Mattagami Native Reserve Winter 2000. Conditions are far better now. In 1969 when Shania first visited there was no electricity or running water (photograph: Robin Eggar)

Soon Eilleen and her guitar were inseparable. "I started playing guitar at eight but I was singing long before then," she says, "I was serious about experimenting with my voice harmonies. That was all I wanted to do I didn't want to play with dolls anything else but my guitar, I would play until my fingers were bruised. If I'd had it my way, I'd have taken the easy option and remained a songwriter, not a performer. I loved music but I was never passionate about being a performer."

Sharon was not prepared to let that happen. A determined stage mother who "lived for my career, She knew I was talented and she lived with the hope that my abilities were my chance to do something special." When the family moved out to Hanmer they bought Eilleen her first guitar , an Elvegas copy of a Gibson Hummingbird. She was given music lessons by a local guitar teacher.

Sudbury was certainly a better place than Timmins to launch the career Sharon knew Eilleen deserved. The local bar culture was thriving. Those after hours shows were the gigs Eilleen always dreaded the most. Sometimes she was so tired, plucked from the depths of dreamtime, standing up there defenceless and all alone that when she sang I'm so Lonesome I Could Cry there was hardly a dry eye amidst the beer and cigarette fumes. (small wonder that she has never smoked and seldom drank) The bar owners paid cash under the table or passed the hat around to those not too drunk to forget where they had put their wallet. When she turned 11 she went legit. "The police were either going to have to arrest me or ban me from being in there," she says, "or give me a proper permit." The permit meant she could sing in the bars but had to be given a separate room... and it meant an end to the 1 am shows.

At times Eilleen must have wondered why it was her doing this, not her sisters , nor any of her friends, wondered what her childhood was being mortgaged for. Or perhaps not. "I wasn't really aware of what was going on," she says, "I was just singing and it was my parents who were more aware of everything, I don't remember what I thought at the time, because a singer is what I've always been, it's what I've always done."

Eilleen was only nine when she learnt an important lesson. Singing like a honky tonk angel is not enough. To win you do not have to be the best, you have to know the right people. She learnt it the hard way.