Story told by Fred Bull to Marg Foster and Fay McCrea
Fred Bull lived on Heart Lake Road until he was married and he moved to Etobicoke. Fred has a fabulous memory and has told some wild tales. He knows all the people’s names and the years, etc. He went to SS#9 school at Heart Lake and Charleston.
"For something to do when we were young boys, we used to trap skunks and raccoons. We were skinning a skunk quite successfully until the hired man put the knife into the gland and I got it on my boots.
The teacher intercepted me before I got in the school as she was quite upset about the odour. We would sell the skins for 75 cents to $1.00.
We rolled the skins and the raccoon pelts and wrapped them securely in brown paper and tied it up tightly. Then you put your name and address on it and mailed it to Simpson’s Raw Fur Market on Bay Street.
Some of the local boys were hunters and they had fox pelts, raccoon and skunk pelts so they hitched a ride down to the Toronto stockyards with their sack and they had the whole back end of the streetcar to themselves."