After the strawberry picking was done, our Syilx people had another job waiting for them: to pick hops.

Hops are very light in weight, so it took many tiny, fluffy green hops to fill a canvas bag.

Hops grow on long vines, which are wired to a pole.

The rows were very long, but when you got to the end, you would have filled several bags. The weight of the hops were light, so one had to pick lots to make any money as pay was by weight.

The Syilx were known by business people over the border as efficient, so they were in demand.

A bus would be waiting for us to load up and take us to the next job.

Sometimes we would be gone all summer as we would finish the hops picking, then go on to apple picking.

At the hop yards camp, we would have evenings when other people would gather around a fire and tell stories or sing songs with their drums.

Children would play, and even though we could not understand their language, we had fun.

Then one day, the company bus would take us on another trip to a huge gathering.

At the gathering, people had food from their homeland (which was so good), bead work on clothes, and fine jewelry of every kind.

The bus driver told us to be back at the bus in five hours.

Mom and I walked around looking at everything we could. My dad went to watch the hal-la-hal, which was a game of chance with teams of men or women passing a wooden token, which was hidden in the palm.

We forgot all about time. When we went to the bus, it was gone. We looked for it, but could not find it.

So, Mom said, I kept track of signs on the way here, so we can walk back on the highway, which we did.

We walked until we saw a corner store, so we went in and Mom told the clerk, my little girl is thirsty, what can I buy with this 50-cent piece?

The clerk looked the Canadian money, then she asked Mom, are you Canadian?

Mom said yes we are.

Wait here, she said. She went in the other room and came back a few minutes later.

She told Mom, yes, I can give you a bottle of pop for that and some change.

You see, my mom could not read or write, so the money did not mean anything to her, except that it was a 50-cent piece.

Most young people do not even know that Canada had a 50-cent coin. The government had that money discontinued many years ago, just like the two dollar bill and the one dollar bill.

The American people did recognize us by our money. Many young people do not know this either.

As my mom could not read or write, she used her knowledge of tracking or marking your trail in the bush, and that is how we found our way. She would also use highway signs as markers. Mom used her native wisdom.

Back home, Mom used to ride with my dad on the high mountain ranges and he taught her to always mark her trail, whether with twine or her memory.

After Mom paid for the pop, she asked the store clerk if she could phone the place where the hop camp was, and the lady agreed to phone them.

Not long afterwards, my dad came with the boss to pick us up.

Isaiah ch. 30; 21, “And your ears will hear a voice behind you saying, This is the way, walk in it, when you turn to the right hand and when you turn to the left.”

As Always in Friendship,

Jeanette McMaster

Elder