Interview with Nick Ochotta 2.1

Segment Synopsis: His older sister was born in Redwater or Eldorina, AB was born in 1911, then 1913, 1915, and then brother born 1917. All the children were born in Canada, when they went back to the old country, the communist authorities didn't want to let them come back to Canada. His father went through Latvia to Montreal. This all happened around 1923. Nick wasn't born until 1926. His father spent most of his time in the Black Sea with the Tsarist navy. He maybe read about Canada and went to check it out. It was probably the third time that mother went over too. Much different than the Oleskiw immigration. Talks about other people who may have come from the same area as him. The area his father settled in had other Orthodox people as well.

Subjects: immigration

Segment Synopsis: His father specialized in beekeeping after they moved to Boyle and lived there for 6 or 7 years. They homestead had pretty terrible soil. By the time he got out of the army, his parents had already moved to Edmonton. The hives were located reasonably close to the home. The rest of the land was used for wheat, oats, and barley. They kept their own animals still. Only 80-90 acres of their land was broken, the rest was bush. They did crop rotation. Skeleton Lake was a mile and a quarter from their house. The church his dad was instrumental in building is in view of the lake. They had probably around 100 hives. There weren't other beekeepers in the area. The area was good for it though, because there was a lot of wild flowers and clover in the area. His dad would buy fish and peddle them in the neighbouring areas. Had to stay quite clean for the bees, because they would smell your sweat or the horses' sweat and they would sting. If you were clean, you would be fine. They wintered their bees. Dug a cellar 4-5 feet deep. Built it up with logs. They took the hives in there as soon as it gets cold. The bees gather together to stay warm. The bees can't run out of food or they will starve. Use them for production in the summer and winter them. You can't take all the honey if you winter them, but you will be able to get honey sooner in the spring. They would sell their honey to the cooperatives, earlier just to the stores in the area. They made food in their house with honey instead of sugar. A lot of people did that. When the war came, there was a rationing of sugar, but they didn't need to worry, because they had honey. For a cold, there was hot tea, with honey and lemon. Wheat and barley was done in addition to the beekeeping, to feed the pigs and chickens. When they needed food, mother would just walk out to the yard and chop a chicken's head off with a hatchet, pick the feathers, and soon it would be on the table. They also had turkeys and ducks. They had garden produce as well. Cabbage was very important. It was called mixed farming for a reason. Icemen would sell ice and they would use it to keep food cool. Meat was already processed. You couldn't get fresh milk because there was no refrigeration

Subjects: apiaries; family farms; foodways; gardening; winter