Telling Our Stories:

    "Lexlexey'em"

Going to Work for the Summer

Up until the time I left school in 1964, there was no such thing as welfare.  There were other things like ‘relief’ which was more of food vouchers that were given by the Department of Indian Affairs. These were given only when you could prove your family was in dire needs.  Many families were just too proud to ask for these at that time.  It seems everyone knew when someone had asked for relief.  The Indian name for it I think was ‘stcwup’, or something like that.

Between September and the end of June, most all the kids from the reserve were at the Mission school, so mom and dad were able to provide quite well for themselves during that time.  However, at the end of June when all the kids returned home, dads had to have some kind of employment to provide for the whole family.

So, first off, after picking up the kids from the Mission, the whole family would get ready to set up camp at the Williams Lake Stampede in Williams Lake. This involved loading the tent, blankets, pots and pans and food to last three days on to a rubber tired or steel wheeled wagon. This was a three day event that happened once a year over the Dominion Day weekend (now called Canada Day).  Everyone from all over B.C., Canada, and the States came. 

Indian wagons and horse-back riders from all Indian reserves as far away as Anaham Lake made their way into Williams Lake a few days before the event. All the Native camps surrounding the stampede grounds were a site to see.  Then, on the final day of the stampede, you would see a Greyhound bus drive up to where the camps were.  The reason was, a lot of families went to Washington state to pick fruit for the summer.  The bus was sent up by the fruit farms to bring back fruit pickers.  Whole families boarded the bus.  Sometimes there were two busses.

Other families were picked up by local ranches and farms.  Every one seemed to know that the end of the Stampede meant going away to work for the summer.  Pretty well every family went to work somewhere, whether it was to pick strawberries or to put up some rancher’s hay.  Only the odd family or part of a family who had an invalid or an elder who could not travel would remain at the reserve. 

There was no welfare in those days.  If you didn’t pack up your family and go to a job somewhere, your family would starve.  It was just that simple.

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