SATHER: I moved out there in June 11, 1921. An old woman. Well, I was strong to work, but you don’t call a woman at 40 young and working hard all the time, it's different when you got an easy life. But when you're doing manual labor all the time, without a doctor, without any easy work at all, just in and out of the house, and when you’re out of the house it’s just nothing but chopping and sawing and prying and carrying fox feed and chopping fox feed, cutting fish, cut up the sea lions, you’ve got to cook them. Cook the sea lion with hide and hair and everything on 'em.
INTERVIEWER: Now how many foxes would you say you had? These were just foxes that were just running around?
SATHER: Sure, they're running all over the island: 8 miles long, 4 miles wide.
INTERVIEWER: Did you help with the skinning?
SATHER: I'm the main skinner.
INTERVIEWER:You know, I've just skinned a few foxes.
SATHER: I'm the only one that really can prepare the skin for the market. The skinning of the foxes, of any animal, it's nothing...It's the fleshing, then getting the grease out of the hide.
INTERVIEWER: Now what did you use to flesh the skin with?
SATHER: Oh, I had an old file sharpened down and kinda rough. But it has to be filed down to a knife. But not really. With that you can scrape down the fat good. On a round pole. Well then after that, it goes on the stretcher and that's when the work comes in. I had a knife that was as sharp as a razor. And all I had to do was just hang on to the skin and the bottom until it was real tight, and I shaved that down just as clean as can be. And not a man could do it. They cut it all to pieces. And it's just a trick. It's just the tighter you hold them, the better you can slice the skin they have on them. Now, and under that skin is where the fat lays. When the skin is dry, and you shake it, it's supposed to rattle just like tissue paper. Then you know that it's clean. And then in the winter, in the dark long nights you got to go out and get them and trap them and bring them home.
INTERVIEWER: You have to trap them then?
SATHER: Sure.
INTERVIEWER: I thought maybe you'd shoot some of them.
SATHER: No. We got houses with traps in it that's fixed so the fox walks in and two lids drop down and he is in the bottom of the house.
INTERVIEWER: I'd think about Mrs. Sather out there, you know, I'd wonder what she was doing while Pete was out in his boat all day.
SATHER: I can tell you what I was doing. Around March it snows about 2 feet over night. When It gets real quiet, no wind, oh, then I’m so sure I don’t even look out. I know what’s out there. That I have to shovel snow. And there are eleven roofs to shovel off. And there I am all alone. Pete is here working on the boat or—doing nothin—and there are eleven roofs and once I cleaned em all off in one day. Two feet. And I was so tired and so happy in the evening after I had my little bite to eat and went to bed that I didn’t have anything to do in the morning, and low and behold, when I looked out there was two feet more.
INTERVIEWER: (Laughs)
SATHER: Oh, we built that green house. I built that alone. I had Pete help me bring out the stringers. I said, you help me bring out the stringers and that’s all. He said, that suits me fine, he said. Then I go seal huntin while you do this. So I said don’t worry too much, I said, I’ll fix it, I'll fix it. “Yes, you fix it alright.” And I had it all painted and, gee, it looked nice. And the cat was sitting... and his pet was sitting on the writing desk, you know, we're watching him come in his boat and when he came up that’s the first time, I never heard it since, that he came up and put his arms around me and said a man couldn’t help but be proud of you. (laughs) Yeah, and that was the only time I remember Pete ever saying that. And he was so tickled with the way that room looked and he enjoyed every minute in it, and he enjoyed the green house.