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BY: So you were around fifteen, sixteen years old when that happened, and you had grown up in this town, you now are moving to this strange place. So what were your feelings at that time, of having to leave your home and to go this new place?

MO: Well, you know, we were kids.

BY: Yeah, but what were your feelings? As a teenage boy?

MO: Well, we had a good time in Minto. [Laughs]

TI: So this is the part I want to hear about. Because I have read about, there were a lot of activities at Minto.

MO: Well, there was pool room, you know, all the young kids were playing pool. [Laughs]

TI: And the other thing you mentioned -- well, we'll keep going. So pool, what else did you do there?

MO: Well, I was working in a sawmill they had, too, at nighttime.

TI: And so what did you do at the mill? You said at night, what would you do at the mill at night, what kind of work?

MO: Well, we had some clippings, sawmill, and I'm piling up those slabs of timber.

TI: Okay. I read that at Minto, or nearby Minto mines, you mentioned a sawmill, there's also like a pulp and paper mill, do you remember that?

MO: I don't think we had paper, it's just a sawmill.

TI: Just sawmill, pulp. Do you remember, like, sometimes the mills, there's that sulfur smell, that really kind of stinky smell? Do you remember that at all?

MO: I don't know.

TI: Yeah, if you lived there, you would remember it. It's that sulfur smell. So tell me more about your first impressions. When you went Minto Mines, what did it look like? When you found your house, and just talk about Minto Mines.

MO: Well, we were living in a house quite a ways from the main drag. I think it was... that house we stayed in was used as a, kind of... I don't know what they'd call it. There were quite a few away from the main drag. It was a big, probably the biggest house we were staying in, because three families stayed in the house.

TI: And why were these houses there? I mean, why weren't they being used?

MO: Well, when the Minto Mine closed, they were empty. There must have been about twenty homes out there.

BY: Were they nice houses?

MO: Yeah.

BY: Like nicer --

MO: And they had a hotel, big hotel. Like this picture here, where I left there, that's the commissary house. Oh, this one here. Post office.

TI: Okay, so this was a building in Minto?

MO: Yeah.

TI: And Barb was saying, compared to your house in Steveston, how did the house in Minto Mines compare?

MO: Oh, it was pretty good, same.

TI: About the same. And so they had, like, indoor plumbing?

MO: Yeah, they were indoor plumbing. And in the wintertime, this whole thing is freezing, water pipes so they'd go and get their water supply.

TI: Oh, okay, so you would have to get your own water supply.

BY: So how did your family support itself? Like your father was, obviously wasn't fishing any more, and you had to buy food...

MO: I think Dad might have sport fished. The back yard, there was a tributary, I think it was Thompson River running down there, Minto Mines. He might have caught some fish down there.

BY: But how would he buy groceries?

MO: Well, there was a grocery store there.

BY: But how would he get the money to buy the groceries? Where did he work, make enough money in the sawmill?

MO: Well, I don't know. I don't think he was getting any pay that much from the sawmill, working at a sawmill.

TI: Now, so did the family create gardens and things like that to raise their own food? Like vegetable gardens?

MO: Yeah, they had vegetable gardens there.

TI: When you think about the time for the family, was it kind of a hard time in terms of food and stuff, or did it just seem regular?

MO: Just regular. In the fall they all went to hunt for mushrooms.

TI: Like matsutake?

MO: Matsutake, lot of matsutake there.

TI: Well, so you're kind of in the interior. You showed a picture, there's lots of snow. So were there things like ice skating or skiing?

MO: Yeah, the kids were ice skating.

TI: So these were kind of new things for you, right? Ice skating?

MO: We were ice skating, yeah.

TI: How about like snow shoeing or skiing?

MO: No, I don't think we were... as a kid we were going up the slope with the sled, but nobody skied. I don't think... nobody took up skiing or anything like that, we were kids.

TI: How about like in the summer? Hiking and fishing in the lakes or streams?

MO: I don't know whether there was hiking or not. I remember going mushroom hunting.

BY: Did you organize sports teams in Minto? Because you said you played baseball.

MO: Well, I don't know, there wasn't too many my age group down there, they were mostly young kids, younger than me.

<End Segment 11> - Copyright © 2022 Densho. All Rights Reserved.