Interviewer: Did you ever hear about how things went on in the camps? Speaker: (sighs) Yeah, they had the bunkhouses and the cookhouse, they always have a cookhouse and it had bunkhouse and they'd hire a cook and maybe a cookee and they would be up at six in the morning and out on the road in the bush at seven, take their lunch with them, come back at six and have supper after six.

Interviewer: Did you ever hear about how things went on in the camps? Speaker: (sighs) Yeah, they had the bunkhouses and the cookhouse, they always have a cookhouse and it had bunkhouse and they'd hire a cook and maybe a cookee and they would be up at six in the morning and out on the road in the bush at seven, take their lunch with them, come back at six and have supper after six.

Well, the- the- they lots- oh they had lots to eat but they go back to the bunkhouse and most of them were smoking or playing cards maybe or some of them occasionally would have a guitar or banjo or-something...

Say if you- if you think about it today, um, but- say if a guy got mumps, or something that was contagious, in a mining camp, what were you going to do with them? You-know, you had to keep them away from- you couldn't leave them in a say, ah, a bunkhouse where there's the men who worked a-- in the mine and-stuff, eh? So they had what they called a quarantine house.

Well there used to- Lakeshore used to have ah- they used to call it bu-- a bunkhouse. It was a great big long, long building. And ah, they had ah, like rooms and small apartments and-things. And ah, so a lot of them would stay there. But then that closed down.

Whatever. Towards- between (inc) and Timmins they were out that way and ah they were putting in ah the mine's putting in basically (inc) like the trailers for bunkhouses sort-of-thing. So, there's going to be other accommodation in there. They're going to be the cleaning-staff and the kitchen-staff.

So we drive about oh I-don't-know maybe half a kilometer down that road, pull into um Antler's lodge. He's waiting for us. He opened up one of his bunkhouses for us. We stayed there the night, had a great time.

He was a pilot and- and- and made it through and he'd just come home and was taking over when we got there (laughs), the three of us. And the Indians had been working there, and they had a little bunkhouse that'd sleep three. And the Indians had been staying there. There the- we get there, we got there in time for dinner back to York-- from Yorktown. So we ate and that. And they said "Well you better leave your clothes and-that- bags and-that in here. We're cleaning up the bunk house 'cause there's ah lice and everything else in there." I thought "What?" God, like the house got cleaned out. But this freaking bunkhouse with Indians all in it.

He was a pilot and- and- and made it through and he'd just come home and was taking over when we got there (laughs), the three of us. And the Indians had been working there, and they had a little bunkhouse that'd sleep three. And the Indians had been staying there. There the- we get there, we got there in time for dinner back to York-- from Yorktown. So we ate and that. And they said "Well you better leave your clothes and-that- bags and-that in here. We're cleaning up the bunk house 'cause there's ah lice and everything else in there." I thought "What?" God, like the house got cleaned out. But this freaking bunkhouse with Indians all in it.

They did say- my one fellow say after a big meal he'd say to his wife "I- do you want anymore to eat? I'm full as a tick." Interviewer: Full as a tick, yeah. Speaker: I know that he called ah um like I said my- my if I've sunburned, I'd say "I'm burnt like a tomato." Like those are sayings- the other guy was talking about a- used to call a creek, he'd call it a crick. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: The old people. "You go down to the crick," instead of saying the creek, you-know, they'd say a crick.

Interviewer: ... did much oak grow in this area? Speaker: Not very much, because ah I remember as children we wanted oak nuts and this thing- and ah no, there wasn't any- much- but of course you-see our farm didn't have a bush lot. Interview: Too many trees. Speaker: So we didn't have much experience, it was just wonderful for us to go through a bush with anybody or- like that, you-know?

And you got ah seventy-five cents a piece for them. That was- you-know that- that- that was good, that was good going in those days. ... You couldn't buy a bush lot today even with your big skidders and-stuff and pay for it in three weeks. You couldn't do it. 'Cause it's going to cost you two-hundred-thousand or three-hundred-thousand for that.

... the school property was close to, um, (clears throat) my uncle's bush lot. And they'd let the older ones play hide-and-seek along the edges of the bush line. So you'd have some children going down and hiding in the- in the trees ...

Ah, Samson's family. There was a girl younger than I was and then the Cameron children who lived by the river and up further on the highway. They came from there, cross the highway, came through bush lot and we met half a mile before we got to school. But that- those are the only ones.

Interviewer: And are these homesteads- are these ah lands still owned by Kashubians? Interviewer: Yes. Most- most of them are- most of them are yes. But they're like bush-lots. Right? But you will see as you're walking on this trail here, going up the hill, if you don't see the hill here but, and ah- and they call this the Prussian-Hills, because our ancestors were Prussian right?

Interviewer: Was he born and raised here or? Speaker: No, no my ah- okay when- when ah this land that was not being used, a lot of these original ah owners of these- this land, they ended up ah selling them right? As bush lots, and ah my uncle bought a piece of property which is on the other side of the mountain, or the hill, and ah just for a bush lot. Now I don't know who the original owners- y-- you-know ...

Yeah, I-think my sister- at the time it was the ski-hill, right? (clears throat) That was the big place for- for bush parties. You could- it was either at the ski-hill or at Blueberry-Hill which is over- over near Trout-Lake, but um, part of the reason I-think I didn't do that was 'cause often-times I'd end up running into my sister and that just was not welcome, so (laughs) when I was younger um, I-guess when I was in grade-nine, yeah, it just wasn't that- that wasn't going to happen.

One time I got my ass tossed around but I was really drunk. But the guy went after me because I was drunk. I got me like really drunk (laughs) like bush party drunk.

Um yeah we were walking back form a bush party and cops stopped us. I don't really remember much of it, but she got arrested, put in the car, like I don't remember this part at all. Like she told me 'cause she was watching from the car- the car.

Well I mean, what's the day today? Wednesday? And I'm hungover. (laughs) Like um yeah. I've been like carried out of like bush parties and...