WEBVTT

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♪ ♪

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(wind blowing)

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♪ ♪

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I\'ve had several people
say to me you know what?

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I don\'t believe Wood
Mountain will ever die,

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and I say why is that?

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And they would say just because
you guys don\'t want to let it.

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♪ ♪

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(sound of crowded bar)

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♪ ♪

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We\'ve had our hits and we
have our broken gears and our

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stripped gears, and, oh, it\'s
just a matter of over time,

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you put them back together.

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(banging)

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I\'m Michael Klein and I\'m Mayor
of the Village of Wood Mountain,

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and we are still a village.

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With the loss of the school and
the loss of our elevators and

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loss of the hotel, it\'s not
necessarily what you like,

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it\'s what you got.

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When I came here in
1972, there were

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three functioning elevators,

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there was one grocery
store that had just closed

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and there was one functioning,
there was the hotel,

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and the curling rink and the
hall were the two big events.

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But the loss of the school
was by far the biggest blow.

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This room was my room, and
it was the science room.

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A school loss is, is much more
serious because it really

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attacks more of the
core of the community.

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- It\'s been home for 30,
over 37 years, yeah,

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and you\'ve been since \'72.

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- Yeah.

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I\'m, you know, I grew up
here and it\'s just a nice

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comfortable, easy place to live.

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- You grew up 40 miles away?

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- Yeah.

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(engine starting)

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(motor running)

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I went to school
in Wood Mountain.

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I grew up about 12
miles north of here,

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took the bus to school from
grade 1 to 12 every day.

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In grade 12, there was only
3, 3 women that graduated.

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- It\'s different.

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The school is closed,
the hotel is closed,

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there\'s no curling rink,
it\'s different, you know.

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- I like living in Wood Mountain
because we pretty much have the

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whole town, the whole
town to ourselves.

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- (laughing) It\'s your
town, isn\'t it, Jess?

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- Some kids have backyards
and you have a town, right?

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- Yeah, mm-hmm.

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- Yeah, that\'s right.

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- A whole town to explore.

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(motor running)

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I went to school
right over there.

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I have roots to the
Lakota First Nation here,

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and my son loves the
traditional way of life,

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so we do a lot of that as well.

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We could make our retirement
dollars go a lot further in a

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smaller community like this,
so it is economically great.

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- Plus, we have very
good neighbours.

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- Yeah, we love the people.

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(motor running)

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For the people that
are here,

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it\'s very special.

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The main pull was family,
knowing that my dad was here,

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my grandmother was here, and my
mother walked these streets and,

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you know.

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- And she pulled me here.

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(laughing)

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I\'ve never met
friendlier, I\'m gonna cry,

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I have never met friendlier
people in my life.

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(motor running)

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Well, we\'re a little community,
and I think we do pull together

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and everybody has everybody\'s
back, and if you need anything,

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you can knock on any door
and you\'ll know that

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you\'ll get what you need.

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(laughing)

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I don\'t believe Wood
Mountain will ever die.

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(Crowd sounds)

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Some would
say we\'re already dead.

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But I think everybody that lives
in this little place

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disagrees with that.

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(people talking)

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♪ ♪