341_John-Vern-Elliot_Life-on-SSI_2014.mp3

otter.ai

16.02.2024

no

Outline

A camper in the driveway and a pet dog chasing animals.
• Neighbors discuss a camper in the driveway and a pet dog that kills mice and rabbits.

Water usage and wells in a rural area.
• Speakers discuss animal rights activists testing new methods for euthanizing animals, with one speaker mentioning a new way of testing pollution using cats.
• Speaker 1 discusses the possibility of running out of water during the summer months, mentioning that their well is only 90 feet deep and may not be enough to meet their needs.
• Speaker 2 expresses skepticism about the likelihood of running out of water, suggesting that there may be underground water sources that could be tapped into.

Weight loss and travel.
• Speakers discuss collecting rocks and weight loss, with one speaker mentioning losing 50 pounds.

Personal experiences and memories.
• Speakers discuss finding fossils and rocks on the Washington coast and in Spain, with one speaker mentioning a specific location on the Olympics where clam shells can be found in shale.
• Speaker 1 shares stories of their childhood in Ireland, including gathering firewood and caring for a pet lamb.
• Speaker 1 describes their experience living on Portland Island in the 1950s, including the lack of modern amenities and the importance of having a farm to avoid high taxes.
• Speaker 1 and their family moved to Moresby Island after a few years on Portland, where they rented the island for $300 per year and farmed it to avoid taxes.

Immigration, farming, and family history in Canada.
• Speaker 1 describes how their father came to choose the Gulf Islands to live, including a friend's influence and a desire for a similar environment to England.
• Speaker 1 explains how their father got a job on Saturna Island, including a partnership with local brothers who ran sheep on the island.
• Speaker 1 describes how their family ran a farm on Moresby Island in the 1950s and 1960s, including raising sheep and selling them in Portland and Sydney.
• Speaker 1's family later returned to Moresby Island after the German group bought property in the early 1960s.
• Speaker 1 describes how their family lived on an island and had a canoe full of natives visit for supper.
• Speaker 1 talks about how they did schooling through correspondence and had limited socializing with people coming by boat.

Life on a remote island with a local family.
• Local woman in a small village in Canada refused to let visitors take pictures of her or her family, believing it would steal their spirits.
• Speaker 1 describes their upbringing on a remote island, mentioning their mother's literacy and their father's work ethic.
• Speaker 1's mother was articulate and scholarly, while their father was more practical and left home at 15 to work.

Fishing, farming, and conservation.
• John recounts his experiences working on a boat in the ocean and on a river, mentioning the comfort and power of the vessel.
• Speaker 1 discusses their experience working on tugboats and fishing, mentioning they retired 20 years ago after 40 years of work.
• Speaker 1 and Unknown Speaker discuss the possibility of getting sheep for their 10-acre farm, with Speaker 1 mentioning they dream of having their own supply.
• Unknown speaker notes that the subject's house is tasteful and has a big footprint, despite his environmental efforts.

Fishing, sweaters, and missionaries.
• Speaker 1 discusses their childhood memories of fishing in British Columbia, including the abundance of fish in the waters and the lack of regulations (20 words)
• Speaker 1 shares their observation that rock cod don't mature until around 8 years old and a 4-pound fish may be 70 years old, highlighting the impact of overfishing (21 words)
• Speaker 1 discusses the importance of preserving traditional knowledge and cultural practices in the Maritimes, particularly among Indigenous communities.
• Speaker 1 shares stories of a missionary couple who came to the area on a boat called the Shanty Men, providing dinner and religious services to the community.

Old cars, horses, and sheep farming.
• Speaker 1 reminisces about a horse named Artie and a Ford Model A they used to own.
• Speaker 1 recounts a story about a man named Harry who bought a car for $35 and sold it for $85.

Rural life, farming, and shipping in the 1970s.
• Speaker 1 reminisces about the past when people would visit their farm in Portland, Oregon, and enjoy riding the horse.
• Speaker 1 and an unknown speaker discuss the challenges of shipping wool back to the woolgrowers in Saskatchewan, including the cost of shipping and the lack of freight sheds in the area.
• Speaker 1 discusses selling wild game meats in Sydney, including the process of inspecting and preparing the carcasses for sale.
• Speaker 1 reminisces about growing up on Salt Spring Island, describing a quieter and more peaceful time (48:24-49:13).
• Unknown speaker shares a story about a couple who won a trip to Salt Spring Island and left without notice (49:17-50:05).

Family history and island adventures.
• Speaker 1 recounts a story about their brother and a cow on a farm, mentioning how the cow would lay down and chew its cud while they would sit and talk to it.
• Speaker 1's sister Betsy is seen in a photo on the back of a car, with Speaker 1 commenting on how their mother stayed in a hospital before having the baby and how Randall (a friend) was supposed to come and tell them about the baby's arrival but didn't show up.
• Speaker 1 describes visiting a place called Portland with their father, where they used to pick apples and make hay.
• Speaker 1 and an unknown speaker discuss the history of the area, including its past as a sanatorium and hospital.
• Princess Margaret personally intervened to allow sheep grazing on Portland Island.

Life on a remote island with limited resources.
• Speaker 1 recounts experiences living on a remote island without modern amenities or emergency services.
• Speaker 1 describes their childhood experiences in the north of England, including a sheep-shearing incident that resulted in a broken leg.

Life in small Canadian island communities.
• Speaker 1 shares stories about their experiences in a small coastal town, highlighting the importance of local knowledge and the value of exploring beyond tourist hotspots.
• Speaker 4 and 5 discuss the contrast between following a guided tour and experiencing a place through personal connections and local interactions.
• Speaker 1 shares stories of island life, including a dog named Neil who would fetch dog food from the store and a neighbor who was friendly but also competitive.
• Speaker 1's older sister was a teacher on the island, and Speaker 1 would visit her and enjoy spending time with her.
• Speaker 1 describes a dog that could understand and respond to commands, even using tools like a screwdriver and a crescent wrench.
• Speaker 5 notes that smart dogs like this are rare and often treated like ducks by their owners.

Land use and water table depth.
• Speaker 1 discusses the landscape and water table changes over 3000 years, with a focus on the current greenery and lucky acquisition of 140 acres by Ducks Unlimited.

Smells and memories in a small coastal town.
• Speaker 1 mentions a farm that used to be on one property but was subdivided, leading to the current location of a building for sale.
• Speaker 5 shares a story about a person who warned the speaker about the smell coming from the building, which is located in a bowl-shaped area.
• Speakers discuss a man's unusual hobby of collecting brass plaques from public spaces.

Fishing, boats, and family history.
• Speaker 5 shares stories of fishing and the sea, with a focus on the older captains who worked well into their 70s and beyond.
• Speaker 1 describes how radar has changed the way sailors navigate, with younger crew members relying on technology over traditional methods like compasses and bearings.
• Speakers discuss scanning old family photos and sharing them with a relative, Frank.

Fishing, marine life, and boat operations.
• The speaker's experience in fishing and boating has influenced their career, with them preferring to fish in miserable conditions to avoid competition.
• Speaker 1 recounts their experience fishing and working on boats, mentioning a book about working boats and an old boat they were on.

Moving to a new home and unloading a barge.
• Speaker 1 reminisces about past experiences with a neighbor, John, who broke rules to help others.
• Speaker 1 recounts a story about moving from Saturna to Portland in 1950s, including a harrowing experience with a barge and a horse.
• Speaker 3 identifies Jean as the person in the story, who encountered challenges while moving belongings with a horse and a barge.

Family history and genealogy.
• Speaker 1 reminisces about a house in Portland with a bar and campfires, while others debate the best approach for preserving nature in parks.
• Speaker 1 discusses old map of Portland, Ireland, and fruit trees in roads.

A house, barn, and history in Portland Island.
• Speaker 1 describes a barn and fields on Portland Island, now covered in forest.
• Speaker 1 describes a manmade lake in the shape of a heart, with buildings and boats nearby.

Beachcombing and shipwrecks in the 1950s.
• Speaker 1 discusses beachcombing and collecting items from the beach, mentioning that in the 1950s, garbage was dumped into the Fraser River and dumped with a bulldozer into the water.
• Speaker 2 mentions that ships and barges used to transport goods without containers, resulting in items being thrown overboard when leaving Vancouver.
• Speaker 1 recounts finding various items on Galiano Island, including driftwood, barrels, and cans, while walking around the island.

A man's adventures and a dog's health.
• Darrell lived on his boat most of the time and didn't need much money, according to Speaker 1.
• A man named John lost his kayak and was found by the police, according to Speaker 1 and Unknown Speaker.
• Speaker 6 mentions their dog, Penny, who is a border collie mix and 13 years old.
• Speaker 5 talks about their dog, Pennie, who is a golden retriever cross and has a lot of stories to tell.

Unknown Speaker 0:00
So you're fine to see a big metal driveway with a big metal gate with a bunch of lights on it I said there

Unknown Speaker 0:06
was a camper in the driveway

Unknown Speaker 0:10
think of that big metal gate there and that's what you see you know usually if you say the entrance cuz everybody's got a camper our neighbors got a camper boys to go to all the neighborhood here we all have campers take him an hour to get here because all the driveways that have a camper

Unknown Speaker 0:30
yeah

Unknown Speaker 0:32
yeah

Unknown Speaker 0:35
yeah he's a real life force he walks into the room and right

Unknown Speaker 0:45
so he

Unknown Speaker 0:51
got this recording now why

Unknown Speaker 1:04
we have little running around here today. Are you still in the guard we saw a minute ago

Unknown Speaker 1:08
right here on the outside the window then

Unknown Speaker 1:11
he went behind a plant pot and then he come out of there chasing the rat mouse oh we don't have any chickens chicken farm to kill so he comes on here and kills mice and rabbits running around in that row of bushes you know from one way or the other looking at you looking for rabbits. Just a nice small one but a black real this time of year the really dark almost a black from a distance.

Unknown Speaker 1:40
Oh yeah, we cut we cut actually a few mean remember twice. They got our tickets. One time. That's right. killed every single one of them. And another time or twice at another time. We kept losing a chicken every couple of days. And when we caught that it was a big thing was like this. I don't even know why No, no honor looks like no, it was mink, but it was a different coin. And it was it wasn't a dark color. Well, it could have been the time of year but yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:19
like a brown or brown. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 2:21
yeah. Huge and nasty. So yeah, to me, but like I went over to UBC to be which she has had a daughter who worked in I don't know. And it's something to do with something to do with animals and so so she sent it over there it was the one that we couldn't tell but the car remember Nancy said well just put put the whole car

Unknown Speaker 3:01
the old truck and then we got the new white little white truck and i i try had a coon and I drove up here in this cage and I put the cap on like we always do. And it wouldn't die

Unknown Speaker 3:16
five minutes goes by 10 minutes after oh well

Unknown Speaker 3:24
what happened now

Unknown Speaker 3:29
I wouldn't even kill him.

Unknown Speaker 3:32
Well, my Honda didn't kill them. And then Nancy had to bring her car over me took it off my exhaust and put it on hers and it was gone. And

Unknown Speaker 3:42
it's funny Nancy what she thought of that because that means her old car was polluting

Unknown Speaker 3:49
what she did get a new car. Maybe that was

Unknown Speaker 3:53
that? Can you imagine that, you know is only animal rights activists who say they have a new way of testing the things. Little caps and things that come into the SPCA that they're going to put down but they use them for seeing how much pollution if you kill a if you kill a cat in quicker than 10 minutes it means if you kill your cat in less than 10 minutes, it means you have to have your car tuned up a new

Unknown Speaker 4:25
if you want a cup of tea or anything

Unknown Speaker 4:32
Yeah, so anyway. It's one of those things.

