Interviewer: What kind of fish do they- Speaker: Ah, pickerel- pickerel and pike, that's about- yeah, that's about it. Interviewer: I heard lots of people say walleyes- Speaker: Walleye is the same as pickerel- Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: In Northern-Ontario. Interviewer: Oh. Speaker: Walleye is ah, known for the south and in the north it's pickerel.

Interviewer: How do you pick- pick potato bugs? Speaker: You just, with your fingers, put it in a can and gasoline if you can imagine (laughs). Their end was not- or you- if you found the eggs then of course you were- that was much better. Interviewer: Okay, how do you find those? Speaker: Well you flip up the leaf and- and they're orange- little orange pinhead.

Speaker: And ah, you-know we made our own fun. ... We- we always had something to do, we had- you-know, when we got our license and-that, we'd go to the pit, the gravel pits. Interviewer: You had pit parties? Speaker: Yeah pit parties. ... And ah, you-know we'd be drinking under-age of-course, but who cares?

Interviewer: Yeah. Is that where you- your favourite place to party would be though, when you were younger, would be out at the pits? Speaker: When I was in Elliot-Lake in ah, nineteen-seventy-nine, we started the pit party.

Speaker: Um we had pit parties at Twin-Lakes, we had big pit parties. Interviewer: They don't do that anymore. Speaker: No well- Interviewer: Cross-Lake. Speaker: People that own the pit- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Find out that there's ah, three-hundred drunk kids on their pit on Saturday night.

Interviewer: Is that where you- your favourite place to party would be though, when you were younger, would be out at the pits? Speaker: When I was in Elliot-Lake in ah, nineteen-seventy-nine, we started the pit party. ... In there, about twenty-five miles out of town at a big- huge big pit. And ah, when I came back from there I said, "Hey, guess what we were doing in Elliot-Lake?"

Interviewer: You would have parties at Pete's-Dam though? ... Speaker: A whole life time ago. ... Um we had pit parties at Twin-Lakes, we had big pit parties. Interviewer: They don't do that anymore. Speaker: No well- ... People that own the pit- ... Find out that there's ah, three-hundred drunk kids on their pit on Saturday night.

Interviewer: Now when you go to the south, do people know there's even a place up here? Speaker: They- Speaker 2: No. Speaker: They- they're starting to know. Speaker 2: Since the plowing match. Speaker: Yeah, the plowing match brought a lot of- Speaker 2: Opened up a lot of eyes. Eighty-thousand people come up here.

Well I shouldn't say eighty-thousand came. Eighty-thousand went through the- the gates which wouldn't be eighty-thousand people. But we- went down and promoted our plowing match ah we went to down ah to ah Woodstock and we went to east of Peterborough. A few places like two or three years before promoting it and they would all say, "Oh, but it's so far." We'd say, "Well, we come down here all the time."

Speaker: I worked ah both provincially and nationally on the behalf of the beef industry in Ontario. So I've been very fortunate to be able to have done what I've done. Ah, three years ago, I had the opportunity to plan and implement the international plowing match, which we hosted here. Interviewer: Yes, yes. Speaker: Yes, in two-thousand and nine. I was the coordinator for that. I spent three years putting that together with a fabulous team of volunteers. And ah, it was- you-know, it was our opportunity to showcase the north and we did that.

Speaker: I'm the executive assistant to the M-P-P, David-Ramsey. Interviewer: Wow. Speaker: So when the plowing match was over, his executive assistant had moved to Ottawa and he was looking for someone so he called and asked if I was interested. And I said, "Ah, I might be." So it's a wonderful job, I love it.

And it's very similar to what I was doing, in a sense at the plowing match. So I've had a- I've been there two years now. He's retiring so I'll be looking for something else.

Interviewer: So the community tends to be pretty supportive of that- Speaker: Yeah. Interviewer: Of initiatives like that. Speaker: Yeah. And last- last year, there was the International-Plowing-Match. Interviewer: Oh yes, yeah. Speaker: That one wa-- was held in Earlton and th-- even that was huge for, ah, Northern-Ontario because to have such a huge event- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: In a small area- Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Completely changed our econom-- economy that year-

Interviewer: Like because lots of people in the south don't know what's up here in the north. Speaker: They haven't any idea. They figured they're north if they if they get to Barrie. I was involved in the International-Plowing-Match which was up here. Ah two fall- like it will be two years ago. Interviewer: Can you tell me what that's about? Speaker: Yes. It's um- it's a place- it's um a show- Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: Where ah people who sell agricultural commodities, what that- whatever for w-- better word. Well it wouldn't even be that. It would be rural living basically. Um, they come to show those off. But the venue really is plowing. They plow with horses and they plow with- and it's a rural plowing match. It's held all over southern Ontario. But for one year they came up here. And people were just aghast. We had eighty thousand people.

Speaker: What year was the plowing match? O- o-eight I guess. Interviewer: Oh.

Speaker: Plowing was interesting, like I'd plowed before but no, just used different tractors. Interviewer: Oh okay. Speaker: And the plowing match is like these people are really serious about plowing. Interviewer: Whoa (laughs). Speaker: Like they mark your straightness, your depth, like your opening split and all (inc).

Speaker: Like we had the I-P-M here a couple years ago. Interviewer: The what? Speaker: The International Plowing Match. Interviewer: Oh, oh okay. Speaker: That was pretty big.

Interviewer: Um, do you remember I-P-M? Well obviously it was- Interviewer 2: Yeah. Interviewer: (inc) Interviewer 2: International-Plowing-Match. Speaker: Oh wow. Interviewer: Did you go? Speaker: No, um (laughs)- Interviewer 2: Loser! Speaker: Yeah, I never- I never went. I didn't get to go with the school either so I- didn't bother me. All ther-- there was just more traffic essentially (laughs).

You-know, they came from their postage stamp in Cobalt and wound up with a- you-know, a seventy-five or hundred-by-hundred piece of land in North-Cobalt with water and sewer and heat and hydro and all-that-fun-stuff.

Yeah. I was with them for- for ah pretty near a year, I-guess.