Europe, “the old country”. We all seemed to get
along well because the main language was English.
We still understand Ukrainian, but already my kids
don’t.

In the winter time, when I was thirteen years
old and my brother was fifteen, we used to fish
on Lake Pineimuta. We only had a little chisel on
the end of a little wooden handle and at the time
we used axes for chopping the ice. The fish price
was cheap. We used to get 20: for jacks and 5¢ a
pound for Whitefish. We had a dogteam which we
used to go out to the lake with. One time it hap-
pened that we didn’t have a fishing licence to fish
and when we came out there, half frozen after a
storm, we found out that all our nets were pulled
out by the inspectors. We had thirteen nets and
the inspector took them all because there was no
licence number on the nets. We came home and
by that time we had a team of horses, so father
said, “You’d better drive over and see the inspec—
tor. Follow his trail, as he must be from Fairford.”
So we drove to see the inspector. He said, “Sorry
boys, you didn’t have a fishing licence”, which we
couldn’t afford anyway. It wasn’t very much for
a licence, as it was only $10.00 a licence, but when
you catch two or three dollars worth of fish a day,
you can’t afford a licence.

In those days we had no freezer or refrigera-
tor. We kept our cream in the well. Butter was kept
in a pail of cold water during the hot summer days.
Any fresh meat had to be salted or put in a brine.
Most of it was so salty you couldn’t eat it. Boil-
ing meat in sealers also worked. Potatoes, beans,
salt pork, and eggs were all there was to eat on
the farm. You couldn’t afford fruit. At that time
the storekeeper didn’t order any. You could buy
bologna at 15¢ a pound and generally the bolo—
gna was sour the next day because there was no
place to keep it.

I bought a radio during the winter of 1933. I
was fishing on Lake Winnipeg at that time. We
used to have a cook and he had a radio. It was
battery operated. It played very well on Lake Win—
nipeg, and he asked $300.00 for it. I worked all
winter and I gave him the three hundred dollars.
I wasn’t smart enough at that age and I paid that
much. It was a big cabinet radio, and when we got
it home it only played for three days at a time, then
we had to charge the battery. The only station was
C.B.C. at that time.

There weren’t as many Indians in those days.
There were a few around and they used to trap.
You could get them to work for 25¢ to 50¢ a day.
As long as they got a little bit of flour, onions and

551

lard they were happy with it and that was all they
ate. They only had fish and bannock which was
their diet. They were able to shoot a deer or moose
at that time because there were plenty around, but
they had no way to keep the meat unless they dried
it, or smoked it, and then it was just like shoe
leather. The reserve was called Fairford. There were
three reserves, Fairford, Sandy Bay, and Dauphin
River. There were only about three hundred peo-
ple all together. They were all here when my father
came. The old people are all dead now and the
population today is about fifteen times greater
than it was then. The Indians were very respect-
ful, and they treated the whiteman good. The
whiteman treated the Indians good. They used to
work for my father, and they were all good
workers.

 

John and Violet Rawluk, 1938.

I got married November 28, 1937. I married
a girl from Winnipeg who was named Violet Field.
She used to come here to visit her aunty. I fell in
love with her and I went to Winnipeg to see her
parents. I didn’t have any money so Tom Weaver,
who used to be our store keeper, lent me $10.00
to go to Winnipeg to see my sister. She was work-
ing and I wanted to borrow some money to get
married. I sent the girl I wanted to marry a tele-
gram to come to Winnipeg because we were go-
ing to get married. I had seen her father, and he
said, “If you want to marry her you can marry
her”. The poor girl had no money either. There
was a teacher staying where she was and the
teacher lent $5.00 to her so she could get into Win-
nipeg. So you can imagine how hard the times
were. We got a few gallons of homebrew, from