Interview: George Kitselas.

I was born September 16, 1899. I was nine when I first came to Usk. My stepfather was a Scotsman. He pre-empted the whole townsite here in Usk. Just after I went to Usk, some guy from Prince Rupert came along picking up boys from Nass River, Skeena River, and all along the way, to take them to the Industrial School at Prince Rupert. There was over a hundred boys in the school when I got there. They took me down in 1914 and I stayed for five or six years. I left when I felt I couldn't learn anymore.

All the natives used to go down to the canneries in the spring by canoe before the river boats ran. We were going up and down the Skeena quite often; that's how we travelled - there were no roads. When the steamboats came, it cost $15.00 from Port Essington to Kitsumkalum Landing. I used to ride the boat to school. They carried a lot of passengers - fisherman and cannery workers. In the fall, we'd ride back with all our freight and our two-ton canoes, back to Hazelton for the winter.

I remember one fall my grandmother and I were on the North-West boat; it was really crowded. The river in the fall was cold and low, so we had to be careful for sandbars. But we hit a sandbar right in the middle of the river and there we stayed. They tried to pull her off with cables. They used our canoes to take the passengers and all their belongings off. That old boat broke up in the middle of the night. We had to stay on the river bank for a couple of days before another boat came for us. I'll never forget that time!

There were more people living in Usk than in Terrace by then. There was a hotel, a couple of stores, a pool room and everything going on all the time. There was a dance hall on top of the store and I used to play the banjo at the dances. Oh we had lots of fun!