Unknown Speaker 4:36
So what are your plans for the weekend? Well,

Unknown Speaker 4:40
I don't know. We'll see how it goes. It sounds like it's gonna be raining. No, actually it's not that bad. I had a weekend doesn't look too bad it chance of showers and then Monday rain Tuesday so you never know it might hear up. I don't

Unknown Speaker 4:53
know. So, so you're gonna stay here if it's

Unknown Speaker 4:57
nice. Yeah. Well, I learned All right we'll probably go for somewhere that looks like we got five days

Unknown Speaker 5:05
because we haven't been there since the spring we didn't even go there I'll just kind of clean it up that would be good

Unknown Speaker 5:18
tomorrow so tomorrow my take my excavator down I want to dig up a pond down in that bottom corner there by

Unknown Speaker 5:24
the by the garden yeah

Unknown Speaker 5:26
just to dig a little a little ponder

Unknown Speaker 5:33
because that'll happen my father there for the garden like it's great that's all coming out of our well. I don't want to use too much

Unknown Speaker 5:44
No, no Well, we only got nine well I mean not that there's not water here but our well there's only 90 deep and so

Unknown Speaker 5:54
and then either they this they'll use it up there. Oh no, no

Unknown Speaker 5:57
of course we have Lisa and she has a shower every day you know? Yeah, so there's probably a 10 minute shower along here. I don't think agents got the nerve to tell her that she you know in the summer she should cut back a bit he probably just he's more apt to just let her do her thing and try to work on the outside to make it happen. Yeah

Unknown Speaker 6:23
well you know if we didn't run out of water this summer Do you think we ever will?

Unknown Speaker 6:29
Well, I don't know i It's actually our oil. Well was was was normal. In fact, I'd say it's wetter than like down on the bottom side there. There's water running out of the ground right now. That's probably what's draining. A lot of people have had dry well Oh yeah. It depends where you get your water from. Okay, I think about it we I think we have a lot of you know, there's Hills all around us here like Mount Maxwell and all that and so somewhere there's a lot of water run down in here and I mean some of it runs into the creeks in the lake and runs away but a lot more must go underground. And then that's what we're getting some kind of a spring from somewhere up on the hill. It's coming down yeah or

Unknown Speaker 7:21
something

Unknown Speaker 7:34
bamboo pole

Unknown Speaker 7:50
How are you very good. Good. John. And I know John from from the thrift store. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 7:57
Yeah. You probably eaten a few crabs of ours up here. Probably

Unknown Speaker 8:05
just admired all your stones and

Unknown Speaker 8:08
stone nut myself.

Unknown Speaker 8:11
Yeah, everywhere we go. We collect them. Yeah, me too.

Unknown Speaker 8:17
I remember when it comes back to your customer saying what are you good at your service?

Unknown Speaker 8:30
Mr. course you're lost 50 pounds. And if anything, and of course your way kind of weight loss close enough to the airport in the way it was 49 and a half. Rocks a

Unknown Speaker 8:46
little suitcase.

Unknown Speaker 8:48
And also it just kicks mommy if it's too heavy. It's going to take them out. Of course. Yeah. The ones that they weren't that important to me at the top so I could think about that's a good idea.

Unknown Speaker 8:57
Using

Unknown Speaker 8:58
the archaeologists. Yeah, that's right.

Unknown Speaker 9:03
Can we get a dinosaur fossil here?

Unknown Speaker 9:06
This looks like should be in Spain. Yeah, we we

Unknown Speaker 9:09
got a piece property on the Washington coast. On the Olympics on your Yeah, you find there you find these little rocks that have clam shells in them?

Unknown Speaker 9:21
I know. I'm always looking for them on Saltspring. Somebody told me if you go up Cranberry Road, there's a couple of customer rock there where you can find shale shale there but

Unknown Speaker 9:33
yeah, I remember years ago taking the kids up there and we found a few of those little what do they call them little emanates rounds. That's right. Yeah, they weren't really they were little pieces. Yeah, they weren't quite as but it's kind of spectacular. The ones that find down there they have they have a nice

Unknown Speaker 9:53
that's just fake for us to get together. pretty much on the outside I guess to god yeah

Unknown Speaker 10:16
I used to live there was an analyst might meet next near ragged used to live in Thunder Bay and you can literally pick up the

Unknown Speaker 10:24
toy we find a dark place there on newly Wow geologists he said they're probably 20 30 million years old or something yeah yeah

Unknown Speaker 10:35
oh that's a cool one yeah

Unknown Speaker 10:37
and that one there kind of both sides yeah yeah

Unknown Speaker 10:47
yeah I'm crazy for that stuff

Unknown Speaker 10:49
all end up in a thrift shop you know

Unknown Speaker 10:56
two stories the rock shops but I never buy them it doesn't seem to count unless you

Unknown Speaker 11:04
like horseshoes if you don't find that yeah I would have been 20

Unknown Speaker 11:11
Oh wow that's really that's a look at that don't see that kind of that's beautiful Yeah, I might have fallen off for that one that's so cool yeah wow that's good

Unknown Speaker 11:30
Well, thank you so much. Thank you

Unknown Speaker 11:36
picture album might want to just go to

Unknown Speaker 11:40
give me a bit of an eye John I thought you'd be about 108 years old from what I read.

Unknown Speaker 11:46
I've kind of a different person sometimes we get a bunch of old people you know

Unknown Speaker 11:54
well I read I read the I read the article about check out well you're gonna be you're gonna be here Yeah, no.

Unknown Speaker 12:00
Boy wasn't a lot of law but we did. It'll be in about 1950 or something. But that was unfortunate in Ireland that's for Portland and now it's a house pet lambs and my brother and I used to get get the wood it was our job to get the fire going all the time while you're around and we had to put a harness on the horse and go out into the bush and find some piece of dry wood and drag it back to the house. So

Unknown Speaker 12:36
this is this important distiller yes yeah.

Unknown Speaker 12:39
They used to be in a native lived in active passive Jacks you know they they came one day in a canoe and anyway they we made friends with them over the years and they net us all sweaters and fishing stuff that's actually looking out at Russell Island Fulford harbor in the background and that will be that's the same thing that's Lewis kind of on the island there of course we live there. We didn't have a boat. And there's no nothing so we had like a flagpole there and the deal was everybody in M days if you're isolated. You put up a white flag there and then somebody who eventually would come and that was a distressing Yeah, that's what that flagpole was happy to have to use it. No, no, our fingers glued back together. Sometimes, yeah. So native history come on. By clams office in what year would that be? Roughly? That would be about 56 Yeah, so 56 that is Portland or would be give or take a bit. Yeah. And then you're getting into Moresby island in the next 10 sheep on a boat. You know.

Unknown Speaker 13:54
There's a line down. Three sheep on each side. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 13:59
So you came from from England and you're six right?

Unknown Speaker 14:02
County Durham and yeah, in 1952 we emigrated and so you're just just a little tad than six and a bit.

Unknown Speaker 14:11
What would you do come from a rural background and

Unknown Speaker 14:15
to find out more I was born in a farm house anymore and so it wasn't too much of a shock to me. Oh, no, actually, well, of course, you know, 16 You're just like six years old. You're like a dry sponge so wherever you go, you're just absorbed whatever

Unknown Speaker 14:28
but still, you probably came from electricity and

Unknown Speaker 14:31
like electricity. Our house we lived in it didn't even have a stove. It had cold fire with with hooks that came out Hank saw

Unknown Speaker 14:41
so it wasn't much of a change for you at all ago that's but still were you the only people on Portland.

Unknown Speaker 14:48
Yeah, add more as we to both places. We were always there by just by ourselves. We never know that no other people there so

Unknown Speaker 14:55
just to make sure no phone no no electricity.

Unknown Speaker 14:58
No no hydro nothing. Okay.

Unknown Speaker 15:02
And how long did you live there? Unfortunately,

Unknown Speaker 15:03
we lived on Portland. Well, we were Yeah, just a couple of years really. But then we moved towards because these guys bothered to log in the Jonas Brothers and then they wanted somebody to farm it. Yeah, basically, most of the islands say that the taxes were quite high on them if they weren't a farm, so it was always important to have a bonafide farm. Yeah. Not a lot of money in it. So basically, you get the island for a nominal rent. Moresby, we rented it for years for $300 a day or $365 a year for the whole island and houses and stuff. But of course, they benefited by having a farm pay the yields of agricultural Texas.

Unknown Speaker 15:47
And your dad was pretty crippled up when he got here was, you know, yeah, not

Unknown Speaker 15:51
so much. I remembered in England a bit, you know, like he Yeah, like he would be took them while he'd be going around his hands and knees trying to straighten up. And then arthritis. Was it? Yes, yeah. I'm not sure what type of arthritis I've often kind of pretty serious kind. Oh, yeah, I did cripple him up. But

Unknown Speaker 16:07
it must have been pretty brave to think well, I'll just go out into the park close to that as a continent there and start to start off from scratch. Well,

Unknown Speaker 16:14
I Yeah, to this day, I kind of wonder, you know how, yeah, how he ended up here. You know, obviously, what mum? I mean, she must not have, you know, probably too enamored with the whole thing to begin with. But anyway, she he dragged us all. He had two brothers out here already. Yeah. I was there was that we were up in Kamloops. And when we got out of their store, when we did emigrate out, we did spend the summer up in the interior. And then came down to the coast. But yeah, so it's pretty lucky to be born somewhere in a farmhouse on Northern England and ended up down in one of the nicer places in the world to live for sure. On an island.

Unknown Speaker 16:54
How did your dad come to choose? Choose the Gulf Islands to live?

Unknown Speaker 16:58
Well, he had a friend that lived in, in Victoria, and he came to visit him and I guess he was going through the island see all the old? And I guess, well, it puts a daughter environment same as the environment from England and he likes sheep and stuff. So So then that was thing he ended up. It took us a little while. I mean, we we ended up going to Saturna. First, did you and we arrived there on the princess Elaine, it used to stop there once a week on the way to Victoria and then on the way back. So if if you went to Victoria, to go on a Wednesday and come back on a Saturday, because it stopped from going Victoria to Vancouver, it stopped there on Saturday. If you went to Vancouver, you'd have to go on a Saturday, but you couldn't get back to a Wednesday because it only stopped there twice a week. So we arrived there and dad had a job. Or Supposedly he was going to be a partnership thing where one of the money brothers that are still still there to this day, I think they used to do the highways and they had quite a lot of land and they were going to run all the sheep. So but then dad got to look at all the Landy and it'd be basically he figured you'd only be able to run him on one sheet for every 48 the visions of something like Australia, I think with sheep running. Like if it would run 30 So then we then we ended up going to Moresby there was a guy that dough Moresby, and he was looking for a partner and, and cuz he didn't know anything about farming, and he just bought it. And so we went there and dad bought half the sheep, and that was gonna be the deal. Yours can be 5050. But the guy had different ideas. He was looking more for a certain partner. That didn't make a good serve. So then Portland came up and that all that took, that all took place in about a year, I guess. And so, so from about 53 to 54, five maybe. And then porcelain became available. And then we took all our half of the sheep and everything over to Portland on a barge and we arrived there and, and that was her.

