I am going to tell a little of what I can remember about my
grandmother. We used to see her, but we were allowed to visit her only once
in a while, and only on Sundays. During working days, from Monday until
Saturday, we were not allowed to bother the elders long ago, and so Sunday
was the only time we visited her. I was always very happy to visit her. She
was sure to give us something to eat, and she used to save all kinds of
things for us, to give to us at the right time. Even when she made a jacket
for herself, she would always make another out of the remnants and give it to
us. There would always be something for us to eat, because she knew when we
would be coming. And she prayed a lot. She rested on Sunday, and then she
would remind us to pray a lot, even in the morning and also at night, which
I still do myself. “And you will have a very good life,” she told us. “You
will live well. Don’t play with your lives. If you do so, you will regret it
when you get older, if you don’t do right and don’t live right.” She used to
tell us that, and I always believed her.

Today I suffer a lot because I used to have too much fun. Back then,
the elders of long ago worked a lot, the couples. I never sat around. Nobody
just sat around wasting time. In the fall they gathered wood to last the
entire winter. They hauled and stacked the firewood up like a tipi. And
likewise, the meat would be prepared and stored whenever they killed a moose
in the fall. My grandmother prepared and dried it, and then afterwards she
stashed it. She also looked for berries to pick and found blueberries and
cranberries. She stored them for the winter. And all kinds of vegetables

were grown in the gardens, such as carrots, onions, cabbages, and rhubarb. In
the spring they would plant potatoes and store them for the winter. They dug
a hole outdoors and covered it with grass so that the vegetables would not
freeze before they were used later on in the following spring. Some were
stored indoors for use during the winter.

I never saw an elder sitting around with nothing to do. When my
grandmother was well, I used to see her working and not just living without
a purpose. She knew how to do everything, such as beadwork, and she could
follow patterns and prepare moosehide. She always had tanned moosehide that
she had prepared herself. She even made soap by boiling bones. She boiled
them and then made ash out of small poplars (aspens). When the broth began to
settle, she stirred the ash into it, turning it into soap, and then she cut
it. This is what she used to wash with before there was store-bought soap
available. She picked berries in the summer, gathering them when they first
appeared in the spring. She gathered gooseberries and wild raspberries,
because they ripened sooner, as well as saskatoon berries. She looked after
herself and did not allow herself to suffer or starve. You know, there was
always lots of food to eat, such as moose, rabbits, grouse, even beavers,
sturgeon and fish. Nobody was short of anything. They worked really hard, had
their own really good job and worked at it diligently. We would be very happy
whenever we were allowed to see my grandmother because we were sure to be
given something.

That’s it!