. Nobody knows what the Northern Lights are how they come from. But they put the big streamers shooting up all over them the whole the whole place with the lit up with the with the Northern Lights, and all the different colors. Just look like search lights going up and down all of that. They weren't gorgeous. The all stars are so brilliant. And you can there's nothing to stop them. It's you know, up there, everything is so clear. And you could see them sparkling just like they were flashing that there would be so and the moon at times. It'd be so the snow everything was so quite. And when the moon was out in full moon, you could almost read a paper from the moonlight. It was so it was so clear. includes your DS as a short Oh yes, our days were very sure. You wouldn't have daylight turned around about nine o'clock in the morning. And then a three and a half to three in the afternoon. You'd have to light your lights again. Or wasn't the summer time we had the daylight it was daylight around all day you'd have daylight and real daylight By four o'clock in the morning can be real bright day light. And then you wouldn't have darkness until around about 910 o'clock at night. And then it really for a couple of hours. It wouldn't be what you call really dark could be more like a deep Twilight until about three, three to three o'clock in the morning. That then it would start to get real light again.

Unknown Speaker 44:52
When you look back

Unknown Speaker 44:56
you say you're back. When you open this you're saying that you Employment your life has been different before Yes

Unknown Speaker 45:08
Did you would you do it again? Yes I surely would. I would again yes I don't do it again if I could of course I'm getting old now. But if I was younger had go through the same thing again it was so wonderful up in there. Most

Unknown Speaker 45:26
now you can compare, try to compare what we have now to what you that's what most of you do. Right this silence

Unknown Speaker 45:39
and well yes, the silence the quietness and your will. If you wanted to work, you could work and if you didn't want to work, you were rolling boss you didn't have to work if you didn't want to. And we had some wonderful times in there. Especially when we were cutting hay. We had we didn't have a wagon. We took and made a stone both of the trees that we found trees that had when they come up and had a crook at the root well lows we took a cut and made runners and put poles across and then we have harness on to two of the horses. You could put a harness on the others were could just pack horses. But these two you could harness and that's the way we brought our hay in and we loaded it in onto the mid put the haystack stacks of hay up. And that we've cut about 70 tons of hay every every fall is cut 70 tons of hay after we went in and that respect and it's the first time I ever stopped putting worked on a stack of hay but I done the second year my husband done the pitching and I and I stack the hay and it stayed it never fell over. I was a first time I had ever done in the haystack and but God had good results from it anyway. But that was a feed for to last us from all from the first of October till the turtle up till about from May we had to feed so it took a lot of horses a lot of hay for six header horses feeding twice a day they took a lot of hay and that K was all cut by hand. With the more with the hands with the side that was all cut it's pretty take a more and you couldn't take a wagon then.

Unknown Speaker 47:43
No it was done back on all all nice guys.

Unknown Speaker 47:47
I bite size interest off cut by hand. Yes it was a lot of hay but oh it was wonderful. And it was so you go out in the back cut the hay off and and feed it start feeding it it was over the smell from it was wonderful. Because it was all we took in Timothy seed and scattered it broadcast it and we had Timothy and red clover mostly and the horses it was really wonderful feed for the horses

Unknown Speaker 48:30
you know if I had to do over again, a little I'm getting older. If I was younger, I had to go through the same thing again because the life that I had in there was absolutely wonderful. And I had the most wonderful husband with anybody ever had. And we were very very happy. And we were both very disappointed when we couldn't get him to craft line and a laundry. That the snowshoe the snowshoeing was too much for him. And so then we relaxed and came to the city. And I sure didn't like it after we got to the city.