Unknown Speaker 19:07
How many sheep would you have? On parliament? I

Unknown Speaker 19:09
think we had about 75 Maybe. You know, what if you barnyard animals now, would you do your own slaughtering there? Yes. Yeah, always.

Unknown Speaker 19:19
You'd have to always ferry service. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 19:22
So mostly the Yeah, all the sheep would be killed on the island and then you sell them in Portland, the one you know, we sell them in the butcher shops and in Sydney.

Unknown Speaker 19:34
You're pretty young when you killed your three sheep.

Unknown Speaker 19:37
Yeah, well, I guess it's all it's all in the agent until you i was the smallest. So I had to do the like first job that I remember would be sharpening the knives and cutting the throat when dad held him down and my brother was older so he'd be taken the skin of another one. So yeah, so we just started he was doing it. Yeah, he just did it like that. I guess kind of like on the on the island, like, the way we grew up it was you you knew at a very early age what everybody had to do to make things work. So everybody you've never had to be asked to do stuff. No, you know, that's farms are like that. Yeah, everybody pretty quick. Yeah, nobody really got to tell you to like, you know that if you're just sitting in the couch with your feet up and somebody's out there working you're gonna feel guilty you

Unknown Speaker 20:25
may feel more than guilty

Unknown Speaker 20:29
you gotta you got a you went to see it at some point, you work the boats.

Unknown Speaker 20:33
And that was that was later that was you know, we, we did our thing on Portland and then we went back as a family to Moresby and, and that that went through until till the early 60s, I guess how many of the family there was, there was three of us came three siblings in my dad, mom from England. And then one was born when we were my younger sister was born when we lived on Portland. Okay. So then, anyway, we ended up back on Moresby and then and then the German group bought quite a lot of property and adult violence in the early 60s. And they wanted to put their own farmer on there. And so dad got a job of caretaking another island. And, but that didn't last, they realized that it wasn't working too well. Yeah, well, no, they had a guy that was working there. But it just, they, by the time that we're paying them and everything, they weren't making any money. They didn't. It was only about a year that they they wanted us to go back because to take it under the same dollar a day thing because yeah, I knew that that was the best that was invented. It was an arrangement that worked. So I was 16. Then about halfway through grade seven, and I went back by myself for three years for from there till from 16 to 19. And then did all our kildow At that time, we were probably we were probably we had sheep on Portland and pierce Island. And so we probably killed maybe 300 lambs a year, put up all the hay and I was

Unknown Speaker 22:12
I was gonna ask you what, how you handled schooling?

Unknown Speaker 22:15
Well, it was never really an issue. And Mum did half of mine, probably because just to get it done. It was by correspondence, but I was probably 16. And I was halfway through grade grade seven. So they were coming out. Yes, it gets 36 lessons, you know, and yeah, but when you didn't go to the next grade till you did your 36 you're kind of busy at the time, which correspondents you fill them in and you mail them away. Somebody reads them, and

Unknown Speaker 22:43
what would you do for socializing? What

Unknown Speaker 22:45
would you do for actually, yeah, there was people came by, you know, like, there was some of the natives would come, you know, well, like the all those Indians, whether they're there. They came, you know, a few times a year, bring us a bucket or her in from active pass. Nice. And, and then other. There's some people that had recreation books, and of course, they're like, provoked to this day, they're gonna anchor out and they're interested in me. They wander around, and then you'd meet them another Islanders.

Unknown Speaker 23:14
But so how would that happen to see a canoe full of native showed up with just the environment for

Unknown Speaker 23:19
supper? Usually? Well, we've never had a canoe of them, but like, oh, like one vote? Yeah. But if anybody was around there collecting seaweed or something, yeah, they'd always be invited from Thailand. Yeah. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 23:30
But that one for the lady ever. The one guy that's five dresses five. Oh,

Unknown Speaker 23:35
yeah. Well, let's see the canoe there. Oh, yeah. I'm over in the backend. So we lived on port and we were just having breakfast one morning. And so here, here, this native guy come Felix comes up and he said he'd seen sheep and you know, wondering if you could get some grilled by wall and oh, yeah, that'd be fine. So anyway, we stopped and he came and had breakfast with us and sat there for a while having tea, you're probably an hour and a half, two hours talking away. And anyway, we took that went back down to the boat with him and his wife is just sitting in the canoe. But she could never speak English and, and she's a big woman and she always had lots of layers on you know, why didn't you tell her it's gonna come in life. She's fine. Like as she was she didn't look. Yeah. She's quite a lady. So she bought they were, they bought a lot of wool off us over the years. And made you some sweaters. Yes, yeah, all sweaters and of course, when we got to baby there, she made a little sweater. And then every once a while to be having tea, you know, when she'd look at the sweater and then she take it away. And you know, a few weeks later, the next day used to go to college and in a canoe every year, every probably three weeks or something to sell sweaters. So she'd bring it back with the arms longer. So she kept us in sweaters and socks. She

Unknown Speaker 25:00
just kept extending that's great but she never they would

Unknown Speaker 25:03
never let us take pictures of them they didn't feel it didn't believe in pictures don't have pictures like once you get the camera oh he felt somehow he seen pictures and he thought somehow it got some well the

Unknown Speaker 25:18
legend refer their spirits were stolen

Unknown Speaker 25:23
the same thing happened to be in Morocco I tried take a picture of a fellow Berlin

Unknown Speaker 25:29
No, no no. So they got older he had a nephew he later on when we're Morbius have got a little nephew that used to come and stay with us once in a while and stay out on the island for a few days and

Unknown Speaker 25:44
so did you work on the

Unknown Speaker 25:46
boats when so that anyway that was that was when you go back to Morphe and when I was realized there was more going on in the outside world and you know, like hay and sheep yeah, like I used to look forward to winter because at least here The evening was longer you know there was letter do not feed the animals at times. And so So anyway, then dad does dad came back to the island and and then I got a job on a fish Packer. Probably a 1965. How would you be? I'd be probably 90 spent the summer up north and and up for representing that area. Nambu came back and on the way down, I told us an old Sudbury to the steamboat Tony log barge and I thought I'm gonna try the tugboats. Oh yeah, see what attack and of course an MBA and age. You know, they're just you just, yeah, you just go gonna buy them for maybe three weeks or something. And then you get a job? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 26:42
Was your dad reluctant to let you go? Easy. It's

Unknown Speaker 26:45
Oh, no, no, he he knew Yeah. No, I can't family you're very lucky of course to be raised with my mum was quite a she was quite articulate and a bit of a scholar. I mean, she was she was smart. And and then dad was the other way. I mean, he probably he probably left when he was 15 and went to work down in the Doxon. And next, so it was a good mix. You had the the work ethic and and the honesty of an old simple person, but yet you had you had Mum. Mum was good literate. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 27:20
what did she do? She did she came up to found a little little

Unknown Speaker 27:23
mum. Yeah, no, I think an MBA too was just just enough to do you know, like, laundry and cooking and, and books and various Yeah, she read a bit but not absorbed currently. So yeah, I guess all of us. Yeah. I think when you live like that, you know, you. You do? You do have the day is taken up with? Yeah, something. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 27:51
Where did you come to? Salzburg?

Unknown Speaker 27:52
Probably 77. Yeah, got married and came to Saltspring. And that was the first house I lived in and had electricity. Drive, never saw and I was probably 36 years old. And how did you meet? That was I was born as a second life.

Unknown Speaker 28:12
And so no, I had a girlfriend I worked in California Car sales. Business and I had a girlfriend that worked with me. And anyway, her and her her boyfriend. They came up here for our trip one time and they just loved Saltspring and happened in the acreage for sale and and they had a couple products he had a couple properties around. So they sold the properties and bought back and then guys because I came to visit them every fall. And then one of the business that met John

Unknown Speaker 28:41
offered the names

Unknown Speaker 28:45
so yeah, so that was but then anyway, so anyway, I went when I went on the topes and I did that for about five and a half, six, almost six years. I guess I was amazed for the last three and I would say tags. Last time it was on the coast. Gold SS sunray I was on the last bit made to the Columbia River. We took a Lime Rock barge down there and so outside that's when it goes to them. Yeah, ocean. River tugs in harbor tough barges and but outside tugs you. You'll be taken going taking a poke barge to port Dallas or picking the log box to the rental. Some pretty rough waters. Yes is good. Is it? Bad is it you want to get? You never really if you're on a boat, of course it doesn't matter what size it is. You have to have faith and don't think you're going to sink otherwise you would just stay ashore like

Unknown Speaker 29:40
here that tub is one of the better boats to be on if you're in bed. Well, yeah,

Unknown Speaker 29:43
they are. They're comfortable. But they're they're a bit they look. It takes you a while to get used to them of course because they're very heavy. You did have lots of power and they're heavy and they're all in the water. So when it's really rough then the water never clears off them out It's just like it was sunk because the water is just just it fills the back of the boat up you know by the time that happened runs out the scuppers and other way in yeah because you're tied to something so like a normal you have boat with it doesn't have a barge behind it if a wave hits it it kind of lifts and moves forward yeah where tuck doesn't tight so the the barge is holding it back yeah wave comes it just comes over the sternum Yeah. And then I went fishing for so that was what I did for most of my career was we I just bought a little girl that I was going to fishing in my time off because he talked to you to work a month and have a month off. And so I thought well, I'll just fish in the summer. But then fishing was was okay and so they just continued fishing and gave up on the tugs was a salmon, salmon and crab and so from about 1970 till till just when 2005 I guess we were credible we quit about yeah almost eight nine years ago now we retired Yeah. Beneficial with me the last for 20 years I guess. Yeah. traps for years. Both similar the one that's out in the yard there that's what made you know 20 foot long and yeah, we had 500 traps in the water we efficient. Wow.

Unknown Speaker 31:29
It's a full time job.

Unknown Speaker 31:31
You're around fishery

Unknown Speaker 31:34
with you for years. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 31:39
Enjoy that. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Must seem pretty tame. Do

Unknown Speaker 31:43
you know life and life on the farm here? Well, yeah, as I was asked to do. Yeah. No.

Unknown Speaker 31:52
We dream you know, we keep putting up fence posts and maybe a bit of wire. Maybe one day I'll find a couple of sheep or it's actually increments are talking to Teddy Coleman and we can do get loners, you know, like, as long as you got good fences and everything to do with it. Yeah, so apt maybe drop off a like you figured we could get a loaner? You and some of the older you that had a couple of lamps and just bring them up here and then and then when the lamps or keep one of the lamps and

Unknown Speaker 32:24
miss a beat or anything. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 32:27
Yeah, you'd have your own supply.

Unknown Speaker 32:31
So how many acres? 10 acres?

Unknown Speaker 32:35
10. Yeah, we bought it in probably about 3034 years ago or something like that. I

Unknown Speaker 32:41
imagine you're in a couple of Robert Bateman paintings by now. No.

Unknown Speaker 32:47
Anyway, yeah, that's his house there. Right. Yeah. He's a busy person, you know, yeah, you sometimes wonder, you know, like, it's two. It's two ways of looking at things. You know, like, on the one hand, he does so much for Ducks Unlimited. And all the charities. Yeah, he's environmental. But on the other hand, he's got a big footprint, you know, so yeah, call you know, well, I

Unknown Speaker 33:09
interviewed him one time and he's like a machine he's got recess researcher that sends down a picture of a wood duck from

Unknown Speaker 33:23
Mongolia or something. Oh, no, you know, all the prints, you know, the girls back and forth. Every day. They're shipping in courier trucks going down there. Yeah. FedEx,

Unknown Speaker 33:35
trucks, faculty relative to each other.

