Item N-2001-016: CN-44A - Mable [Mabel] Heron

• Sound recording

1 audio cassette (32 min.)

This item is the first part of a two-part interview of Mabel Heron at Fort Smith, recorded on February 7, 1992, by Joe Mercredi, as part of the 1992 Metis Heritage Project. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 60 minute audio cassette. The interview also includes item CN-44B. Mabel provides many details about her life growing up on her parents' farm at Johnson's Landing, as well as answering general questions. Mabel was born in Fort Chipewyan in 1924. Her mother was Katie (Catherine) Alice Cooper from Fort McKay and her father was John Wilfred Johnson, who had emigrated from Sweden. While she was still a baby, the family moved to what became known as Johnson's Landing, where her parents cleared the land and established a farm. They kept cows, horses, pigs, chickens, and dogs, as well as growing vegetables, and running a trading store. Many people stopped there. Mabel's father also trapped. The children were educated using correspondence courses taught by their mother, who had spent a number of years in the Convent at Fort McKay after her father died. The family did not leave the farm and the children were not permitted to socialize with the people who stopped there. Mabel describes enjoying the visits of her Cree grandmother, who told them old stories. A priest also came to instruct the children in their catechism and they took first communion and confirmation as a group on the farm. After her mother got sick, Mabel describes her father as getting mean, blaming the children for everything, and beating them frequently. Her mother died of cancer at the age of 32. At the age of 22, Mabel ran away from the farm with her brother, reaching Hay Camp the first night and Fort Fitzgerald the next day. She stayed with her aunt for awhile. Her younger sisters also ran away from the farm. In 1948, Mabel moved to Fort Smith, where she worked in the kitchen at the HBC hotel. She married Charlie Heron about 7 months later. Mabel did not visit her father again until her son Brien was four years old. Other topics discussed include: entertainment, clothing, education, hunting and fishing, food preservation, dogs, trading, sickness and death, and traditional medicine and medicine men.