So- and I used to go to obedience trials with them so we'd go like- we'd travel all over Ontario with that. Actually I travelled down into the States to do- so my parents knew- okay different culture totally from now too.

Anyway, so my parents- so they offered to my parents to take me to the States to travel through the States on two different years. I'm like thirteen, fourteen years old-

So my parents are sending me off to the States. So total Northern Ontario culture like everybody's your friend- ... And so they send me off to the States for like two weeks to go and train with. It was actually one of the top dog trainers in the United-States, but- so it's really cool, but I think of it now as a mom, I would never do that like just to this- ... Random strangers.

Speaker: "Remember (inc) ice-cream the best in northern Ontario," 'Cause we had have twelve and fourteen percent fat in it you-know. ... Instead of this ten percent stuff you have down- but people come from all over. ... People from the States.

Speaker: Sorry, I'm going to get a stuffy nose, I need, um, pants. Interviewer: I know. Speaker: Because they fit better in the States because they have bigger waistlines (laughs).

And then the big ah in North-Temiskaming, just across the border here in Quebec, there's a big truck rodeo in August and that brings people from all over too. The States and all over and- yeah so there's a lot of people getting to know.

Interviewer: Sounds like you did a great job. Speaker: It ah- and people- people from- they came from right across Canada to come to it. Down in the States. Interviewer: All people that had been- grown up here or? Speaker: Yeah they lived here. And so they came back for it.

Interviewer: Can you explain how ah, in your family history, through your grandparents immigrating, how it is they came to settle in this specific area? Speaker: Well, specifically because of mining. Um, my grandmother came over with ah family she was the nanny and my grand-- met my grandfather in the-States, where he was working mining and then they got married and moved up here because mining was the profession, in those days.

Interviewer: You don't know if your grand-- your grandparents must have landed in Halifax or- or in the States? Speaker: Nope, in the-States. New-York-City. Interviewer: Okay, and ah, so then, did they go up through Quebec, they must have took the tram to- to get up here. Speaker: That I'm not sure of.

Interviewer: And have you traveled anywhere else? Speaker: I s-- I- I spent a lot of time traveling the States before that. Like in the eighties and-that.

Interviewer: Did you ever get a chance to go outside of Canada? Speaker: Oh yes. Interviewer: Oh yes. Speaker: We've been to the States a few times, we've gone back to Italy on trips. Interviewer: Oh.

... sometimes instead of coming back home through Canada, we would cross through into Sioux-Saint-Marie, Michigan, and then drive through Michigan and come out at Detroit, near Windsor and then come home that way, like we'd never driven down into the States other than Florida and the Napa-Valley but um we've done that, just go across and border cities.

Don't ever knock the unions 'cause if it wasn't for union the- and they're trying to do it right now, they're trying to starve you into submission right now, those big shots. They're trying to destroy the unions down in the States there. They try to- they try to detr-- destroy it down in Sudbury, that last outfit that bought it.

So we can't travel, but yes we took ah the kids to the States like about maybe seven times. I brought them twice to New-York-City and then of-course, we lived in Schenectady and went there about five times with them. And ah no, I never got out to the west other than out to Thunder-Bay-

Interviewer: So overall, no regrets about spending your life here, great place to grow up in (inc)? Speaker: Well, it took me a while, I always hoped I'd go back to the States for- Interviewer: (inc) Speaker: For quite a few years- yes.

We-- this was the first- some of the first skidoo racing- was- this was one of the first places that they had actual money prizes for skidoo and my mean- and I-mean, they came from all over place. They came from the States. They came from all over the place-

He ran his own show. I re-- I-- last week I was watching Alan-Thicke do an interview with a guy in the States, in California, and he spoke about our T-V station, and how he remembers coming home to visit ...

You-know, took her- we went to Wonderland a couple times or- and but you-know apart from that- that- noth-- nothing to the States or overseas or-anything.

He was hiding it you-know? Because you could- you could buy things much more cheaply in the States. Some kind of- whatever tool it was he wanted.

I got relatives down in Toronto I don't know about. I got relatives down in Windsor I still don't know about. And I got relative-- relatives in the States I've never even seen or heard about so I'm not a really family-ties kind-of guy 'cause ah most of my family just lives so far away that it's just impractical to see them all the time, you-know ...