Question: Do you remember ever hearing your parents or grandparents mention anything about Treaty?
Onesome: They were asked how much they would receive, and the person that was there said 4 dollars, so the person that was there thought that was a great deal of money, according to his father, so he asked the other person… that is a lot of money… at that time things weren’t that expensive.
Question: So, was your father present at the Treaty negotiations?
Onesome: He was young.
Question: Did you hear any other stories about the Treaty?
Onesome: That is all I heard about it. What my father said.
Question: That four dollars was a lot of money.
Onesome: (laughter)… My father worked at the Revillon company for twelve years, and for the HBC for five years, and we were all grown up and my brother Joseph and I we were in the bush.
Question: Do you remember any other elders discuss Treaty?
Onesome: No. My father used to talk about what that person had said about the amount of money.
I don’t remember anybody getting assistance back then, like they do today. That wasn’t in the past. The old people used to look after themselves…(inaudible)… The same with us. We didn’t have any welfare or provisions when we went to the bush, we had to charge our groceries. The way it is now, he used to eat some fish, and at that time he worked here at the school, he was making four dollars a day, and he wasn’t given any assistance when he asked for it. When he was thirteen, the very first time he worked, his pay was 40 cents a day. I was able to pay for a loaf of bread. When they started working at the school, their payment was in the form of groceries, and they used to use a can as a form of measurement, like for tea, sugar … I didn’t see flour ….