00:00:02            Title: Scottish Documentary Institute Presents…

00:00:07            Title: How to Save a Fish From Drowning

00:00:21            Radio: Good morning Columbus. It’s another beautiful day. We’re looking at a high today of –9 degrees with a wind-chill of negative 22. (00:30) For you folks on your way out to the lake today, bundle up.

00:00:59            Wiley – you gonnna shovel some of this shit out of here?

Shanny – yeah

Wiley – get the shovel

00:01:28            Wiley – you ready for the minnow? Get the minnow we’re going fishing.

00:01:35            Shanny – we’re going fishing. All right.

00:01:38            Wiley – lively little devil. You get this one on and he stays on.  Just like that. And down he goes.

00:02:02            Wiley – when you hear this thing rattle there’s a fish on it. By gosh he’s moving down there. Well we just wait for it to rattle. Sit back and relax. Where’s the beer?

00:02:18            Wiley – My name is Wiley Post. I’m 74 years old or gonna be in may and I’m a very poor fisherman.

00:02:32            Springy - my name is Wendell Springstead. I’m the oldest goat on the pond. 83 years young. That’s young that is. Last time I caught one? Must be about 3 years ago now.

00:02:56            Shanny  – this is our lifestyle we enjoy it. the cold keeps the riffraff out. It’s very peaceful and we enjoy it.

00:03:16            Wiley – this is the legal hideaway.

00:03: 44           Wiley – ice fishing is not  a lazy man’s sport. Because it’s  a lot of work moving your fish house and getting there when it’s 20, 30 below.

00:04:16            Wiley – ah living here’s fine. It’s, it’s comfortable. You don’t have too many people to get mad at you. If half of them got mad it’d only be 50 people. And those 50 you wouldn’t care anyhow.

00:04:41            Shanny  – here you know everybody and everything that goes on. It’s a good and a bad thing because everybody’s business is everybody else’s too. You’re not really here alone I’ll tell you that.

00:05:04            Bingo caller N36, G 60, six zero, G46

00:05:27            Wiley – the average age of the people of Columbus is 73

00:05:33            B10

00:05:41            Bingo!

00:05:45            Springy – You know it’s hard to believe that this town is what it was and what it is now.

00:05:57            Springy - It used to be just boom boom boom all the time.

00:06:02            Shanny – now you blink your eyes when you go by and you’ll miss it.

00:06:09            Wiley – there was a lot of businesses in town. People would come in the afternoon and park their cars on the main street and then go home. So that their wives had some place to sit on Saturday night. The women would sit in the cars and have their little tea parties or whatever and the boys would be in drinking beer. And you could hear Norwegians talking, Swedes talking Germans talking just walking down the street.

00:06:56            Shanny – My father made an excellent living farming and ranching. So I stayed behind and did my thing. They went off they did theirs. Now I look back and go well, maybe I should have left the farm too. But I couldn’t I couldn’t’ it’s what I wanted to do. Well everybody used to just farm maybe 5 quarters. They would raise a few chickens they would raise a few pigs. Whatever they could keep in the barn or take care of by hand. Now it’s if you farm if you’re not farming 50-100 quarters of land which is 160 acres a quarter, you’re not even considered a farmer. You’re not no longer self sufficient.

00:08:01            Radio: For those of us up in this corner of north Dakota, the new homestead act may soon be bringing us some new neighbors. In an attempt to bring young people and industry back to this and other areas, the government’s offering free land to those willing to move here. And we certainly have plenty of that.

00:08:24            Wiley – when the power plant closed then the mine closed and that took a pile of people out of here. Well, there was pretty near a farmer on every quarter. Just a mile down the road there was your neighbor.

00:08:43            Shanny – now your closest neighbor is 5, 6 miles away. I can stand in front of the picture window and scratch my but if I want and the neighbors can’t see me.

00:09:01            Shanny – what do you think is gonna happen around here?

00:09:04            Springy – what’s gonna happen? nothing.

00:09:17            Wiley – now isn’t this interesting. Oh my god, hard to understand.

00:09:26            Springy -  find something?

00:09:28            Shanny – not yet.

00:09:44            Springy – take him out of there Wiley. It’s a northern

00:09:49            Wiley – oh, he spit the hook right when he come up.

00:09:52            Springy – was it a northern?

00:09:54            Wiley – yeah. . That’s all I got.

00:10:00            Springy – you’re a hell of a fisherman.

00:10:02            Wiley – not very good.

00:10:18            Wiley – here he is

                         Shanny – little one

00:10:24            Wiley – just a minute I got to step on this string or he’s gonna have it all over the place. Ok Dr. Burau operate.

00:10:43            Wiley – we got him. Oh my god!

00:10:53            Wiley – there’ s a lot of burials.

00:11:02            Wiley – maybe that’s all north Dakota will be is a big cemetery.

00:11:11            Radio: In other news today the Olsen farm just west of town has gone into foreclosure and is up for auction. In the last 12 months the neighboring 4 farms have already been bought by the craft corporation. A spokesman stated that they had no plans to put the house or outbuildings to use. Let’s wish the Olsen’s well in their move to the bright city lights of Fargo.

00:11:33            Shanny – I’m afraid if you lose these small towns any country would lose a lot. I don’t see it being empty. I see it being full of friendships and close neighbors. It’s quiet, but not empty.

00:12:04 – 00:12:42       End credits