Unknown Speaker 33:37
So it's a pretty big it's a big industry. I guess. It sounds as modest boy. You've probably been Yeah, it's not he's not like his bedroom was you know, the bedroom was not that big. And you know, you take in the fact that half of his house is a shop and a business Exactly. The rest of it house the kitchen and bedroom and all that. Isn't that

Unknown Speaker 34:00
very tasteful. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 34:02
he likes likes, was a Japanese thing.

Unknown Speaker 34:05
He likes a little collection of stuff too. Little. I was

Unknown Speaker 34:08
I met a guy who worked at his last house and he said he likes to make access to make cookies. Cookies. They're fake rocks. Oh, yeah. Nature. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 34:21
Pretty much like rocks. We've invited over there a few times and gone over and of course, usually it's there's different people there but it's kind of like the same thing. You know, you take you've been there once and the second time you go through and you have all those little stories. Yeah. The door a little bow that he had some kid sawed off. Yeah. Could do in Thailand. Yeah, they got that routine. But I guess he is, you know, he's getting he's in his 80s mid 80s. He

Unknown Speaker 34:53
doesn't he looks like he's late 60s. He's a very, very healthy looking. Set. Uh huh. I see or is that a bunch of viewings? Are there

Unknown Speaker 35:10
any more these, John that are interesting?

Unknown Speaker 35:11
Well, yeah. That's a picture of the old that's the old Kenora. They're the get used to run a railroad. I used to run from the Fraser River to the Saanich Inlet and to Victoria. Which railroad cars on it. Oh, we call it in the Fraser River. They called it the black death because it was black. And it had a propeller of both ends. And they both propellers turned all the time. So had ran over. And that's probably that's probably a rough and full of zincs and everything and so it ran over your Gil that it was goodbye, Gil. Why don't we have a prop at the front? I guess it was one of the first double Enders you know, maybe maybe they figured it like they probably had a rudder in front and back to just yeah, maybe it was more maneuverable for maybe anything they're triggering, I guess. Yeah. It used to be a lot of degenerate. Probably. There's a significant pitcher see that? My sister was holding the kid. But you see that? There's the old outhouse. Yeah, but there is a new technology. The pipes are coming in. Yeah. We ended up with a septic tank. Wow. And other than that, we all just used to run out to the your bank that wouldn't make sure I get all the spiders to go. I didn't know little holes. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 36:36
Did you cougars?

Unknown Speaker 36:39
No, no. And everyone's too far. Yeah. Lots of fish in them days like the islands where we're just you could go I used to tell people you could go out on any kelp bed on any Island. And within an hour, you can fill up a garbage pail of rocket anywhere. And then I ask my guests who did in 1955. If you'd caught every record between, say Nanaimo and Race Rocks, and put them in a heap, it would be a big heap. If you did that today. I don't think that he would be 5% of it. Is that not just overfishing? Yeah, well, what did is I guess rock cod. If people didn't read none of us realize that look, rock cod. They don't mature till about eight years old and a four pound one was maybe 70 years old. So. So in our lifetime, unless you quit fishing them all together. They're coming back a lot. They have the marine protected areas that are working and they are and so they are there is places that they can. They can hide and they learned a lesson from the East Coast cod fishery. Yeah, yeah, there's I think everybody's learning but they

Unknown Speaker 37:54
look at how it's 1234 babies. Yeah, that's

Unknown Speaker 37:58
a great shot. Yeah. They look like really serious sweaters.

Unknown Speaker 38:03
Yeah, they would none of them had zippers, you know. Different didn't really come along till the mid 60s and Indians and put the zippers in First Nations. The like the white guys would buy this sweater is a guy in Sydney. He was one of the first guys to buy start selling a lot of them. Yeah. And he actually put had the girl put zippers in he get the sweater and then they cut it out. But they

Unknown Speaker 38:28
call them coats and sweaters. Beginning Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 38:32
And they Oh, girl. They're the native there she said to the only way you wash them. She said you cool water. Lukewarm water and sunlight soap bar soap already ever used? Oh, no. No detergent, because I guess they haven't the natural lanolin Yeah. You know, but we lived in the

Unknown Speaker 38:52
great sweater. Yeah. Perfect road here because

Unknown Speaker 38:55
he made dad one that had horses. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You can see the horse died and the big one on the back. Wow. Boy, chameleon was

Unknown Speaker 39:04
a big keepsakes for sure. Yeah. They're pretty hard to pretty tough to wear divisionary

Unknown Speaker 39:10
boat used to come to messenger three. Oh, yeah. That's the group of America. They get to come maybe twice a year. And he was a captain. And he's a missionary couple where they like evangelical or they were just they were shocking when they had a separate a group called the shanty men and they were still alive to this day their Shackleton organization. Yeah. And they had a couple of boats but this one they went around the west coast and so they would come and then you go and fight them for dinner and then they would have a little bit a couple of prayers and greets for dinner and they may have some little brochure little thing. A little picture to hang on the wall or it's very subtle. Yeah. not overpowering. No, no, no, it's always It was a good you

Unknown Speaker 40:00
got some pretty good snowfalls. I

Unknown Speaker 40:02
see yeah. Oh yeah, yeah we used to get a bit of snow there's an old model a in here there's yeah you can see the difference in animals a lots Yeah. Or old horse there a role horse we came by him by we came by him by his dad there's an older livestock dealer called Art lock and he had a barge that he'd been to some of the islands and he was picking up stuff to sell and and take his stuff and he would take an old smokey to the blue factory. Oh really? He was an old tallyho horse at one time and you know in the Victoria he was he'd been a pull the wagon and Victoria Oh, really? Oh. And so he told daddy said well, you know, he's a good sound horse. You know, he said, I think he's still got a few years left. I'll give you a story. I think we bought him for about $60 or something. He does look like the last big Star Wars especially when we're in this old car my brother and I bought that my brother bought it actually not me. And it gets to belong on on Saltspring here and it used to belong to two lately on King on King Rome. Only on season eight and gone.

Unknown Speaker 41:20
What year would it be?

Unknown Speaker 41:21
The that would probably be a 36 or is it a Dodger shit. It's a it's a Ford model. It's a coupe thing. It used to have a canvas thing but they'd made it out of sheet metal because it was a canvas went Oh yeah. And so I guess a Leon there he you know he was driving it and they must have been a bit of a getting old and and so the police told him he had to take a test and so he went up drove around Ganges for a little bit and and then he said sorry, I'm gonna have to pay for the license. So my brother bought it for $35 of my gosh, we we made we were on board with it. And we made a kind of a lot of a couple of logs, you know, boom sticks and things. We made a raft and we towed it up to Beaver point and loaded it beaver pointed back towards view. Did you have roads on was it? Yeah, quite a few logging roads and roads? Yeah. And so. So Harry eventually sold it for $85. So he paid for itself. And it's the guy that bought it is still had it and he lives on. He lives on on Pender Island. And we're very Windsor was really very nice. No coffee not. Well, it's a nice looking

Unknown Speaker 42:33
car. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 42:34
So it was a yeah, just choosing some of these grew up. Yeah. Well, he used to get to get cheap. And sometimes because there was an island and you know, most of the sheep are somewhat domestic. And they stayed in the fields. Yeah. But there was some that were quite wild. And some that you couldn't get a hold of for, you know, yeah, yeah, that's a good sign. It's a wild one represent a pen. That's my dad and he's a big guy. So those were big cheap and they probably hadn't been in the barn for a while. So He clipped them. And the somebody told

Unknown Speaker 43:17
me that sheet can be really tough. Like they're kicking the can really beat up the dogs. Yes. boarding them and

Unknown Speaker 43:23
love them into the fences. And yeah, yeah. There's that little native fellow the Felix's nephews that Smokies on the back end? Yeah. Well, he's a big horse. Oh, he was Yeah. It was funny when I guess we had most a lot of people used to visit us when we lived on Portland of course because even there was some nice base to anchor and, and even at that time, people they they used to they for pleasure. Like they came there to anchor yeah away from cuckolding and so a lot of people could say gonna ride the horse and of course he knew if you'd come in if you if you didn't like your you know you or you just done it for a ride he didn't like he didn't want you to be there so he would just soon as the kid you let go the halter the the horse he just go right around the house to the clothesline and slightly put his head down the clothesline was about that high back on purpose it's

Unknown Speaker 44:19
pretty smart guy

Unknown Speaker 44:25
somebody's writing No, they

Unknown Speaker 44:26
don't well, they're all They're all do their they all have their thing. That's a little janky there I get it. I wonder if he's still alive. I've never made tried to find it but he's it. He's a cute little guy. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 44:40
See a lot of Border Collies and maybe it's the same border collie over again but yeah,

Unknown Speaker 44:43
well that's a little spaniel there but that's how we did our lambs you know he'd kill him. When you get wrapped up in that Muslim you know, you'd kill him one day and then you had we had a cooler you know, the flight proof cooler. So yeah, no refrigeration figuration just a cooler and air Dryden And in the shade, and then you put that Muslim ottoman and then take him to town and things worked out pretty well in them days, even, you know, even without the couriers and everything like the, the freight trucks, you know, if we wanted to take those to Victoria, you just, you just when you got there, you just, you knew the freight truck left at certain days, and you just, they just come down and pick them up, you put a tag on them.

Unknown Speaker 45:28
Sounds like it's more of a hassle now.

Unknown Speaker 45:30
Like we have to ship our wool back to you get back to Whoa, and, and it didn't, nobody around here wanted it and it wasn't it just barely covered the shipping deal you made, we made we made 25 You got 40 cents a pound and it cost 27 to ship it, we'd have these big sacks and be like 300 pounds. And so you'd get the they would come with a tag, you know, the woolgrowers. And in Saskatchewan somewhere and you'd go to any government doc like we get to take our to south to, to, to North Pender, I guess, Port Washington. And they are all like, it's like down here at the on the freight shed all of the all have freight sheds there, there's nobody looking after them. But if you wanted to ship something, you just put it in the freight shed and when the boat came, they would just they would see the tag in there and they would just take it and go to Winnipeg and would be gone. Get all cod of course whoever got it kind of paid for

Unknown Speaker 46:27
the Delta Campbell still do that.

Unknown Speaker 46:31
They send their back east to have some highs and low and make blankets and things just kind of so that there came a time when we actually had to have the Yeah, when I was on the island there by myself. They came in was an inspection then. And then you had to take the carcass to a place in Victoria, where they had an inspector and then he he he looked at actually had to take the head of the layperson and add in the lungs. And then all they would do is look for look for the glands in there and if and if the glands are all healthy, they're all healthy. They never never looked at any of the carcasses they just go through those steps. But it was kind of a hassle because again, we had even though you're selling them in Sydney, we had to take them sometimes you'd have to do as many as 30 in a in a day trip. And we sold a lot across his meat market in Victoria. They they bought lots sometimes they buy a dozen a week more and then of course the proverbial we all had our robots Yeah, that's a good talk voters

Unknown Speaker 47:50
that's my, my niece when she was

Unknown Speaker 47:54
at the track earlier she said don't buy the gearshift. She's

Unknown Speaker 47:58
grown up now. She's 50 years old and while he's married to First Nations up into phenol and they have a Have you ever been to Tofino place they're called the House of him wisdom down on Main Street just be just right at the bottom of the Main Street. Right. And it's a big building. They have a an art store, and a motel and a restaurant and everything and her and her husband. Oh, no. Oh, but I often think of having just having grown up you know, go into a gallery hanging on the wall and see how long it takes. You could blackmail somebody like she knows she shouldn't be up. There she is. Oh, good. That's cute. Yeah. Now it's kind of our view of you know, like, when we finally did get a little generator, we got a TV aerial. And now the TV aerial Of course, he was up on top of the tree. We climb up a tree. Yeah. So if we wanted to watch American Bandstand on Channel Four, you know, we had to climb up the tree and turn that area Yeah, so yeah, we could actually get Channel Four there, you know. declercq there and as I was kind of a

Unknown Speaker 49:13
mental Decart whenever yesterday was being watched, no.

