Interviewer: And what's a hydro trench? Speaker: Well it's for buried hydro cable. The- right now the cabins all have over head hydro cable and the trees are- every now and again falling on them and busting and- putting the hydro out.

Speaker: The- right now the cabins all have overhead hydro cable and the trees are- every now and again falling on them and busting and- putting the hydro out. Interviewer: So they want to put them underneath. Speaker: And them little kids there, they pay well there for a summer, some of them come for all summer eh? ... You can't have the hydro out- ... So there are changes.

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

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

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

And we used to have ah a water ah line that came down through the lake through the flume underground that supplied most of the town. This is before we had hydro. And it- and they had ah a company they called the Gooderham-Waterworks. ... And ah it supplied the town by gravity feed.

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

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

They all spoke Ojibwe. And we were Engli-- only English speaking and we were supposed to teach them all the subjects in English. So we tried. It was very interesting. No hydro, no doctors, no nurses, no- no roads no- (laughs).

... they sent the two of us up because they'd only sent one teacher all along. And the teacher never stayed, they just got on the first plane they could and left 'cause it was such a culture shock. Like in those days, no one was used to not having hydro you-know? So even just to not have hydro was- was hard.

Well I- I grew up with hydro. We never got hydro up there where- like where we lived 'til nineteen-eighty- let's say nineteen-eighty-three. ... So I was pretty good without hydro (laughs).

We had no hydro. We had no indoor toilet. ... We had to go out and get the water from the well and bring it in.

Speaker 2: Burned all that wood. It was ah something else that- more or less pioneer type I guess. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Oh, you didn't have hydro here, until you finished it.

Speaker 2: Well- well that never came- that never came in 'til nine- 'til nineteen-forties just to the Second-World-War. Speaker: To save hydro, wasn't it? Speaker 2: No, it was to give it- everybody back then was planting Victory-Garden and it was to give people longer hours of daylight mainly to come home and- and work in their gardens, the people that were planting the Vic- they called them Victory-Gardens.

But my dad worked- he- he- and- and I don't know if you knew that, but my dad worked for Hydro, years when- before, ah, and- and when- when the br-- drew the hydro up to Scotch-Line, my dad drew that hydro line up to Scotch-Line, past where Christian-Dempsey's up is, he drew that hydro line up there with old Jace and Dolly, the match team, and we lived at ah, at Noonan's, over here, and- and ah- and ah- ...

(inc) my dad- my dad drew the hydro out? ... That was in- in, ah, nineteen-forty-five.

Interviewer: Did your school have electricity then? Speaker: Oh yeah, you had the- you had hydro but you had no running water, you-see and your toilet was just a- a big tank in the hole in the floor and the girls had one and the boys had the other.

Speaker: Oh yes, I remember dad, bringing in ice quite well. Interviewer: And that was not just for the cottages, but for you own home. Speaker: Oh, for our own home, forever, 'til the hydro went in, and I was in high-school when we got hydro. So they would go back, and had of course they had all the proper equipment, but they would cut the big hole and, then cut the blocks of ice, and-

The- the main hydro line runs in front of the farm there. And all that steel was hung on the hydro line. Obviously they put the hydro out completely until they- until they got that off the line. I don't know how long the hydro was off. But certainly put the hydro out of commission. It was just like clothes hanging on the line to dry or-so and you-know these- one these big cables.

No hydro, so we have a lot of generators so I take the generator out and vacuum the floor. (inc) scrub this way.