Louise Harpin and Jennie Bird recall shopping trips to Vermont

This videoclip is an extract from a joint interview that Héritage Sutton recorded with Louise Harpin and Jennie Bird.

We often went to the United States to buy all sorts of things: sweets, tableware. We also went to visit people we knew, because there were Canadians who had married Americans and Americans who had married Canadians. So we went to visit people. We would fill up with gas. There was a time when it was better for Canadians. The exchange rate was good, so the Canadians were going to buy butter, uh… Christmas turkey, lots of kitchen necessities. Then, when the exchange rate was more favorable for Americans, well, they were the ones who came to the grocery stores in Abercorn to get these things. So we had a constant stream of people crossing from each side and we didn’t need IDs, we didn’t need passports. We said who we were, then we crossed. The customs officers were people we knew. So, these were people who were in our village or in Sutton, and as many on the American side, they were customs officers that we knew, so they said “Hello, okay, looks good, go! It was simple, it was easy.”