Interviewer: What's the most unusual animal you've seen here in town? Speaker: Ah, everybody says there's cougars but I haven't seen one. ... Yeah, there's been sightings but the M-N-R won't admit to it too much. They- Interviewer: What's the M-N-R? Speaker: The minist-- the ministry of no results. Interviewer: (Laughs) ... Why is called that? Speaker: (Laughs) That's what the local people refer to the ministry 'cause they (laughs)- the minister of n-- ministry of no result because they always say that there's ah- you-know they just don't solve the problems and they don't get along with the local people, the fighting and the um- the other things that going on into ah court.

Um, my grandpa worked for the M-N-R. His name is Alex-Horn. Um, he- I don't even really know what he did for the M-N-R to be honest with you.

And- it was in about nineteen-twenty-one, and (coughs) I didn't ah- I hadn't been to teacher's college. I had ah, four years in high school and um, I had what was called the model school, a summer school.

Interviewer: Where would those girls get their training? Speaker: Ottawa, the Normal- it was just called the Normal-School then. Interviewer: Mm-hm. There was some- a kind of school in Renfrew that trained teachers. Speaker: Yes, a model school. Interviewer: Yes, might some of- Speaker: That was a third-class teacher. Interviewer: Oh, I see. If you wanted a higher ah certificate you went to- Speaker: You had to go- yeah. You could go to Renfrew, to the model school, with just, um, well, it would be called grade-ten in high-school, now. Interviewer: Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Speaker: We used to call it lower school.

I went, but I went uh to a high-school. This was a high-school trai-- this is where you went for high-school training. And ... this is before O-I-S-E was constructed. But U-T-S was built I think as a place for- sort-of as a model school where- where there would be- they could train teachers as well but... I only actually taught one- I taught the students there for one week but most of my training was out in the- in the schools of Toronto. Then I uh- so I graduated from there I- we- we

Always competitions. Like ah, and it was- and no one was um, ah kind-of mollycoddled, if you were out, you were out. Like you-know-what-I-mean? Like it was...

We're trying to- we're trying to get a r-- away from racism. We're trying to get away from hate and fear monger- Like hate and fear mongering, I guess. What's hate mongering?

Interviewer: And so, what- you're background is not ah Finnish though. Speaker: No, I'm a mongrel. Interviewer: Mongrel? Speaker: Mongrel, Irish-English. You-know.

Interviewer: Well what have you found so far? Speaker: Well fortunately I'm a mongrel, so I have some Scottish and some French as well.

His thing was- he always tells me about this time in university he wou-- was taking chemistry and it was his last year or-something and he was in charge of his own lab and he had his own like, everything- all the equipment that he wanted and so he decided to make moonshine and so he made it and brought it home for like him and his brothers and-everyone to drink and my mom came over and she poured herself a big glass

So the, the- whatever moonshine they were making is still- very much possibility that it's intact.

Speaker: Yeah, he made ah whatever it was called, moonshine-vodka. Interviewer: Yeah? Speaker: Ah and every so often. He'll be walking around behind the bush and you'll see these big coils of copper wrapped around the tree somewhere. And there these strange kettle looking things and that was them making moonshine. Interviewer: That's incredible. Have you ever had it? Speaker: Ever drank moonshine? No. Interviewer: You haven't? Speaker: No. Interviewer: No? Speaker: No. Yourself? Interviewer: No. Speaker: No. I've made it with- with a- an old Italian friend of mine. But it's not called moonshine it's called grappa.

Which he did, with, ah, like, fifty bottles of moonshine in the back. And no one's ever found it.

...he eventually did wake as the morning came around and was dreadfully- he was dead drunk with bad moonshine, bad booze that somebody had made in one of the stills somewhere I-guess.

Speaker 1: And ah they made moonshine. Interviewer: How l-- why would they do that? Speaker 1: Well there was nothing else? Speaker 2: They didn't have a liquor store here then.

Speaker: Oh yeah there- oh there's- oh yeah, they have- and moonshine, they would make. Interviewer: Ooo! Speaker: They would make moonshine. Goodram is supposed to be known for- the story is in Goodram, if they don't like you, they'll burn your barn down.

Well he- they were with a family by the name of Collins. And my father drank too, moonshine. Because the Italians used to make wine and they knew different- like different areas made didn't things. You knew where to go and get your stuff. And um, anyway, the boy had had his tonsils out but he bled to death and they said it was because of my father giving him moonshine or giving whatever but they brought him the minis-- they brought in the doctor from um Minden in.

Okay, okay. Yeah no my dad comes from Cobalt, but he was born there. And my mother, like I said was- was born in Montreal but her dad had passed away and they couldn't- they just had a small mother's allowance back then and she had two children, couldn't visit her mother so her uncle who had a bakery in- ah, in Cobalt brought them to Cobalt to help them out. ... Figured by- by having them there, he could help them out better.

My brother had already been born. And my brother was two years and something. ... And my- there was no mothers'-allowance, there was nothing to help young women who was in the same situation. So she went back to the farm where there was no hydro, no heat except wood stove. ... After being in town where there was hydro, running water out of a tap.

They're a thing about twenty-five feet long, or close to it. When the feeder's up. You put the grain one in, the straw goes up the other end, the blower up, the straw goes up in the mow with the blower. The grain runs out in bushels- bushels ah on the side of the mill and (inc) you have to have a man carrying them to the granary as they come out.