Speaking in his second language (His first language is Cree)
I work hard, I keep telling [kids] “work hard” all the time, eh. That’s one life [motto] I have, is I work all the time. I never, never stop.
(You know, I’m not much good at English.)
I was born in 1941. I went to Moose Factory residential school. Didn’t learn nothing. Probably only went ‘till grade 2. You get the strap for nothing. Sometimes you are sitting at the table, “Come here,” [says] the principal there.
Clarence indicates with gestures that the principal gave him the strap.
“What’s that for?” He says, “You did this.” “I didn’t do nothing.”
I left home, Waskaganish, I left my parents, [when] I was fourteen years old. I came here, to Moosonee, in 1956; hardly no motors yet, that day. No skidoo, no helicopter... you have to walk or use dog team. People .. gonna go over to Moose Factory, they have to paddle over. Only two had a boat taxi. We didn’t have no money to taxi; no one has it. It [was] still a dollar to go over. Now, how much? Twenty bucks!
So there was nine of us boys in the family, and they wanted one boy to come and cut the wood - whoever wanted to go. But I went, I came here [to] cut the wood all winter for my grandpa. Then I was gonna go back, [but] I stayed here for a while, a couple years maybe, and then the base started off, the Air Force here. I work here, at the base, for the Air Force, and start building it. That big building over there [the radar building]: we put up that. I [was] only young; I was maybe fifteen years old.
I left again, I went to the, down south: I work in the mine after that. Ten years underground, eh. I came back again, and I work, I work over here at the airport: Austin’s [Airway], White River [Air], Air Ontario, and Air Creebec. I work thirty six years there. That’s it, never went back home since that: I’m seventy four years old now, I’m still here yet. I [was] supposed to cut the wood; I’m stuck here.
Whenever I get my holidays, two weeks holidays, I spend that time in the bush. Sometimes I go [to a] camp: lots of work.
On teaching kids to hunt:
I just tell them, “Come out, sleep in the bush.” The gun is very important: how to handle [it] before those kids to go hunting. You tell them, no guns in their hands, “You follow me.” And I just tell them, when they’re sitting there, and I say, “This is how you do it. Your gun: you don’t point somebody, don’t point that guy, you don’t point this one. Shell in there. You don’t point nobody. Shell: you take it out, put it in your pocket, you have nothing in your hand, just in case. You still you can’t point [at] anybody.” After, when you give them a gun, they know, they understand what they’re talking about, after that, eh, they know. And then they say, everybody say, “Oh, I got to take the shell out.” When we are out in the blind, we take our guns out and we take [the] shell out, and you call out, “It’s empty now!” And I say, “Okay, put it away, put it in a gun case. Come back and you put it in our tent over there.” In our camp, we have a rack there for the guns to put. You put ‘er there. And you tell them, “You don’t touch the guns until we tell you to get the gun, go shoot at some birds.”
Don’t shoot a gun when you fall down on the snow: you can’t shoot it, you have to clean it before you shoot it. If you shoot it, it blow right off. One time, me, I forgot to, long time ago, I didn’t check the gun and I shot it, [it was] plugged the end there, a piece come up on the other side and then one piece came off, came this way, took my ear! There’s the old man over at Whitetop, he looked at my head. “You cut it here,” he says...Lucky. Hurt my ear for while though…
I’m in retirement right now, [but] I’m still working. I’m proud of my job, of what I’m doing right now in my retirement and [that] I get to live and work and do everything with the people. I’m still in my house. I enjoy myself, I go trapping, I work, and I’m still cutting wood.
