Item N-2001-016: CN-87A - Len Cardinal

• Sound recording

1 audio cassette (29 min.)

This item is an interview of Leonard Cardinal, recorded in Hay River, likely in early 1994 by Margaret Bearard. The interview is in English. The original source item is side A of a 60 minute audio cassette. Leonard Cardinal was born in Fort Chipewyan in March 1928 and will be 66 years old in March. His father was Magloire Cardinal and his mother was Nellie Loutitt, the daughter of Hannah McSwain and George Loutitt. He had two brothers and three sisters. Leonard was married to Yvonne Cardinal for about 33 years and had eight children. They had been separated for about 12 years at the time of the interview. After his mother's death in 1935, Leonard was raised by his uncle and aunt (his mother's sister). His chores included caring for dogs and chickens. Leonard attended school in Fort Chipewyan at the Anglican school and the Catholic Convent mission school up to Grade 8. He was raised in the Anglican church. Leonard left home at about 15 years old. His first job was in 1943, when the US Army came north. He worked as a dockhand for NTCL, unloading barges and loading trucks in Fort Fitzgerald. He later came to the Great Slave Lake area, fished for a number of years and had various jobs around Hay River, including in service garages, trucking, taxis, and as a school bus driver. In 1970 he was given the opportunity to take a boom of timbers to Inuvik with his tugboat for NCPC. He picked up the boom and a river pilot, Jonas Lafferty, in Fort Simpson and got as far as Tsiigehtchic before the river froze. Leonard spent the next six years in Inuvik, doing barging, timber cutting, pile cutting, and trucking with the oil companies operating in the area. After the Berger Inquiry halted pipeline plans, Leonard left Inuvik in April 1978 and moved to Grande Prairie, where he operated an oilfield servicing company. When the bust came, he started trucking on the Dempster Highway for a short time, but it wasn't profitable. He returned to Inuvik and went back to the small tug and marine service he had retained there. He also went into the taxi business with Delta Taxi and had a service station. Leonard sold out and left Inuvik in 1989, with the aim of retiring, but went into the tour boat business with the Arctic Star. After doing a couple of runs on the Mackenzie River and a summer season in Yellowknife, he moved operations to Hay River and also got back into commercial fishing. At the time of the interview he was fishing in the summer and running a couple of camps in the winter. He had recently suffered a stroke but was recovering well. Leonard mentions learning hunting skills from his uncle, which he still enjoys. His uncle and aunt lived off the land hunting and trapping, ran a small general store and bought furs, and had a boat and barge. Leonard's father trapped out of Fort Chipewyan in the Birch River Mountain area, Wood Buffalo National Park, and into the Northwest Territories. Leonard speaks briefly of the fancy clothes Metis people used to wear for celebrations and the way the dressed their dogs up too. He mentions some ways people entertained themselves in the past and games kids used to play. The interview concludes with Leonard advising young people to learn to be good workers, get themselves a job, and stay away from alcohol and drugs.

This recording includes sides A and B of the tape.