Unknown Speaker 49:17
And of course that Saltspring in the background. Yeah, I guess a big difference between then and now is the quietness. Like I've gone over to Mars, we sometimes in an evening. But in M days there was there was very few planes running. Yeah, the ones that were propeller planes. And, but there was no ferries running and there was a CPR boat, but there wasn't that many of them. They were just kind of run through in the middle of the day. And so at night, you could hear animals and other things you could hear like our horse used to talk to a horse on, on on record Park. You could see him run around the field you know, you go out on the porch team he'd be winning in a way then you listen, you can hear the other ones.

Unknown Speaker 50:05
And everyone listens to that.

Unknown Speaker 50:08
Three, three miles. And if you went on the bluffs of facing towards Sydney, you know, yeah, it was just, it was just absolutely quiet. You didn't hear you didn't hear stuff where now it doesn't matter when it is if you actually listen to actually listen your motor going somewhere to just a roar. There's always some Yeah. And it's

Unknown Speaker 50:28
funny thing is when I come back to Salzburg, I'm amazed at how quiet it is. Because if you've been in Toronto, they just you just spend your time blank and over the sounds

Unknown Speaker 50:37
and the light to you know, I guess at two there was no, no ambient light either. So that's right. Yeah. Yeah, there's no there's more ambient light all the time. We had

Unknown Speaker 50:48
heard a great story about a couple who won a trip to Salt Springs, instead of a bed and breakfast. And the next the first thing to hear on a Friday night, the next morning, we're gone. Yeah. And he left a note saying that.

Unknown Speaker 51:03
He used to live in that. Right. Where was that in? In Oregon, right by not Seattle. It was one of the big towns yet but he was but it was just a really noisy place where he was just unbelievable. And he came to visit one time he couldn't he just couldn't stand it. It's so eerie to him. Yeah, they get scared. There's no noise I guess my brother and I went there and camped out there and we couldn't stop in the morning took off because tonight he couldn't

Unknown Speaker 51:35
get that picture reminds me of a bit of when you're on the island there and of course, you know, TV. No, no. You seem to kind of bond with all the animals.

Unknown Speaker 51:47
Because there's a cow there's a dog and they're all within flailing.

Unknown Speaker 51:50
Yeah. And they're all like good, you can just walk up to them and grab them. But sometimes when I was a kid, that cow would be laying down and nice sunny day to get lay down. Put your your head on her neck, you know, like Yeah, hello. But yeah, she'd be chewing her cud, you know, until they really wouldn't be a lump. Go down. Back up again. And so you're just Yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 52:13
I guess what you're showing here, there's like it there's a there's a kid brother standing on the back of a horse riding the horse is completely

Unknown Speaker 52:20
okay with that. Harry was always pushing my brother he was always pushing. I was the one that came along and you know, just kind of Yeah, like that. Harry was always challenging my dad because he just always thought he was stupid contest here.

Unknown Speaker 52:38
Who's the baby on the back of the

Unknown Speaker 52:39
car. That'd be my my, my sister Betsy, when she was up on the coast. Totally okay, with this one picture. They're coming back. This picture here actually is it's called Randles landing and he has to have a little water taxi and, and my mum, prior to having a baby she she stayed in hospital. I think that article sounds like just got her into the hospital in time. But he was actually there two weeks before she got in the hospital. But there was some friends of ours that she stayed in the, in the house and, and then the other end of the story is though, that he or she had had the baby and Randall was supposed to come and tell us right away. But Randall was a little bit flaky. And so here he didn't, he thought, well, I'm going to go to Galliano in a couple of days. I'll do it then. And so here he here Muhammad had the baby and of course, it's like two days and nobody comes and she thinks oh, God, first Martin stuff. Yeah. So Harry as soon as it Randall Cameron told us you know, Harry and dad, they got in the rowboat, and rode rode over. At that time. It was arrestment hospital. It was a one on island. It's an it's a condo thing now but it used to be a little hospital right on an island is one of the rest Haven road I couldn't think of a restaurant hospital hospital. Okay, it was a sanatorium at one time. In fact, a lot of people's birth certificate they say rest Haven sanatorium you only think you're born in the crazy you know, they're shorter. You got to cross the border. But anyway, that's, that's bringing her home I guess has to actually be a couple of weeks. 10 days old or something. But Portland now, like there was lots of fields there. But all that's grown up now. You know, you can't see

Unknown Speaker 54:24
I was on for them. Yeah. And he's Satoshi figuring out where but he

Unknown Speaker 54:27
has to look down that valley. Then you could see right down there. There's new fruit fruit trees on the side. Look over the mountain there. And then looking the other way. Of course it was a there was a valley there. But did you have

Unknown Speaker 54:41
much in the way fruit trees near there?

Unknown Speaker 54:42
Yes. Actually, Portland did the Hawaiian Napa wines. Yeah. Oh, I guess it wasn't winds. Yeah, they cleared all land and they had they'd had quite a big orchard there. And they were in good shape when we were there. So we used to that was that was our main staple was Apple some, you know, as we're making hay, when we're important we've made it all by size, size and pitchforks and put it all in the barn and and then an EndNote to one part of the barn you know you put those some good keeping apples layer of apples and not touching each other and and put some hay in and more apples. Yeah. And they would go all winter they were still in the spring there in the summer starting to getting into summer they would still be capable of eating the pie or something. Go Yeah. Did you see that? Well, I guess as a that our article was, you know, so between those islands we were kind of back and forth and doing things so when we went back to Mars, we we still had cheap on Portland Of course. And then the government actually bought Portland Ireland and off Gavin Lord, and I gotta go my notes and then run it

Unknown Speaker 56:06
and kind of told us to take our sheep up there and then they gave it to

Unknown Speaker 56:09
you don't let her hear from the Princess Margaret.

Unknown Speaker 56:14
So they told us we had to take our sheep off their course because the N N anyway, they gave it to Princess Margaret and she went back to England and and basically it just sat there and we thought Dad's got mum to write letter and, and asked so that

Unknown Speaker 56:30
the Royal Highness appreciate your position and reason for writing them as a matter as complicated accounts. You're gonna answer now that we'll look into it and see that or notify the decision in due course. To tell you how greatly the princess and Lord Snowden appreciated your conversation. Congratulations, private secretary, Princess.

Unknown Speaker 56:48
Wow, look at the date. 61 1960 and then hear among quite a bit later. 1964

Unknown Speaker 56:58
faster the correspondence. Dear Mr. Lyon, I'm

Unknown Speaker 57:01
referring to your letter of November 14. To Her Royal Highness the Princess Margaret and was to advise you that after discussion with the premier permission is given to you if you so desire to graze your sheep on Portland Island.

Unknown Speaker 57:12
I thought that was pretty neat. So right to a princess get results. Yeah. So we probably had the only sheep grazed in Canada by Burleigh

Unknown Speaker 57:20
by appointment to Her Majesty princess.

Unknown Speaker 57:23
Yeah. There's notice how quick she responded do like November 14. Right away. I mean, I've dealt with it. And then the government of course, it's out there. Why

Unknown Speaker 57:34
is that surprise me? Like three years? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 57:38
Yeah. And they must have, obviously they, they, they must have gone in. And he or the princess must have said, you know, we're like, we don't see my drill. Let him pull the sheet. Otherwise, they wouldn't have done it. If she hadn't recommended that they do. That's true. Yeah. That's

Unknown Speaker 57:56
it, you think about having to ask you right here and ask her? I do. That's great.

Unknown Speaker 58:05
It's just one of those things. So we put our sheet back on there. And then of course, by then everyone started assuming that it was a it was a park and then it kind of got the middle. Go over there. And then people who there was a lot of letters to the government, you know, angry letters that the sheep are on there. And oh, really, though, it was. So eventually, I left and then my dad actually my dad was there and had it and then and then eventually when Dad Mom retired my brother went back to the island for several years. And then he let he let the sheet go. But when I was there that you know when I was doing it, I had cheap there. Yeah. Yeah, you'd be like in those days, you know, it's funny now authority. Oh, you've got the Coast Guard and the fire everybody's there. But there was really none of that there. And, you know, I had a little home light pumpkin on about 300 feet of hose and nice to go and put up some beach virus motor and go over there and put it out. But you had to

Unknown Speaker 59:07
be a self starter. Couldn't couldn't wait for for somebody.

Unknown Speaker 59:12
Nobody. Yeah, nobody everybody. Like even when we lived on the island, you know, like nobody. There was no medical medical.

Unknown Speaker 59:19
Did you ever have any close calls? Not really,

Unknown Speaker 59:23
I guess, you know, the nurses used to I used to be kind of act I went through at some stage and I was probably doing a lot of things I shouldn't have been done at an early age and when you're going through the kind of go through a growth spurt. Yeah, I was quite small for a lot of years. And then I grew up. I grew tall. I grew a foot quite quickly. And that stage. You know, I had lots of cuts. The nurses you go to West Haven Hospital, pull a bone up on the beach, go up and get stitches. And go back buddy footmarks I remember one time I was killing it. Sheep, it was a fairly big one, it was a lamb that was one of these year old ones and the silly bench, broke, the leg broke off depending on when I was doing it. And of course, I was right in the process of killing it. Here, I ended up putting my kneecap off it was a long boom. And but anyway then but I had about eight more sheep to do. And so I you know, I wrapped a one of those tween lamb wrappers around there and it didn't bleed in and finish them off and then went over and that's more like the English flesh wound.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:35
Just a freshman.

Unknown Speaker 1:00:36
I guess that's one thing English have going forward. You know, where where I was from was the north of England. And, you know, you don't have a class system. And we have a little bit of scotch. Yes. And so yeah, a lot of a lot of tough too. So really, they were very much. Yeah, they're not, you know, they're Yeah, they're quite generic. I mean, you're not. You're not really Yeah, you just kind of fit in wherever you go. Yeah, you don't get you don't get to up but you don't get to down either. You're just kind of go along good practice for candidate X. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I guess that's kind of work. Canadians. Probably we never got a lot of the upper class Canadian working class, right. So they tend to be

Unknown Speaker 1:01:15
annual Scott's crofters? Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:20
Yeah, there wasn't a lot of upper class.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:23
But there was Yeah, I think, in them people in in the islands at that particular time, you know, they were, like, most of the people were they were working boats or fishing or tadpole? Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:01:36
log log, not so much recreational.

Unknown Speaker 1:01:41
And so recreation was kind of sub dominant. You know, they weren't they didn't start flexing their muscles and demanding that they get this and the other they just and they were quite happy. It used to be a saleable come and visit it. There was a doctor from Seattle, he used to come on a sailboat, and he'd stop in and see us every year. And you know, my sister had Zima. And he'd be bringing up different ointment. Try it, but they always tried to fit in. And I think they're interesting. We're now I think, recreationally want to exclude everybody else. But then it's kind of one dimensional. I often think it was a lot nicer. In the old days. There's a lot of different dimensions. Yeah, and everybody fit in, you know, that's how you learn stuff. Yeah, if you chase everybody out, and all you have somebody selling tourist knickknacks, or something that you know, you don't you kind of lost a character. About burden. I usually when we go somewhere, you know, the tours or tour buses or something, they're all you're going up to looking at some thing or whatever, then we go the opposite directions. tried to find a bunch of workers somewhere government doctors.

Unknown Speaker 1:02:50
Last year, and it was the same thing. Everybody was going around with been following people with bullhorn and saying that's part of

Unknown Speaker 1:02:57
being Russian and French. And we just went to a cafe and

Unknown Speaker 1:03:02
had a better time than

Unknown Speaker 1:03:04
Yeah, we went to Yeah, we were up in one of the boat crews and went to the tour. One of the places where the girl on the bus arrived to see and lace here and friends we were with they had one all booked, you know, a special thing and interpretive thing and a dinner and everything. And so then we didn't and we just got off in here. There's an old Indian guy there with kind of a ramshackle bus, you know, $5. away, but he's telling all these stories. He was telling us all this stuff about his brother in this. So he learned all this stuff. And then he got there and he told us where to go. And so we went there and hiked into her this place.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:45
Right to the head of this glacier and nobody else.

Unknown Speaker 1:03:49
That night when he got back in the boat, the other guys, they'd gone and had somebody sat in the building and getting all this interpretive stuff that they said they didn't really learn anything from they never did go to the hike. And yeah, so you had a family dinner was a just a little piece of dry ice fishing. They paid like $25 It was. But that's I guess that's what the islands were like, and then days. Yeah. And people were people were self reliant. I guess. I think I've told Susan at times. I think a lot of people have the illusion that everyone was really friendly on the islands, you know, that there was rivalries and like on Saltspring Yeah, you know, the a Cummins in the Veyron. I'm not just saying that, I don't know anything, but but a lot of they they did, definitely there was some things were competitive. And yeah, they were they they operated as individuals. But if but at the same time, if if somebody who's on the downside, then everybody is there. So they had the community but they weren't. I think people sometimes have the illusion that everybody you know, was helpful. Yeah, everything were a lot of work. But we used to have people come and visit us we go, come from Saltspring. A lot. Darrell Georgeson we ever heard of Neil. He was an old. He may have done. He when we moved to turn actually he probably had the smartest dog that I've ever seen bar none actually, I mean, I haven't seen anything that comes close to it. Border Collie. It was kind of a cross it was Border Collie and somebody was fatter, almost like a bit of spaniel thing, you know, but black and white, but chunky, not a Border Collies. But we first met him on to turn him and I were walking down there to the store. And we've met Darrell learning, because he's talking to people pretty friendly over there. And anyway, a dog is is when genial so Darrell Ali said he didn't do anything else. He just said, Okay, pump, just one can. So what the dog does get leaves us goes into the store. It gets a can of dog food. And it goes to Ralph at the counter and looks at Ralph and Ralph did okay, punk. I got it. And he comes back out. And that's without a word of a lie that we I mean, we found out the story. I mean, we saw it happening. And then we went and talked to Ralph, he said, Oh, yeah, he always comes to the counter, you know, when I put it on. So of course, that's only one of the that's the first story. And then, of course, when we lived on Portland, and, and of course, I had an older sister see that? There was that she was probably, you know, so when I'm nine, and so my teachers probably 15 or something. And so, you know, she's, she's, she's a woman. So I'll be there all bachelors just because it's something to look at. So if they're both passed, of course, I knew we didn't have a fridge. So if they were down in Sydney, they were doing, they would buy a brick of ice cream or something and wrap it all up, and they'd come over to an end we soon whenever they got there, you know, of course, you'd have to just open it up and cut it and eat it. But anyway, he came a lot of times with that dog. And so the dog would when he was time to bolt up, the dog would get a line and jump off and hold the line. You just hold the bar line, hunkered down again, you just hold it until you took the rope and tied it. And then when he's out on the dock talking, he would say Oh, go and shut the boat off, you know, and the dog would go and he had a like a little choke handle, you know, like a little on the dash. Yeah, the dog would go and get it was decent. Pull it up or shut up. And he knew the difference between a crescent wrench or a screwdriver. You know, cuz everybody and M Daisy only had one we only had slotted there was yeah, there was no. So you had a medium sized screwdrivers, really go and get the screwdriver. And other things. And I've never seen any other dog like that. You know, so they're just old punk. And he lived for quite a long time. A lot of years. It's

Unknown Speaker 1:07:58
funny when you see people with dogs. I've never seen dog that smart but even semi smart dogs. They do tend to treat them like duck like if people don't do this.

Unknown Speaker 1:08:11
We got a screwdriver. We had a dog almost it was gonna be like that I think. TAs and he had that the intelligence they're looking at here and what he would do, but unfortunately, we didn't. We didn't know what the freeway was he had. So he got he got done. But he was he was an interesting dog. I would. I had a backhoe at the time digging around here. And if you're in that back, he would come in that backhoe and he would sit beside you. And he would just look at that arm continuously. You just never take his eyes he just he wasn't sleeping or anything. Whatever that thing scraping or moving around. He just you just as if Yeah, he was pretty two hours. It was easy to get up there but he climb up there. He would climb up the wiry steps and everything out there and crawl in there. And then he would just sit down because

Unknown Speaker 1:09:06
dogs are usually scared. It's like that, you know it's not a real solid day only to

Unknown Speaker 1:09:10
one time I didn't a grad you know and I have an attic in there and I have a wooden ladder to go up there. And I was up there scrounging around you don't look over in areas. He's got his head at the top of the ladder and he's just and he's looking. He's looking in the hole wondering what I was up to there. But he didn't live long enough to but he had to. He had the capability if you'd spend time with him. You can see you can spot those dogs if he wants to wait. They look at their eyes. Yeah. They're

Unknown Speaker 1:09:39
checking things out. Making connections. You should get a nice spot here.

Unknown Speaker 1:09:47
Yeah. After being on the sun comes up, does it yeah. Good morning, so don't get much sun in the winter. Oh no, no. Green. Oh, that field down below is green. Oh, yeah, I mentioned his line because it's almost water. Yeah. Right now it's even in the middle of summer. It's only about three feet down probably to the water table. And

Unknown Speaker 1:10:13
that's because it's not brown at all now and everything else.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:17
So we've been here. We've been here. We've been here for since for about 3033 years. And it hasn't really changed. We're pretty lucky on the left of course Ducks Unlimited. Bought that 140 acres. It used to be a farm Yeah, whole area. It used to be on one farm and then it was subdivided.

Unknown Speaker 1:10:39
So where would roasters have gone? If they if they've got their roasters they

Unknown Speaker 1:10:44
were there's a up on the highway when you go up on turn right. There's a there's a building this for sale there. You'll see it it's a Pemberton Home or Arbor Chalmers. Okay, real estate. And it just is your past something. One. One, maybe one house I think was right there. Kind of a little building offset back into like a little workshop set in the back. I think it would have been bad like I I agree. It's funny. It's funny. It's, it's a lot of it's a lot of the baggage that you take with you and if they'd been a better corporate person to where they set up in business already. They but they had their bad where they were they were smelling people out of there and they don't do anything and Marvin

Unknown Speaker 1:11:34
told me that that he warned him when he bought that not get clean he

Unknown Speaker 1:11:38
would flip that he was close but they came close to it but well it would have been a bad bad precedent I think because it smells like it of course we are in a bowl here and you can tell like they smell does go you know it does go down in the evening. In the evening. I mean if you take your little mini kind of a little vaporizer or whatever, I mean, the air is coming down maximal amount, or yeah dot maximum. And then in the wintertime, of course you you really see it like, like if you start your fire your stove or whatever it was. Yeah. It's surprising Neil when we're crabbing sometimes we'd be coming back, you know, from we used to go to East McCargo fish to line up there and in the wintertime, the days are short, so you're pushing it you know, you're just trying to boulders, this planing boat so you don't want to be doing that after dark. It's not that dangerous if you have a good boat but it's you know, it's $2,500 for the bottom of the outboard. So you try to avoid that but anyway, we'd be coming back in the wintertime was in the Viet those cool evenings and you see all these Caldwell's you'd have a cabinet loaded up by walkers hook right there was a lady living in there and she had a woodfire so we were probably was one of those evenings and that smoke was coming out of the chimney was going down or front yard over the bank into the ocean and it was coming out and we went through it and it was still a fairly narrow band and we were probably a third of a mile offshore why you can see it's like it blew right through it it's just like you're just somebody's and of course Ganges harbour of course you come in in there in the wintertime and you'd come around to captains pass there and you start going up the harbor and all this you just see all this smoke you probably even can see that from your place here.

Unknown Speaker 1:13:37
I can't say I hadn't noticed that no

Unknown Speaker 1:13:39
no no we're kind of we're kind of tucked we're looking north where we we don't get morning sun or evening

Unknown Speaker 1:13:52
near near Christian near Venice Beach a couple of houses down

Unknown Speaker 1:13:57
we went to your place one time to get your desk see that

Unknown Speaker 1:14:02
oh my gosh. Oh my gosh yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:14:09
Some kind of a winner thing you know and then the guy had taken a brass plaque off and put it on backwards. Oh, is that right? Yeah, that was you know

Unknown Speaker 1:14:22
that's the CDC Chair

Unknown Speaker 1:14:35
Okay, I want to

Unknown Speaker 1:14:42
jump straight

Unknown Speaker 1:14:54
what was the first packet was on bikepackers

Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
And Eric, you take that off his his winners underneath it already Yeah. Well, yeah, so

Unknown Speaker 1:15:16
this was this is from a guy in Toronto who came in settled with him I

Unknown Speaker 1:15:28
said something like the sports would show or one of those

Unknown Speaker 1:15:34
selling kits. I said, I find if you can put together

Unknown Speaker 1:15:41
so yeah, I guess. Yeah, I guess, fishing and there's a lot of stories in there between, you know, like, just hard to imagine all the things the person does in your life,

Unknown Speaker 1:15:53
ya know, and you don't know enough to have done all that is

Unknown Speaker 1:15:57
a good thing. You know, it's finding some of the better things about the tags, of course, it's all timing, you know, and, and, of course, the era that I was there was the mid 60s, but a lot of the older captains they were, you know, the NEM days people didn't retire, you know, they kind of their life was what they did. Yeah. And they didn't know how to retire, because then they go home and then the wife is dominant. The wife probably wouldn't want to go back. Yeah, so because they're used to the beat out gone for a month. And if all were here, well, it's yeah, they create a life like that. It's quite, so a lot of them were working well into their well past their mid 70s You know, and of course, 65 you've got somebody that's, that's working, you know, that 75 He was born in 1810. And he went to see when you see a team that's like he went to see in 1905 so they're on square riggers, you know, going around for some of them the Yeah, I had to Fortune good fortune to just say, oh, with a few people like that. So you have that, you know, you're out there and you have that perspective, some of the, some of the things you're like the yo, yo Christian, people have radar, and things like that, you know, everyone I know, one of the one of the old guys there. He when he first got on a boat with radar, you know, and I guess there was one of the guys I worked with was younger, and he said he was making only, you know, he said they'd be going down the coast need be out on the bridge, you know, with his little with his compass, you know, taking bearings, you know, and then he come and look in the radar, you know, only it's right, you know, he didn't see it, but he had to check it. He wouldn't just look in there and know where the point is. He hadn't looked at it. That's great. Maybe

Unknown Speaker 1:17:54
I can just pull up garbage can a garbage bag or the seat of it that's just sitting

Unknown Speaker 1:18:05
here at the barbecue cover, you can put no I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:18:07
okay, I got a bag for it. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:20
They're just saying that we can use your Oh yeah. Use this for whatever would pop up. It'll be online. But you know, who knows who's gonna listen to it. But it'll be there. And maybe if I can take these and get Frank to scan them, we could put them together.

Unknown Speaker 1:18:41
Yeah, I could put I could go through some of these. They're probably Well, YouTube, I would do that yourself. You can get like a team I get together. See which ones are of interest to him?

Unknown Speaker 1:18:57
Well, he likes to have the whole thing in the week about attraction to having it the way somebody put it.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:05
But he's like, these are just cousins. So yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:09
And so we get it all scanned, and then I'll come back some time. And you can tell me who they are. Yeah. And it doesn't matter if you don't know. We'll just still be there. Somebody some day might be looking for pictures of Portner nine and 19

Unknown Speaker 1:19:31
years old in every town and see that picture. Where was it?

Unknown Speaker 1:19:39
Oh, I did.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:43
I was going the other way. Going the other way. There. See that picture? Yeah, so I gave him this picture. And then this is what he painted for me.

Unknown Speaker 1:19:56
This lovely Super scan copy Oh yeah. Great picture is it okay if I take it

Unknown Speaker 1:20:15
and bring it back? Sure. Yeah, you can.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:19
Frankly happy

Unknown Speaker 1:20:23
there's a proverbial Saltspring in the background but actually that's that's a good child where my dad

Unknown Speaker 1:20:31
is that what you took the stupid no

Unknown Speaker 1:20:37
fish pack ran aground.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:41
I brought Draco just to be the reraised

Unknown Speaker 1:20:44
he was saying you're coming on your bike. I know. You must be pedaling

Unknown Speaker 1:20:54
too long pedal. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:20:57
I will hear about some extra. Yeah, sure. Yeah. Thank

Unknown Speaker 1:20:59
you. I was just kind of release.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:05
So

Unknown Speaker 1:21:06
Interviewer Okay.

Unknown Speaker 1:21:11
Thank you. So fishing was that was a big part of the the reason you get into fishing the courses? That's where all my friends were like on the island. Yeah. Socializing on the dock. Yeah, way of life. And yet, and yet, of course, I've been on water all my life, basically, and boats and everything. And then and then. And then of course, I've done the tugs, you know, so you're, you'll learn a lot. And so when I first went to Maine, and though I'd never been on a fishing boat, I'd never said before, they're quite complex. 1800 feet long. And all this meshes in cart lines. And the very first set, you know, I got all these dog fish and salmon and everything. So it was a but anyway, so, but it's taken your career. But it actually worked out quite well. Because like, I was I did okay, because because I knew the water so well. So what I did like, fishing, it's quite competitive. And then I I found that if I went to somewhere that had a lot of pestilence, then there wasn't a lot of people there. So then, you know, I didn't mind that. I'd rather have the pestilence. And then another 50 people tried to What do you mean by testing? Well, either wind or fog just a miserable place. Yeah. suffered. So I found places that were real miserable that where you had to work like hard and there was nasty and yeah, and then there would be a few guys there but not many and then But then we did okay because but it was easier to fight that than it was to fight like 20 people that really knew what they were doing and serve pizza. So if you're a bad writer, you have to go somewhere where people can only read like they can only read two paragraphs. They fall asleep so you can survive so that's how I started fishing. I wonder if you could street right I don't know what they call the southwest corner right. Right halfway across to the US side. Just fog and lots of fog out there. To get some nice here. Yeah, well you leave some weeks you leave Victorian as the fog starts at around Race Rocks and you go there maybe fish for two days and never see anything. It's an attempt to date in one physical streets. There was no shipping lanes so there would be shipped to be anywhere they would be two miles off the beach or six miles.

Unknown Speaker 1:23:46
Did you read the book snow falling on snow falling on cedars?

Unknown Speaker 1:23:49
Yeah. Because that would be that was an interesting book about working on working boats. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:24:00
Yeah, there's a lot of I have quite a library actually of marine stuff. I'm that my interest in marine marine stuff. And, and, yeah, like all the old CPR bolts. I mean, there's an example of the princess Elaine that that we came on, you know, that was an old boat built in, in the Clyde and Scotland and that's the first boat we were on here. But then here your leader was on the templates, scrapped it and I was on the wheel on the island Ranger and we towed it down to the scrap yard Down. Down. Yeah, so here we go. When we first were on that boat yard when we arrived on the turn of the week, we got there. They ordered a new piano for the hall. I don't know if it still may or not, but it was it arrived there. We thought everybody came to see us but they'd come to see that. So all the men, all the men and everything Dad, everybody, they all helped shuffle this piano up the hill and get it into the hole. But actually what everybody has to come for because it was a mail day the mail came from Vancouver. So when he was until the little postmaster he he got his bag of mail and he went in there and he locked the door and he pulled all the shutters down, shutters on the window. He didn't want anybody to see him. So everybody kind of hung around the dock and did their socializing and then the shutters went out. And everybody got their mail.

Unknown Speaker 1:25:30
Do you know John back in soccer? Yes. Because he's, he's a neighbor of mine. He's a fisherman

Unknown Speaker 1:25:39
every single day, but

Unknown Speaker 1:25:43
yeah, he's always out there crabbing and getting salmon. He's quite a user. Good. Good guy for the hydro for a lot of years. Yeah. Those kinds of people that kind of bend the rules a little Oh, absolutely. Yeah, he was doing you know, you're not supposed to go 190 feet but you know 92 But when I'm pulling the tape out, you walk ahead of 10 feet where be okay. I should put that on in order

Unknown Speaker 1:26:13
to take that out. Told me to put it on an hour before I get here.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:21
Oh, yeah. Oh, dear. That's right. I forgot about that.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:30
Didn't have this little light going? You wouldn't even know.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:34
But you'll have to take that alone costume. Job coming out. You probably laugh. Yeah. It's funny how it was a good a good guy.

Unknown Speaker 1:26:56
Yeah. How things change? Yeah, there wasn't very many layers of it's funny how you know, you're. Yeah. And then in the older days, everybody did there. Yeah, there wasn't really much help for anybody. And everybody didn't know nobody expected anything. Like, like the cost. You know, I can think of the Verizon. I don't know what it was exactly. But when we, when we came on a CPR boat, you know, we had three big wooden boxes that we brought from England with us. And we bought a new stove. We needed a wood stove. And I bet I bet that probably cost $30 At least 30 $40. For that trip. We know that. But at that time, he is a one acre lock and deep Cove and tanks was $100. You know, so you think so that one acre lot now you probably couldn't buy one because they're all subdivided. They'd be quarter acre lots. And they're probably like $280,000. So So you put it in perspective. And procure we got hauled from Saturna to march be on an old that Randall Matthews with a little wooden barge that's pulled up a Provo Island to this day, it's kind of rocking out but the barges as we see it's like a little thing no bigger than our deck there that outside and all our belongings on there and, and he charges $30. And now I mean you can go to you can go to turn the island with a pickup truck full of stuff for $30 Oh, eight years later, it's totally one time, I guess one time we moved from when we moved from Morphe to Portland. We were We were happy for some reason or other. You know, like nowadays, I mean, later on in my life, I think like people never get to think that much either. There's a lot of things they just did by blind faith. Yeah, but anyway, whatever it was here we were out in there we had the old horse and a cow and all our furniture and all this belongings on this little barge and we're halfway across the Portland of the CPR boat goes by Well, I mean, all we had to do is be an hour later or earlier or whatever. But then we were you know in any so the Hardy got all panicky and he kicked a bunch of furniture cracked a bunch of furniture up and and then we got over to the other Portland and the tide was falling you know, so Randall didn't want to get stuck with a barge so we're unloading stuff and pull the bag out unload some more so by time we get it all unloaded you know, it's all scattered on the beach. I started to flood back

Unknown Speaker 1:29:30
like that movie was

Unknown Speaker 1:29:31
a horse. So Jean was the horses a person you know, so we were taking stuff and putting stuff together up at the house and and Jean would went down to get a trip and she thought she'd do she had a metal bed frame and she thought she'd do it like, like saddlebags you know, just tie a rope and put one side or the other. So here's She's halfway back to the house through the trail and, and some of the chickens that had gotten lucid. One of them flew out of the bush startled the horse. The horse took off right Alan got up to the house with no gene and the horses all lathered up. And so anyway, we went back in gene with Haydn, and and bedspreads, the bed frames and they're all They're probably still there to this day. They used to be by the trail of the side there and I get to know I mean, probably 15 years ago, I think 20 years ago, maybe I saw the blast.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:29
So this is Jean. That's John's older sister. Oh, and that's her. Her Yeah. Jeans daughter, Kathy. And this is Kathy's daughter.

Unknown Speaker 1:30:41
And this is that's what five generations

Unknown Speaker 1:30:46
says the mother, the daughter, the granddaughter, the great granddaughter, and then

Unknown Speaker 1:30:52
the youngest. Yeah. So yeah, well, you have 12345

Unknown Speaker 1:31:03
Does he have a visual? Yeah. Nice.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:05
Yeah. That's a that's a great picture too.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:12
Yeah, so yeah, nowadays, we just have coffee every morning. We I think first night cup of coffee I had was on. We got settled into that was nice house on Portland and got settled in and made a big pot of coffee and that house, isn't it? No, the it was a good house, that vandals went you know, kick all the windows and the chimney in the walls and then eventually they tore it down to

Unknown Speaker 1:31:36
something like vandals expect that in the city. Like

Unknown Speaker 1:31:40
it was just sitting there you could have gone and cleaned it up and camped out in it. It was basically

Unknown Speaker 1:31:46
funny. I thought there was a house there the Hawaiians have a house.

Unknown Speaker 1:31:51
I said it was a really nice bar in there too. And it's the same thing, you know, like people were people have campfires in their there. But there is a there's a there's a thing in the in there's kind of a conflict in parks here. Some parks wanted to have it returned totally to nature. And then other ones like to have more transition, you know, but I think the nature part wins out most of the time. They just want to let it go right back to and so do you want to get rid of signs of human habitation? But I think in Portland the instance would have been better to leave it. Yeah, there was a lot of I mean, knowing how hard it is to take a stump out of the ground and I think those Hawaiians they're hacking away and all those years and it's able to come back now and see that it's a forest you know, there's Oh, no, you got to do it again. Yeah, I had a I have an old map actually, that shows Portland and Moresby. It's, it's an old one I got years ago. I think I don't have them on the computer. But it shows a picture of Portland Ireland, and it has all the fruit trees in the roads and the cleared land, every tree is retrieved. It's marked on the old days when they made a mark they always they always fruit trees are always a little circle. And

Unknown Speaker 1:33:12
so where did you get that?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:16
I had I bought it somewhere in Sydney years ago. I probably had it for 50 years. It's just I could find it quick enough if you're gonna take me about a minute. I think

Unknown Speaker 1:33:31
that's what you promised.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:37
Me, Frank gave me a list of potential interview ease.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:44
Oh, yeah. What do you think?

Unknown Speaker 1:33:45
Well, I know I know Malcolm and Marsha be good interviews for sure.

Unknown Speaker 1:33:51
Robert and Margaret Lee and

Unknown Speaker 1:33:53
you said you've interviewed Robert Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:33:56
I did for a magazine piece a long time ago to the SIMS I know

Unknown Speaker 1:34:06
falling of course

Unknown Speaker 1:34:09
yeah that's a good time

Unknown Speaker 1:34:17
brother died a little bit of salt.

Unknown Speaker 1:34:34
1935 Department of National Defense so there's porcelain. See their house was there and a bar near when we this little barn was there and that one that one obviously had been burned down or something and it wasn't there but you could see the cut into the soil you know, and that's where we used to have our wood chopped up and everything that was house. Fruit Tree goes through trees there. And there you are trees and fruit trees err on the Overlook to the

Unknown Speaker 1:35:09
Hawaiian habitation or do they live in like single single places when they're when they were there?

Unknown Speaker 1:35:13
I think it was two families there as far as I know. So, but yeah, you can see how that's where the old barn used to be. Okay. I do have some history actually give you a little book there to have actually a friend of mine put a she took some pictures of, of the barn and a little bit of history of Portland Island. She made two books three, one for yourself, one for me and one for the Sydney Museum. But it was it was like on little island there. There was kind of a rocky place there. And all that was fields around there. And now this is all Toby forest. I mean, just in my life. So like I don't get that emotion when somebody cuts a tree down because I know you're turning your back. I mean, that's one of the things 50 years down the road. It's all rectified all by itself. Yeah. Where a lot of things that we do doesn't like killing all the Rukh Khan do whatever it takes him more than and that's more elevations and more Yeah, just about 650 feet

Unknown Speaker 1:36:21
Yeah

Unknown Speaker 1:36:23
little lake there and the liquid mostly filled up with stuff. Orchard what are the trees or other I guess that's that's maybe the perimeter of they must have marked the water once the high water water Yeah, yeah, maybe I'm not sure LC just or maybe it signifies that it's manmade. You know, like there's berms around there maybe? Yeah, it was manmade they were boom, was it Yeah, they didn't look quite like that. But

Unknown Speaker 1:36:48
somebody made it in the shape of a heart. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:36:52
So it does show yeah, and then some of the other Sydney Sydney all the buildings in Sydney spring there's a rest Haven senatorial area had to go you know come around here and get our stitches and and go back and do the chores we had different boats. No, we didn't get the power boats after a couple of years. Yeah. Yeah. And Bateman don't just rely on the

Unknown Speaker 1:37:30
tortoise. Yeah, talk it on it actually.

Unknown Speaker 1:37:34
It's funny I wish we got a camera on time. burnin eyes, fish crabs, you know only here and here and and we were there one time in the winter and it was snowy and cold and we just kind of you know to have our lunch you got to get out and so we just went in and hung on Batemans little dock just out of the office and it was just so neat because it was dreary and blue hurrying there like up on the beach and just didn't a color and he would just kind of hunker down on the rain dripping off his beard Yeah, this is like a bit of snow on the ground. Excellent pitcher he's hungry. Look at this look at this crappy water dripping off their chin. Try to eat their sandwich. Just one bite at a time Come on the plastic bag

Unknown Speaker 1:38:30
this is really really neat John

Unknown Speaker 1:38:35
nice to have a copy of that. Some people make big copies Apple

Unknown Speaker 1:38:44
ever just want to store it. We've got some wonderful map drill up I guess Yeah, yeah, I'm taking notes about things to where to put them

Unknown Speaker 1:39:07
or if anybody is looking for information during research, so in one place plays

Unknown Speaker 1:39:13
I guess one thing is different in them days. It was beachcombing to like like, if you look at the pitcher, they're like Vernon my favorite hobby to this day is beachcombing. Me too. Yeah. Hello. So we go around like around every once in a while and we see that picture on the right there. That was just one year we collected all that stuff off the beach, buoys and fluids. But anyway, this but in the 50s of course, all the garbage in Vancouver was dumped. It was put on a barge it was taken off the miles of the Fraser River and they dumped it with a bulldozer pushed it into the water and that was the end. They did that in Victoria. And so but really, it wasn't garbage. There wasn't there wasn't garbage in the field. Tito's no plastic, so it's either food or, or wood, or tin or glass. All three of those are not really garbage. And so but because of that, of course, on the island, you know, all the stuff is coming, goes down the Fraser River goes around East Point and gets, and we get a lot of stuff on Moore's VM, so it'd be lumber and, and another thing that got dumped in the water was ships and barges. And that when they were shipping things, they, they didn't have containers. So they tend to use dunnage, like four by fours and flank, they had these wicker mats that were made out of like, grass, like wicker things. And some of those would be, oh, they'd be 10 by 10, or 15, by 10, or whatever. And they, and I guess when they left the ship left Vancouver, anything that was damaged or whatever, they just threw it all over the side. So when you walked around the island, you could find any number of things. And I mean, you could find a cam, you know, that's, like, I found quite a lot of them actually. And you shake it with something in there, you know, and you open it and there would be no label on but it would be shoestring potatoes. Canada's co2, dry it. So I used to walk around the whole island at least every, probably every month, some of the beaches every week, and then but the whole island at least once a month, you know, to check the whole island out and you'd find all this and find lumber again, with a big bunch of boards. It's throw them up, you know, and then go and pick them up with a boat later. Yeah. But it was doing a lot of drift. A lot of grip and empty. You could find anything. Barrels and cans.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:47
I remember that too. Didn't 00 Georgeson wasn't here. He was Salvager logs out.

Unknown Speaker 1:41:53
Really he was a he did a you did a little bit of water taxi work. And he has to tow the booms out of Ganges harbour up to behind this bit. But he was who didn't do much. I

Unknown Speaker 1:42:07
just didn't remember a picture of him and his dog would be on the boat right up there. And he come around you come around the point and just go through around are be the next one. Yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:42:20
he probably did that a lot. It's a big claim to fame, you know, when they put the hydropower across here. And I don't know when that was when he got the job of taking the crew out to you know, out to the islands, picking them up. And he said he saw mom one day, you know, he'd been doing what the water taxi work and told him those log booms out behind the spit. Oh, I said I had to give up the water taxi said the clerical work was just too much. A lot of clerical work in in the late 50s. Darrell Yeah, he was never He lived on his boat most of the time. Didn't need. People didn't need much money. And they weren't different people. I guess one of the time there's one I don't even know his name, we as call them very elegant. But we're coming home one day from Sydney. And here's this this little blue boat thing on the halfway up kind of the exposed side of the island and he's just kind of tie into on the beach. And it's not a very good place, you know. And he had this kind of a kayak thing with wheels on it. He had that pulled above the logs. So he went in and see him and wondered what it was whether it was just broken loosen. So here is this guy sticks his head up out of the cabinet. And if you visualize the thing, it's almost looks like it's, it's kind of a, it's made other two by sixes. And they're kind of bent around it is a bit wider in the middle than the bow and then it goes round like that. And then it kind of went out. And then the top was almost the same thing upside down. All the time. And weird. So anyway, we he Dad told him I wasn't supposed to blow he said, you know, you're welcome to come and stay in the base. So he moved it out of there. And he got in the bay and we had him up for supper. But he was anyway telling the story. He'd had this dream about this girl down in the states somewhere someplace and she's waiting for him. He was kind of off it. So here we Yeah, he was there a couple of days and so anyway, then he was gone and and we didn't hear from him again. Then a few days later, the police come and they found the kayak thing, and they wondered if we'd seen anybody else so we told him the whole story and so I guess he'd gotten us when he lost his kayak So anyway, we never heard any more about it we think and hopefully when he gets down there some girl doesn't take her walk down the dock. If it's the timing is bad, this guy Oh, it's you So but the funny thing is, you know that magazine the family hurled it. So here this guy this is about two years later, two years later, at least, and he's on the east coast somewhere and he's got this great big thick built, it's looks like a kind of like a clamshell upside down, you know, like, you can see it's just like bare wood and everything and he was on it and everything and he was gonna sail back to France or somewhere and it said the authorities were gonna

Unknown Speaker 1:45:30
look the girlfriend.

Unknown Speaker 1:45:33
Just one of those characters. But they you know, yeah, I guess people like that. Come on. They're kind of harmless. Yeah. I guess Mom speaks that in England. You know, like, there was no, there was no people for people that were mentally handicapped or whatever the community basically guys, right. They could get Megan for the foot, and everybody kind of humored them. And there

Unknown Speaker 1:46:02
was no medication it could just a couple of pills stuck into the corner. No, that's true. Yeah, there's one. I'm afraid I'm gonna have to push up because I gotta take my dog in for a checkup. She's okay, but she's 13.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:18
She's a border collie. Golden Retriever cross. Pure Black. Well, she's black and gray now. A golden

Unknown Speaker 1:46:24
retriever to drool a bit annoyingly active.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:29
Let me just kind of mills. He's smarter than your average gold are a bit slower than your average border.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:34
Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:46:37
Yeah, it's like it's like a border collie on Valium?

Unknown Speaker 1:46:40
Yeah. Border Collies we had a lot of them over the years yeah,

Unknown Speaker 1:46:45
they're a little too much yeah

Unknown Speaker 1:46:54
somebody else to add to that list is penny of pennies pantry she's she's all family off the island. Sisters you

Unknown Speaker 1:47:00
know what the family name?

Unknown Speaker 1:47:01
I didn't I forgot but I'll find it for you. Yeah. She's great. And she's very she's a real Livewire and she's got a lot of stories to tell she's she grew up in one of the downtown buildings this like the three sisters. The fireball Yeah, I

Unknown Speaker 1:47:18
think it was the fire. That's right. I did hear about that. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Okay. Thank you so much.

Unknown Speaker 1:47:28
together because I'd like to Bolson

Unknown Speaker 1:47:35
Yeah, I guess it's been quite a bit of time in the Swift cup but I don't I do I do the watches Yeah, do the watchers and the big brothers although surplus clothing get rid of all the surplus I've kind of work in the background. Yeah, when I get home my wife is a real star stalks. Yeah. Good. That's good. Actually, it's supposed to be just showered the next couple of days so it's probably we're

Unknown Speaker 1:48:08
forecasting something earlier there for a while but

Unknown Speaker 1:48:10
it looks like it's not that well, thanks for your time.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:15
Thank you for your time

Unknown Speaker 1:48:17
with us it's just kind of mixed

Unknown Speaker 1:48:25
up like that it but mileage for there.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:27
I bet all you guys I think four by $496 and $4.06 Yeah

Unknown Speaker 1:48:39
two people right on that first notch Yeah, for sure. Yeah, it's

Unknown Speaker 1:48:46
kind of thought about buying a smaller motorbike go down south so yeah, that was a bad run around.

Unknown Speaker 1:48:53
Yeah. Very nice for that so it's great for the island to go here

Unknown Speaker 1:48:58
and it's a good color that people can

Unknown Speaker 1:49:08
come back anytime.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:14
Nice Guy Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:49:21
Basically know who we are.